Ricky – Page 40

My Liebster Blogger Award – part one

A month ago yesterday, this blog was nominated for another award – A Liebster Blogger Award. This is an award given by fellow bloggers, to show appreciation for other blogs that they enjoy reading and think deserve to be highlighted and receive some praise.

My blog was nominated by Emily aka Writergem, whose own blog Czechesotans, is also about living as an expat in Prague; in her case, from the viewpoint of being an American teaching in an international school here for the past year. In her nomination of my blog she says, ‘Consider yourself educated after reading this one’. I did say in reply that I clearly needed fresh polish for my halo after receiving such praise 🙂

As part of the nomination process, the nominator sets a series of questions that each nominee has to answer in a subsequent post. Emily has set me eleven questions and this post is my attempt to answer the first five of them.

1. If your blog was a song, what would it be and why?

I must admit that I had to think hard and long about this one. Then I suddenly had a flash of inspiration. Why not a hymn? So my answer is, ‘Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation’.

My blog is predominantly about my experience of living and working in Prague and the wider Czech Republic. For the most part, I very much enjoy my life here and I’m very thankful for the opportunity of spending the last eight and a half years of my full-time public ministry as the Anglican Chaplain.

The words of the third verse of the hymn are particularly appropriate:

Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee,

surely his goodness and mercy shall daily attend thee:

ponder anew

what the Almighty can do,

if to the end he befriend thee.

There are two other associated reasons for choosing this hymn. It was originally written in German – Lobe den Herren – and my wife Sybille is German. And when Sybille and I got married nearly nine years ago, we walked into Church to the congregation singing this hymn, and we made them sing two verses auf Deutsch!

2. What is one thing you reeeeally like about the town where you live?

There are so many things that I like about living in Prague and have previously written all about them on this blog. But if I am only allowed to choose one, then it would have to be public transport. It is efficient, frequent, integrated and incredibly cheap, even more so now I’m deemed to be ‘Senior’ because I’m over sixty 🙂

PS – for the benefit of David Hughes and other commenters who spot my very occasional spelling mistakes, the spelling of ‘reeeeally’ in the question above is exactly as Emily posted it on her blog – and she teaches English 😀

3. What are you doing this summer?

I could start this answer by pointing out to my nominator that, unlike teachers in international schools, I don’t get a two month holiday/vacation during July and August 😉 However, it is true that Church life is usually much quieter during these months, especially as this year I do not currently have any weddings to conduct.

The other big difference this summer is, as most followers of my blog already know, since 9^th June, Sybille has been on pilgrimage, seeking to walk from Prague to Santiago de Compostela. To her great credit, before setting out, she did what she has been promising to do and completely sorted out all of her papers that were scattered across her desk and in collapsing boxes under her desk. In the week before her departure, my paper shredder worked overtime and I paid several visits to the paper recycling bin 🙂

Sybille's empty desk & the clear floor beneath © Ricky Yates — Sybille’s empty desk & the clear floor beneath © Ricky Yates

Sybille’s desk is in one corner of our sitting room and with it and the area beneath it being completely clear, it has given me the incentive to try and ‘Summer clean’ the whole flat. The sitting room is already complete, including taking down the curtains, washing, drying and ironing them, before rehanging them once more. Whilst they were down, I cleaned all the windows, inside and out. The increased light and the improved view are most noticeable 🙂

I’ve also washed, dried, ironed and then refitted the covers on both settees; taken down every picture, polishing the glass at the front and removing the cobwebs from the back: taken all the books off three different bookcases, dusted both books and shelves before replacing the books. I then moved every item of furniture to enable me to first vacuum and then wash the wood-laminate floor, section by section. The collection of cobwebs and dead insects under one of the bookcases was a sight to behold! What am I doing this summer? Giving every other room in the Chaplaincy Flat a similar treatment. My office should be very interesting 🙂

However in August, I do have two weeks of annual leave and I shall spend them walking with Sybille. The exact logistics of how this will happen has been the subject of discussion between the two of us during the past few days. Sybille is deliberately not walking to a set timetable and cannot promise to be at a particular location in just under four weeks time. So I’ve got to decide very soon, where might be the most suitable place to fly to. Currently, this looks like being Geneva. Then a day or two before I set out, we will have to agree exactly where we are going to meet up and I will then plan to make my way from my arrival airport, by public transport, to that agreed location.

There is then also the issue as to where we will stay overnight whilst we are walking together. Sybille has already rightly pointed out that we won’t both fit in her one woman tent 🙂 Hopefully we will be walking together in France where there is often good provision of Gîtes d’Etape accommodation for walkers. I’m sure we will work something out and you can be sure that there will be a blog post about it!

