With the new King on Sunday 22nd March 2010. Photo ‘stolen’ from the Daily Telegraph
As I have mentioned previously, HM Queen Elizabeth II had reigned, until her death on Thursday 8th September 2022, for twenty days longer than I have been alive. She came to the throne on 6th February 1952 following the death of her father King George VI, and I was born on 26th February 1952. Along with over 90% of the current British population, the late Queen is the only head of state that I have ever known.
Therefore, the current wall to wall coverage by the British media and the outpouring of public grief and appreciation of her reign in the UK, is perfectly understandable. But as I have remarked previously at the time of both the wedding of William and Katherine, and at the more recent wedding of Harry and Meghan, the fascination with the British Royal Family here in the Czech Republic is massive, as is the media coverage.
Last Thursday, the Queen’s death was officially announced at 18.30 in the UK, which is 19.30 here in the Czech Republic, just as the main news bulletin on TV Nova was beginning. Normally, the news bulletin lasts for forty minutes followed by ten minutes of sports news and a weather forecast. That night, the bulletin ran for a full hour with the only subject being the life and death of Queen Elizabeth II. Coverage of sport and the weather was completely dropped.
The extensive level of coverage has continued every day since last Thursday. On Sunday evening, the first twenty minutes of the news bulletin was given over to the events happening in Scotland that day. The first fifteen minutes of last night’s bulletin was all about the day’s events in the UK. I suspect TV programmes will be completely rescheduled or cancelled next Monday, in order to cover every possible aspect of the funeral.
On social media, I have previously questioned why there is so much interest in the British Royal Family here in the Czech Republic. After all, we are not even fellow members of of the EU following the stupidity of Brexit. Would Czech people really prefer having an hereditary head of state, even a British royal?
Whilst not wanting to be flippant in what is otherwise meant to be a serious post, I did enjoy a couple of the responses I got when I posed this question, I think at the time of the Harry and Meghan wedding. One, from a Czech friend, was that, ‘Anything would be better than Zeman!’, (the current President), a sentiment with which I would agree. The other, which came from an Austrian-American friend, was that, ‘There are a few Hapsburgs around who would be happy to take on the role’.
It will be interesting to see whether this same level of interest and fascination will continue now that Charles has come to the throne. I shall be watching and listening in the coming months. But what has already happened is that his name has suddenly changed. The Czech media has always insisted on calling the late Queen, Alžbeta II, the Czech form of Elizabeth. But her children were always referred to as Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward. But now Charles has become King, suddenly he is Karel III 😉
I intend to write another post regarding the late Queen being, ‘an agent for peace and reconciliation’, as my Diocesan Bishop has put it. But in the meantime, it has been fun telling Czech friends that, not only have I met the new King, I’ve also had to preach with Charles and Camilla in the congregation. Photographic evidence at the beginning of this post.
Earlier this year, I received a letter telling me of another wonderful ‘benefit’ of Brexit. The letter came from the headquarters of Barclays Bank, with whom I have banked for over forty-seven years, and told me that in a few months time, I needed to close my account or otherwise, they would do it for me at the end of August 2022.
The actual explanation was that, ‘We’re applying limitations to the banking services we provide to customers with an address in the European Economic Area (EEA). We’re sorry to say this means we need you to close your account’. This was Barclays polite way of saying that, now the UK was no longer a member of the EU, they were not prepared to go to the expense and trouble of setting up a legal entity in each separate country as they are required to do because of Brexit.
Whilst I have lived in the Czech Republic for nearly fourteen years and have Czech bank account, I have also always maintained my Barclays Sterling account. Since retirement over five years ago, I have had my Czech and UK state pensions paid into my Czech account and my Church of England pension paid into my UK Barclays account. I can normally live comfortably on my two state pensions and allow my Church of England pension to accumulate to cover the cost of travel outside of the Czech Republic and to make gifts to my children and grandchildren.
