Ricky Yates

Pruhonice Park revisited

Ricky — Wed, 22 May 2013 21:25:08 +0000

Pruhonice Zámek/Chateau and Park © Ricky Yates

In June 2012, Sybille and I visited Pruhonice Park for the first time. In my blog post about that visit, I said that, as we had only explored about a quarter of the park, we planned to return to explore more of it at some future date. I also mentioned that Pruhonice Park is famous for is its collection of rhododendrons which flower in May. Knowing this, a return visit in May 2013 has been provisionally scheduled for some time. Therefore this week, on my day off, we finally made our second visit and saw the flowering rhododendrons in all their glory. We also got to explore some remoter areas of the park.

Rather than writing about the beautiful rhododendrons in all their immense variety of colours, this is an occasion when one picture can take the . . . → Read More: Pruhonice Park revisited

ICS Chaplains Conference in Switzerland

Ricky — Tue, 14 May 2013 11:59:30 +0000

The Swiss Alps from my conference centre bedroom balcony © Ricky Yates

I spent the week, (Monday 29th April – Friday 3rd May), attending the annual Intercontinental Church Society (ICS) Chaplains and Families Conference held in Beatenberg, near Interlaken in Switzerland. ICS is an international Church of England mission agency seeking to make known the good news of the Christian Gospel to people who speak English, who find themselves living, studying, working or holidaying away from home in countries where English is not the main language. ICS mainly works in continental Europe and other countries that surround the Mediterranean, together with few far-flung outposts such as the Falkland Islands.

ICS has financially and prayerfully supported the Prague Anglican Chaplaincy since August 2000, their support allowing the appointment of the first full-time Chaplain in Prague, my predecessor Canon John Philpott. They have continued to be . . . → Read More: ICS Chaplains Conference in Switzerland

Getting over the ‘ová’

Ricky — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:11:36 +0000

Advert for the new book by that drunk British author called J. K. Rowlingová – ‘J. K. Rolling over’ © Ricky Yates

One of the complications of the Czech language, is that nouns have different endings according to their gender and the case being used. As consequence, nearly all Czech females, have a surname that is slightly different from, and longer than, the surname of their father or husband, from which it is derived. In most cases, this occurs by the addition of ‘ová’ onto the end of the male surname.

The obvious example to illustrate this point, is the now-retired, famous Czech tennis player Martina Navrátilová. Martina’s step-father, who married her mother when she was six, is Miroslav Navrátil. She took his name and thus is Martina Navrátilová. There are some exceptions to this rule, which arise when the male surname ends in a vowel. . . . → Read More: Getting over the ‘ová’

When Ricky went to Rícky

Ricky — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 06:58:14 +0000

Ricky at the entrance to Rícky. Sorry about closing my eyes! © Ricky Yates

In January 2012, I wrote a post entitled ‘Exploring the Czech Republic‘, in which I told of my discovery of a place in the Czech Republic which bears my name – Ricky. As I explained in that post, the village is actually called Rícky v Orlických horách, and there should be a hacek, a little hook, above both the ‘R’ and the ‘c’ in ‘Rícky, as there should be above the ‘c’ in ‘hácek’. But as I know from past experience, for technical reasons that are beyond my comprehension, if I put one in, the letter will appear as ‘?’ in the text of this blog.

‘Rícka’ means ‘stream’ and so with the ‘a’ replaced with a ‘y’, the word is made plural meaning ‘streams’. ‘v Orlických horách’ . . . → Read More: When Ricky went to Rícky

Orlické hory

Ricky — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 06:46:40 +0000

Rokytnice v Orlických horách – ‘Gateway to the Eagle Mountains’ © Ricky Yates

After spending Easter Monday exploring Boskovice, the following morning we drove further north for about three hours, (including a mid-morning coffee break), from South Moravia, into the extreme north-eastern corner of Bohemia. This was in order to visit the Orlické hory (Czech) or Adlergebirge (German), both names which translate literally into English as ‘Eagle Mountains’.