4. Name a place you’ve travelled that you’d recommend to others and why.

One of the great joys of living at the heart of Central Europe, has been the opportunity it has given us to explore a whole variety of fascinating, new (to both of us) places, many of which I’ve written about here on this blog. As I am only allowed to choose one, then it has to be the Croatian island of Dugi otok, where we spent a delightful ten days in July 2009.

The name ‘Dugi otok’ means ‘Long Island’, highly appropriate as it is forty-five kilometres long but never more than four kilometres wide. It lies a one-and-a-half hour ferry journey from the port city of Zadar and has a resident population of no more than 1,800. You can read more about our time there in this post and the four that follow it.

Why do I recommend Dugi otok? It has all the facilities for a relaxing summer holiday, but is sufficiently off-the-beaten-track, not to be overrun with visiting tourists. Sitting at an outdoor restaurant table, alongside the harbour in the port of Sali, enjoying a meal, accompanied by a cool glass of something, whilst watching the sun slowly setting, was an experience we enjoyed on many evenings and of which I still have vivid memories. The remote beach at Mala voda on the uninhabited west coast of the island – very difficult to find a more pleasant spot for sunbathing and enjoying a swim in the warm Adriatic Sea.

Ever since our 2009 visit, we’ve spoken many times about going back to Dugi otok. I suspect we just might in 2015.

5. Who is someone you look up to?

John the Baptist. He lived a simple lifestyle with a rather interesting diet and fashion sense. He wasn’t afraid to be outspoken and challenge hypocrisy, including calling some Jewish religious leaders, ‘a bunch of poisonous snakes’! Showed great humility as he spoke about Jesus and, once Jesus began his public ministry, stepped out of the limelight. Openly criticising the immorality of Herod Antipas cost him his life. What not to admire?

Watch for my next post when I’ll try and answer the other six questions.

Celebrating brave Czechoslovak Airmen and the Official Birthday of Her Majesty the Queen

The 'Winged Lion' monument © Ricky Yates — The ‘Winged Lion’ monument © Ricky Yates

As I mentioned at the beginning of my previous post, I had a most interesting week in advance of my laptop computer lock-out problems. The highlight was attending two interrelated events on the afternoon and early evening of Tuesday 17^th June.

The first event was the official unveiling of this monument, entitled ‘The Winged Lion’, by Sir Nicholas Soames MP, grandson of Sir Winston Churchill. It commemorates the nearly two and a half thousand Czechs and Slovaks who escaped from Czechoslovakia after the country was occupied by the Nazis in 1939, and served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.

As this BBC news article explains, the idea for the memorial came from members of the British expat community currently living and working in the Czech Republic. They in turn, successfully raised the £100,000 that the monument has cost. However, contrary to what the news report says, it wasn’t just British expats who contributed towards the cost, but also other English-speaking expats and some Czech business people too.

Unfortunately, after the communist coup of February 1948, as is briefly referred to the BBC news report, the Czechoslovak airman who returned to their native country following the defeat of Hitler, were extremely badly treated by the communist authorities, who deemed them to have fought for ‘the wrong side’. Some were imprisoned whilst others were made to undertake demeaning manual labouring jobs. Seen as heroes in the West, they were regarded as a security threat by the communists.

One part of this story which is not recounted in the BBC report is that, just as many young British women met and married American servicemen who were ‘overpaid, oversexed and over here’, and became ‘GI brides’, so also, quite a number of young British women married these Czechoslovak airmen. They came to live with their husbands in Czechoslovakia in 1945-6 and then were treated just as badly by the communist authorities because of the men they were married to. If their husbands were imprisoned, then they were left to fend for themselves, often in small rural towns and villages and with little fluency in Czech or Slovak.

I first heard the story of these remarkable women from Linda Duffield, who was the British Ambassador when I first came here in September 2008. She told me that each year just before Christmas, she held a tea party at the embassy for these Czechoslovak airmen’s wives and widows, but that each year, there were inevitably fewer and fewer of them attending.

Crowds attending the unveiling ceremony © Ricky Yates

Since the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the brave Czechoslovak airmen who served in the RAF, have had their, rank, medals, pensions etc restored to them and they are now rightly regarded as national heroes. But as the BBC article states, only nine survivors were able to be present at the unveiling of this monument that celebrates what they and their colleagues did in the service of freedom.

My official invitation - minus the 'Rev'd' :-( — My official invitation – minus the ‘Rev’d’

Following the unveiling ceremony, I went on to attend a Garden Party at the British Embassy, celebrating the official birthday of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, a regular annual event about which I’ve previously written on this blog. This year, having been greeted by the current British Ambassador Jan Thompson, the guests were invited to walk down to the terrace where we then had a splendid view of the flypast by a WW2 Spitfire which is referred to in the BBC report.