Several people upon hearing of my problem, have suggested that I give Barclays the UK address of a family member, the most obvious one being my son Phillip, as he has the same surname as me. Unfortunately, this isn’t possible as I have to declare that his address is where I live. And I don’t live there, nor am I on the Electoral Roll there. Banks require proof of your residential address as I shall shortly explain.
In online discussions with other Brits affected by this problem, several people recommended opening an account with HSBC, who several years ago, took over what was the Midland Bank. According to their website, they are happy to open an account with anyone who lives in the UK or the EU. Whilst it is possible to do this online, I decided I would prefer to do it by talking to a human being. So during my recent visit to the UK from which I returned a few days ago, I planned a visit to the HSBC branch in central Nottingham, whilst staying a few nights at the home of my son.
So on Monday 22nd August, I went into HSBC’s Clumber Street, Nottingham branch to apply to open a new account. After much discussion as to what documentation I needed to show to prove my ID and my address, it was agreed that my UK passport identified me and my Czech biometric permanent residency card proved my residential address. My biometric residency card was issued to me last November, replacing the passport style document I wrote about and illustrated in this post from December 2017. This grants me, ‘Trvalý pobyt clánek 50 Smlouvy o EU / Permanent residence under Article 50 of the EU Treaty’. This is my new status courtesy of Brexit.
I was given a letter, addressed to me, welcoming me as a new HSBC customer and giving me the details of my new account number and sort code. All I now needed to do was tell Barclays to transfer the balance of my account to this new account with HSBC and give the same details to the Church of England Pension Board.
Unfortunately, soon after I got back to my son’s home, my mobile phone rang. It was Tracy, one of the HSBC staff I had been dealing with earlier that afternoon. Someone higher up the chain of command at HSBC had spotted that what I had called my, ‘Czech ID card’, was not a Czech ID card but was my biometric residency card, and therefore wasn’t sufficient proof of my address. Of course I don’t have a Czech ID card because I’m not Czech. But it is my ID card as a ‘Third Country National’, as far as the Czech authorities are concerned.
We were back to what had been discussed earlier in the day. To prove that I really did live at the address on the back of my biometric residency card, I needed to present a bank statement from a British bank, (obviously from Barclays), that had been sent through the post to my Czech address, and was less than four months old. But, as encouraged by Barclays and out of concern for the environment, I had gone paperless many years previously, happy to accept online statements. And my letter from Barclays, telling me about the closure of my account, was dated 10th February 2022, though not received until sometime in March.
So the next day, it was back into the centre of Nottingham to visit Barclays. A young man called Kieren on the Barclays front desk, was most helpful. Despite his female colleague saying it couldn’t be done, Kieren assured me that he could order a postal statement for me to be sent to my Czech address, and proceeded to do so on his laptop computer, there and then. A week later and back home in Stará Oleška, I’m eagerly awaiting its arrival. Of course, UK postal workers are currently holding a series of strikes 🙁
When, (and if!), I receive this posted bank statement, I then have to post it back to Tracy at HSBC. Only when she receives it, will my new HSBC account be activated. The two banks are effectively on the same street, within sight of each other. Absurd is putting it mildly. In the meantime, my Barclays account has been frozen and my August pension payment, due today, will be returned by Barclays to the Church of England Pensions Board.
Over five years ago, just a few weeks before I retired, I bought myself a new laptop computer. You can read all about me doing so in a blog post from that time entitled, ‘A Tale of Two Laptops’.
However, in February this year, that laptop completely froze and I was thankful that JCR, Decín were eventually able to carry out repairs to the hard drive and get it functioning again. One corner of the casing was also cracked and it fell apart when being dismantled and had to be internally taped back together. I was therefore advised at the time that my laptop was now getting a bit old 😉
Since then, it has become increasingly slow to load and sometimes crashing whilst loading. Even when loaded, I would frequently get the message, ‘Firefox (my web browser) not responding’, or ‘Thunderbird (my email programme) not responding’, accompanied by a little blue circle going round and round 🙁 Whilst it is not the only reason, it is part of the explanation of why nothing has appeared on this blog for nearly four months.