The Orlické hory lie close to the border with Poland in the former Sudetenland, from which the Sudetendeutsche population were expelled at the end of the Second World War. They are not as high as the Krkonoše Mountains where we spent a walking holiday for a week in July 2011. Therefore, when planning some weeks earlier, how to spend my post-Easter break, we thought they would be an ideal location for a . . . → Read More: Orlické hory

Boskovice

Ricky — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 22:41:16 +0000

Kostel Sv. Jakuba Staršího/Church of St. James the Great, Boskovice © Ricky Yates

On the morning of Easter Monday, Sybille and I set off from Brno, to spend the first few days of my post-Easter break, exploring some more parts of the Czech Republic we have not previously visited. We drove about 40 km north from Brno, to the town of Boskovice. Despite seeing ever-increasing amounts of snow lying on the surrounding countryside as we drove into the hills of the Moravský kras, the main roads were fortunately perfectly clear.

We parked the ‘Carly’ in the somewhat snow-covered Masarykovo námestí, the main square in the town centre, which is dominated at the west end, by the impressive Kostel Sv. Jakuba Staršího/Church of St. James the Great. From there, we set out to discover two of Boskovice’s main landmarks. A large Zámek/Chateau, which dates from the early nineteenth century . . . → Read More: Boskovice

A ‘White Easter’ in Brno

Ricky — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 21:15:52 +0000

The view across Komin, Brno on Easter Monday 2013, with snow on the hills & the rooftops © Ricky Yates

With Easter Day being quite early in 2013, and with Northern and Central Europe experiencing one of the coldest months of March on record, I did rather expect our Prague Easter Day congregation not to be quite as large as it was in 2012. Added to these two factors, was the change to Central European Summer Time (CEST) during the previous night, another discouragement &/or confusion to add to the mix. In view of the weather, the term ‘summer time’ did seem somewhat inappropriate

Despite all of this, we did still have a large congregation for Easter Day worship in Prague with a very good turnout of our regular congregation, a few of our ‘lost sheep’ reappearing, and being joined by a good . . . → Read More: A ‘White Easter’ in Brno

Passion Sunday, St. Patrick’s Day and Palm Sunday

Ricky — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 21:35:49 +0000

Sunday 17th March 2013 was a significant day for a number of reasons. Firstly it was Passion Sunday – the fifth Sunday of Lent, marking the beginning of Passiontide, the most important two weeks of the Christian year. It also featured the same set of Biblical readings and was the equivalent Sunday of three years previously in 2010, when I had to preach in the presence of Their Royal Highnesses, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. This is something my new Archbishop only did for the first time this past week

But Sunday 17th March was also very significant for Matthew, a Scottish member of the St. Clement’s congregation, as it was the occasion when he preached his first ever sermon. Matthew is currently exploring . . . → Read More: Passion Sunday, St. Patrick’s Day and Palm Sunday

Rapidly advancing technology

Ricky — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 21:31:36 +0000

Two weeks ago yesterday, Sybille and I made a short journey in our car, to a Prague City Council facility where it is possible to safely and legally dispose of electrical and other household goods that any Prague resident no longer requires. In the boot of my car, were four – yes four , old computers, together with a screen monitor, all of which had been rapidly gathering dust for many months, sitting on the floor of my office in the Chaplaincy Flat. Prior to that, two of the computers had been stored in the bottom of the wardrobe of our guest bedroom for at least couple of years.

Before disposing of the computers, Sybille spent several hours completely clearing each of them of all the data they once held, so that no confidential information . . . → Read More: Rapidly advancing technology

A snowy weekend in Prague

Ricky — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 20:13:45 +0000

Last weekend, we had the heaviest snowfall here in Prague, since early January 2010. It started snowing late on Friday 22nd February and rarely stopped until just before Sybille and I left the Chaplaincy Flat to go to Church on Sunday morning. To give you a visual impression, here is a picture showing what Kostel sv Kliment / St. Clement’s Church looked like last Sunday, covered and surrounded by freshly fallen snow.

But in contrast to the UK, where everything seems to grind to a halt as soon as any snow falls, here in the Czech Republic, that just does not happen. So it was that Tram 8 arrived on time at 10.07 at the Podbaba tram stop, and whisked us off on our sixteen minute journey to Dlouhá trída, two . . . → Read More: A snowy weekend in Prague