After the flypast and the playing of ‘Where is my home?’ and ‘God save the Queen’, there was speech of welcome in both Czech and English by the ambassador, followed by a speech in English, by President Zeman, in which he praised Sir Winston Churchill and at the end, proposed a toast to Her Majesty the Queen on the occasion of her 88^th birthday. In case any reader is wondering about the Czech National Anthem, the Czechs do know where their home is – the title is a rhetorical question.

After the formal part of the evening, we then all returned to the embassy garden for drinks and refreshments which were, as in previous years, an interesting eclectic mix of things British and Czech. As usual, I both reconnected with people who I already know, be they embassy staff, fellow Brits or Czech business people. I also got to meet in person for the first time, Marie Knezová, who I previously only knew online. She asked me to pose with her for this delightful photograph, taken for us by her sister Jana who is the Vice Consul at the Embassy.

With Marie Knezová at the Queen's Birthday Garden Party © Marie Knezová — With Marie Knezová at the Queen’s Birthday Garden Party © Marie Knezová

In her description of this photograph on Facebook, Marie describes me as her ‘favourite pastor and blogger – charismatic Ricky Yates’. Now that’s a reputation to live up to 🙂

Computers are wonderful – until they stop working

On the evening of Friday 20^th June, after a very interesting but busy week about which I hope to write more here in due course, I returned home just after 10 pm and turned on my laptop computer. I wanted to pick up any new email, deal with new comments on this blog, look at the BBC News website to catch up on the day’s news, and visit Facebook.

I duly typed in my password but, instead of my desktop with icons appearing, I was greeted with the message, ‘The user profile service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded’. Several further attempts to logon just resulted in the same message appearing. I was completely locked out of my laptop and feeling totally helpless.

I had this same problem a year ago. On that occasion, it happened on a weekday and a nearby computer business called ‘Hardware Software Services’ (despite being a Czech company 🙂 ), kindly resolved the issue that same day. But they are only open for business 10.00 – 18.00 Monday to Friday, so I immediately realised that this time, I was going to be without access to email, the internet or any of the material stored on the laptop, for at least three full days.

I did console myself that it could have been worse. The next morning, Saturday 21^st June, I had to officiate at a difficult funeral – only the fourth funeral I’ve conducted since moving to Prague nearly six years ago – a reflection of the relatively young age of most of the English-speaking expat community here. I was grateful that I had already prepared and printed everything I needed for that service.

Whilst I didn’t need to write a sermon as we had a guest preacher on Sunday morning, I had set Saturday afternoon aside to do all my other preparatory work ready for worship on Sunday. Most notably, this meant drafting the ‘Weekly Bulletin’ containing the text of the Biblical readings, hymn numbers, titles and tunes, together with notices of forthcoming activities & the contact details for me and the members of the Church Council. Not only did I not have a functioning computer on which to do this, all the relevant information I needed was also completely inaccessible.

I am quite proud of myself that, despite these difficulties, I did eventually manage to produce a ‘Weekly Bulletin’. I did so by using someone else’s computer, creating a new template, before copying and pasting the Biblical readings from a CD. I then printed off one master copy, leaving the back page of a folded A4 sheet, blank. Before photocopying copies from the master copy, I place a copy of the back of the previous week’s edition over the blank page, as the information contained was virtually unchanged.

My greatest problem was bringing to mind the four hymns I’d chosen a few days earlier. I’d sent the details by email, to the musical director of the choir of St. Chad’s College, Durham, who were singing at our service, as their choir organist was going to play for the whole of our worship. But the only record of my chosen hymns was in that email, which was sitting in a file called ‘Sent items’, on an inaccessible laptop computer. Fortunately, by re-reading the Biblical readings, all four eventually came back to my mind.

On the morning of Monday 23^rd June, I arrived with laptop in hand, at the premises of Hardware Software Services, within a few minutes of them being open for business. By late afternoon, I once more had a working laptop computer with no loss of any data. I was kindly informed that what had happened was ‘a known Windows 7 problem’ and that mine wasn’t the first one that they had fixed. At the very reasonable cost of CZK 600 (just under £20.00), I was reconnected to ‘my world’ 🙂 Arriving home and connected once again to the internet, I downloaded fifty-eight emails and nineteen comments on this blog. Sadly, all the comments were spam 🙁

This whole experience last weekend, brought home to me once again how dependant I am upon one laptop computer, together with instant access to the internet. Suddenly, I could not carry out many everyday aspects of my job. My laptop computer is such a wonderful tool, storing an amazing variety of information and giving me almost instant communication with others – that is, so long as it works! And it isn’t just my expectations – last Sunday morning I had to apologise to the congregation, that if any of them had written me an email during the previous two days, I hadn’t seen it, yet alone been able to reply to it. Even emails that were slightly older which I had seen, I was presently unable to write a reply to any of them.