Therefore in early July, I decided that the time had come to grasp the nettle and buy a new laptop. There followed a perusal of all that was on offer in Datart, before I opted for the one on which I am now compiling this post and featured in the photograph above – an ASUS ZenBook 13.
It was almost the most expensive of of those on offer, short of going over to a Mac. But I chose it for a number of reasons. It is very thin and light – 13.9mm / 1.07 kg according to the specification. It is also much smaller than its predecessor as it doesn’t have a panel of mainly numbers, on the right-hand side. It will therefore be much easier to carry around, something I am sure I will appreciate later this month when I will be travelling for seventeen days. It also means there is now more space on my desk so I can go from typing to writing on paper, without having to move the laptop or the paper 🙂
By previous agreement, yesterday morning I took both the old and new laptops to JCR, Decín, so they could set up the new laptop and transfer all of my files, photographs etc, from one to the other. Actually, they have copied everything so my old laptop still has all I’ve created, up to the evening of Sunday 31st July 2022. In setting up the new laptop, I specifically asked that it, together with Firefox and Thunderbird, be made to speak to me in English (UK) and not in Czech or Slovak, which are usually the other two options.
Just over 24 hours later, I got a text message to say that everything was complete. So after a quick trip into Decín to collect and pay 😉 , I’ve spent the last few hours getting to know my new laptop, enjoying the speed at which it functions and not being frustrated by unwanted messages and whirring little blue circles.
I still have few things to sort out. I haven’t yet made it link to my mobile phone which I managed to do with the old laptop. And unfortunately, the new laptop only has one socket or port, that will take both the receiver for my mouse and the connecting cable for my printer/scanner/copier. I may need to buy a new mouse with a receiver that will fit into an unused port of a different shape.
But after all of the frustrations and wasted time of the past few months, it is very nice to be once more be fully and reliably reconnected to the internet. Therefore in celebration, I’ve written and published this post 🙂
In June 2017, just a few weeks after I moved to my new home in Stará Oleška, a new café opened in nearby Decín called ‘Coffee & Books’. It is located almost next door to Vesta Reality, the real estate business who were responsible for selling me my house. During the house purchase process, I often saw the sign on the neighbouring door declaring, ‘Coffee & Books, opening soon’, and regretted that it wasn’t already open 😉
The café was set up by Honza and his wife Jana. Honza had been made redundant from his previous employment and Jana had previously organised cultural events in Ústí nad Labem. Their vision was to have a café offering good coffee and food, but to also be a venue for a variety of cultural events. Six months after opening, Jana’s daughter Martina, returned to Decín from living and working in the USA and joined them in the business.
The following two photos were taken at a party held on 22nd June 2018, celebrating the first birthday of Coffee & Books.
Having constantly spoken English during her five years in the USA, Martina was keen not to lose her use of the language. So she had the idea of a monthly evening event which she entitled ‘English Small Talk’, for people like herself who could speak English and wanted to practice it. Here is the poster for the very first edition of English Small Talk, held on Tuesday 9th October 2018.
Advert for the first edition of English Small Talk
For the first hour, it is effectively speed dating in English 🙂 You talk in pairs for five minutes until the bell goes, then you form another pair for five more minutes of conversation. The second hour is less structured and gives you the opportunity to continue a conversation that was interrupted by the bell. Or you can talk to someone you didn’t get to speak to during the first hour.
It is through English Small Talk that I have made several English-speaking Czech friends. They are nearly all much younger than me and predominantly female. The age difference is because Czechs who are over forty, were never taught English at school. They were forced to learn Russian. The gender imbalance is harder to explain. I am one of only two native English-speakers who attend.
On the afternoon of my sixty-eighth birthday back in February 2020, I arranged to meet Michaela, one of my ‘Small Talk’ friends, in Coffee & Books. I had nothing special planned for the day and I knew that Michaela, who is a school teacher of English, had her half-term holiday that week. I looked forward to coffee, cake and a pleasant chat in English.