There is an interesting postscript to this whole business. The computer engineer at Hardware Software Services explained that, as part of resolving my computer access problem, they had de-installed and then reinstalled my anti virus protection but that everything else was in order. However, a couple of days later, I was unable to carry out an internet banking transaction with a message saying that this was because my internet browser was not ‘Javascript enabled’.

I returned to Hardware Software Services where the computer engineer agreed to look at the problem. He discovered that for some reason, I now had an older version of Mozilla Firefox and he went online to download the newest version. Being Czech, though fluent English-speaking, he promptly downloaded the Czech version of Firefox, something I only discovered when I got home. The simple solution is for me to download the English version of Firefox myself. But to do so, I have to follow instructions in Czech, because of currently having the Czech version of Firefox 🙁

Forty years on – how the world has changed

Do you recognise this man? Yes, believe it or not, it is Yours Truly – the photograph being the one that appears in my first-ever British passport, issued to me forty years ago in 1974, by the British High Commission in Canberra, Australia. It dates from the days when you were actually encouraged to smile and show your teeth in a passport photograph, something that is now no longer acceptable or allowed 🙁

It was with this passport, that in 1975, I travelled from Australia, where I had lived for the previous four and a half years, back to my country of birth, the United Kingdom. After flying from Sydney, to Kathmandu in Nepal, the rest of that journey was overland, taking a period of two and a half months.

It is amazing to think how much the world has changed since I made that journey. I travelled through three countries that no westerner in their right mind, would currently seek to visit – Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. For at that time, there were no Taliban in northern Pakistan, the Soviet Union was yet to invade Afghanistan, and the Shah still ruled in Iran.

I also travelled the length of a country which has since ceased to exist – Yugoslavia. This does create problems when I’m asked how many countries I’ve visited. Do I count Yugoslavia as one country or as seven 🙂 To be fair, I usually ignore Yugoslavia in my calculations, but include Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia, as I’ve visited all five of them since they became independent nations. But in 1975, I did also pass through what are now Macedonia and Kosovo, but have not been back there since then.

Whilst I am saddened by what has happened since 1975 in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, as I have fond memories of my time spent there, including attending an Easter Day Communion Service in a little chapel of the Episcopal Church of Iran in Isfahan, the last forty years has also seen one massive change for the better that I never, ever expected to see in my lifetime – the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989. As a result, I now live in a country which was once part of the Soviet Warsaw Pact. I still smile and pinch myself when travelling by tram past the headquarters of the Czech Ministry of Defence and see the NATO flag flying on top of the building.

That dramatic change has, since moving to live in Prague in September 2008, allowed me both to explore the Czech Republic, but also to at least briefly visit, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland. And visiting the Baltic States and properly exploring both Poland and Slovakia, is firmly on my agenda during the next three years. Until twenty-five years ago, freely being able to visit any of these countries was well nigh impossible.

Finally for this post, any intelligent individual reading this and wondering how on earth I managed to travel to Australia, without previously holding a passport, the answer is that I travelled on a ‘Document of Identity’, valid for a single journey to travel to Australia as an approved migrant. The photograph of me on that item of paperwork is so awful that I’m surprised the Australian authorities ever let me into their country 🙂 I have no intention of reproducing that photograph here, without a generous donation first being given to support the work of St. Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church, Prague 😀

The Pilgrim is on her way

Sybille about to set off on pilgrimage © Ricky Yates — Sybille about to set off on her pilgrimage © Ricky Yates

This morning, my wife Sybille set out from the front door of the Chaplaincy Flat, to begin her long distance pilgrimage, walking from Prague to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. I took this photograph just before giving her a long kiss and hug, as if all goes to plan, I will not see her again for about two months.

Sybille started out this morning at 05.30, wanting to take full advantage of the cooler hours of the day whilst we are experiencing a Central European heatwave with temperatures rising to well over 30 degrees Celsius in the afternoon. Her main aim today is to successfully walk out of Prague, hoping to reach a campsite between Zbraslav and Radotin, adjacent a short part of the route that we walked together last November.

If you want to know more about Sybille’s pilgrimage, her motivation, proposed route and much more, then do visit her Prague-Santiago website. There is also a link in the right-hand side bar of this blog. She is hoping to post an update roughly once a week, dependent on time and wifi access. There is provision on her website for you to sign up to receive an email each time she does post an update.

I’ve been promised a text message update each day, whilst Sybille is walking within the Czech Republic as the cost of a text between two Czech mobiles is minimal. Once she reaches Germany, more specifically Freistaat Bayern, then I’m informed that contact will be less frequent 🙁

In early August, I will be taking some of my annual leave and the plan is for me to walk with Sybille for a couple of weeks, provided I can get Šárek cared for and find a willing plant ‘waterer’. Where that will be we don’t yet know. It will depend on Sybille’s walking speed which will only become clearer once she has been on pilgrimage for some weeks. However, we think it will be somewhere in France. Readers can be sure of a blogpost about it here in due course.