But what did Michaela do? She arranged for several other mutual ‘Small Talk’ friends to be there as well. And she told Martina, who duly produced a birthday cake and a bottle of Prosecco. Here we are with Martina.
Sadly, just after that delightful surprise event, the Covid pandemic hit. We had three different lockdowns in which cafés and restaurants were closed or only allowed to serve takeaway food through the door. Cultural and social events like English Small Talk came to a complete halt. Whilst there was some financial compensation from the Czech government, businesses in the hospitality sector suffered badly, including Coffee & Books.
In the Spring of 2021, Jana organised an online fundraising appeal seeking financial help to keep Coffee & Books afloat. There were prizes or future rewards, according to the amount of money a person donated. I’m pleased to say that the appeal was a success with over two hundred people donating. I made a contribution with my reward being to work as a trainee barista for a few hours, once Covid restrictions had finally come to an end.
On Wednesday 15th December 2021, I finally received my ‘reward’. Here I am, very carefully making a cappuccino for Honza the boss.
After an initial get-together at the end of July 2021, English Small Talk restarted on Tuesday 14th September and on every second Tuesday of the month since then. It has been great to meet up again with my English-speaking friends and to make new ones. I’m very much looking forward to the next edition on Tuesday 12th April.
Yes – I know! It has been four months since I last wrote and posted a blog post. A couple of people have recently been in touch, complaining about the silence 🙁
It’s not that I have forgotten about the blog. On New Year’s Day 2022, I started writing a post but never completed it. I then thought of writing a post for 4th February which would mark the date this blog became a teenager, thirteen years on from when I wrote and posted here for the first time. But again, thoughts and ideas never materialised into a published post. And for a long time, I’ve been thinking of writing a post about migrants, an issue now brought sharply into focus following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. I still hope to do so.
However, since very early in February, a lot of my time has been spent dealing with a major issue in relation to my house. So in order to get the blog going once again, here is the tale of what has recently been occupying me.
On the morning of Friday 4th February, I awoke to find that the very strong overnight wind had blown numerous ’tiles’ off the roof of my house. Some were lying in my garden, whilst others, most embarrassingly, had landed in my neighbour’s garden. The following two photographs illustrate the damage.
Rather than ’tiles’, their correct designation is ‘asphalt shingles’. They are also what had been used on the roof of my carport and several of those had blown off from there in previous strong winds causing it to leak in a few places. Fortunately, there was no water ingress to the house but I knew I needed to act fairly quickly to avoid any future damage.
I posted the two photos above on Facebook and asked if any of my friends knew of a good local roofer. One almost immediate response came from my friend Michaela. She gave me a link to a business about whom she had heard good reports but, as she lives in a flat, she had no direct experience. I sent a message via her suggested link and got a prompt response from a man I now call Karel the roofer. After some further messaging & sending more photos, he agreed to come and inspect the roof on the afternoon of Tuesday 8th February.
Karel the roofer is one half of K & K renovace nemovitostí Decín. The other half is his father, also called Karel, hence K & K 🙂 Here they both are, looking at the roof, taking photos and measurements.
Their visit clarified a number of things. Repairing the existing asphalt shingles, (not that I wanted to), would not be possible until the summer, as warm temperatures are needed for the asphalt. Re-roofing with clay or ceramic tiles, as I initially suggested, would be very expensive as I would need a new wooden frame for the roof in order to bear the increased weight. Instead, I agreed to Karel the roofer’s proposal of a black plastic form of tile, widely used here in the Czech Republic, as can be seen in this link which he sent me. Perhaps the best endorsement for his proposal was him saying that this is what he has on the roof of his own house!
On Thursday 10th February, I received Karel the roofer’s promised quotation for stripping the A frame roof of the house and the roof of the carport, covering them both with foil underlay and then re-tiling them. He promised that the total price should not exceed CZK 83,400. This figure included fitting new metal rails at either end of the carport roof, replacing the existing wooden ones which were fairly rotten. As they had a gap in their work programme, they could start almost straight-away.
So on the morning of Monday 14th February, Karel the roofer arrived with two assistants to start work. Soon afterwards, a pallet load of new roofing tiles was delivered to the paved area of my front garden.
Unfortunately, there was then a hiatus in proceedings. First of all, the weather the rest of that week was wet and windy. Then the roofers tested positive for Covid and were quarantined for several days 🙁 So it wasn’t until Thursday 24th February that work re-started.
However, during the hiatus, I agreed to some additional work being done, based on what had been discovered when stripping both roofs. Some of the metal rails surrounding the house roof were rusty in places so I agreed to them being painted black to both preserve them and to match the new tiles. Several of the wooden boards in the carport roof were fairly rotten, especially those alongside the gutter as you may be able to make out in the photo above. So I agreed to these being replaced, together with all of the boards being treated before they were covered with new foil underlay.
When work recommenced, the roofers concentrated on the carport. Here it is at the end of work on Thursday 24th February, covered with foil underlay and with new metal rails at either end and new metal gutter plates on either side.
Two working days later, after numerous hours of Karel senior, fitting and nailing tiles, the carport was complete. I also agreed to one of the young assistants treating all of the wood of the carport with wood-stain, one coat on the inside and two coats on the outside. As a result, it looks almost like a new building.
Work then moved on to the house with the other side of the A frame roof being stripped and tiling commenced on the side which had been stripped in mid-February and covered with foil underlay.
Karel the roofer had one further suggestion. Having looked closely at the roof of the newer extension of the house and then sent me a video 😉 , he offered, at a total cost of a further CZK 15,000, to treat all of it with a hydrophobic (water repellent) coating to extend its life and to match the new tiles. Having seen the quality of the roofers work so far, I agreed to his suggestion. This, together with the additional work and materials mentioned earlier, inevitably pushed the total cost over CZK 100,000, which was the maximum I was expecting when work commenced.
Once again, work was delayed by the weather with several mornings being frosty and cold. And by Karel the roofer’s work vehicle breaking down. But by the end of the day on Monday 14th March, the job was almost complete. The A frame roof was tiled, the roof of the newer extension had received three applications of hydrophobic coating and all the metal railings had been painted.
As there were sufficient spare tiles and foil underlay, for which I had already paid, Karel the roofer offered to use the remaining material to also tile the roof of the lean-to, rather than giving it a hydrophobic coating. So on Tuesday 15th March, that is what he and his father did. Photographic evidence below.
The total cost eventually came to CZK 105,952, about £3,600. Whilst this has made a big dent in my bank account, if I’m honest, it wasn’t totally unexpected. When I agreed to buy the house, five years ago, I did think that the front part of the A frame roof did look in need of possible repair. At least now, when I plan further improvements to the interior of the house, I can be sure that those improvements won’t be affected by the ingress of any rain or snow.
There was one final expense and a delightfully funny WhatsApp message with which I will conclude this post. The original quotation from Karel the roofer did clearly state that the cost of waste disposal would be what he was charged by the nearest waste handling site, which in my case, is in Decín. During the whole saga, we communicated by both Karel senior & junior & I, having some German. Or by Karel the roofer using Google translate on WhatsApp.
Karel the roofer had promised to come on Wednesday 16th March to remove the remaining debris from stripping the roofs. Instead, I got an apologetic message in ‘English’, saying he had a problem with his wheelchair 🙂 What he meant, as I realised, was that he had a problem with his trailer. No, Google translate doesn’t always accurately translate 😉
He did come the following day. Unfortunately, the waste handling site in Decín, increased its prices at the turn of the year to CZK 9 per kilogram for hazardous waste. There was 724 kg of waste from stripping my roofs, giving me a further invoice for CZK 6516.
Earlier this year, I received a letter telling me of another wonderful ‘benefit’ of Brexit. The letter came from the headquarters of Barclays Bank, with whom I have banked for over forty-seven years, and told me that in a few months time, I needed to close my account or otherwise, they would do it for me at the end of August 2022.
