North Bohemia

Christmas 2025 in Zermatt

St Peter’s Church, Zermatt © Ricky Yates

As I explained in my previous post, this year I volunteered to go to Zermatt to be the Chaplain of St Peter’s Church over the Christmas period, covering the first two weeks of the Winter season. After my first few days of leisure, my period of duty began on Tuesday 16^th December.

My first duty each day was to open the Church by 09.30 each morning, turning on the lights in the sanctuary, and then locking it again in the evening, no earlier than 20.00. This allows people to visit and use the Church for private prayer. Judging by the number of entries and positive comments in the visitors book, this is very much appreciated.

My other initial task was to update noticeboards, removing the notices saying that the Church was currently closed, and instead, posting ones giving details of all my services, together with a mug shot of the current Chaplain.

I was unsure what to expect on the two Sundays either side of Christmas. At this time of year, it is very easy to lose track of what day of the week it actually is and therefore fail to realise that it is Sunday. So I was quite pleased to have a congregation of ten for Holy Communion on the morning of Sunday 21^st December – the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Among them was a Francophone Swiss couple celebrating their wedding anniversary, who were very appreciative of the service and were responsible for this photograph of me. I also believe they were responsible for a rather large contribution to the collection at the end of the service 😉

Standing by the altar of St Peter’s Church, Zermatt, Sunday 21st December 2025 © Ricky Yates

In the evening, there were just three of us gathered to say Evening Prayer together.

I knew from my experience in December 2024, that the 17.00 Service of Lessons & Carols on Christmas Eve would be popular. I wasn’t the only one. Several people arrived more than half an hour before the service was due to begin, just to be sure they had a seat 🙂 By just before 17.00, every pew was fully occupied, about twenty loose folding chairs were pressed into service, and at least twenty people were standing at the back. Finally, to get everyone in, at least a dozen others sat on the carpet in the central aisle.

In total, there must have been in excess of two hundred people present, wanting to sing Christmas carols and hear again Old Testament prophesies of the coming Messiah, the Annunciation, the birth of Jesus, the visits of the shepherds and wise men, and concluding with St John’s wonderful explanation of the Mystery of the Incarnation. I made that final reading the basis of my sermon and pointed out that they had just sung the truths of that passage in the previous carol.

‘Veiled in flesh the Godhead see: hail the incarnate Deity,

pleased as Man with man to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel.’

At the end of the service, because of the number of people packed into Church, it took me quite some time to be able to reach the Church doors & shake hands with everyone as they left.

At 19.30 I had a repeat Service of Lessons & Carols, this time with a congregation of sixty-five. This was the only congregation that was smaller than those I experienced in 2024 – down by twenty. All the others were considerably greater with sixty attending the Midnight Eucharist and thirty-one at an informal act of Morning Worship on Christmas Day.

Several people who attended the various services, said that they remembered me from last year and were very pleased to see me once again in 2025. A few also expressed the hope that I would come again in 2026 😉 I did also have a number of enquiries as to whether there was a toilet in the Church or a reesst room 😉 Being a typical nineteenth century Church, there isn’t.

One thing that did surprise me was a couple of people arriving, thinking that services would be in German. This despite the Church being known locally as the ‘English Church’ and the noticeboard and website stating clearly that services are in English. As I had to explain, it will be ‘Anglikanischer Gottesdienst in englischer Sprache’ 🙂

I have several good memories of people that I met during my time as Chaplain. The first arrival for the Midnight Eucharist on Christmas Eve, was Caroline, the rep in Zermatt for the Ski Club of Great Britain. Whilst not a regular Church goer, she enjoyed the service and came up to the altar rail for a blessing, during the administration of Communion. She invited me to come to Ski Club’s social hour held each evening between 18.00-19.00, in the bar of the Pollock Hotel. So I went the following evening where Caroline and several others made me very welcome.

It was coming out of the lift in the apartment block where the Chaplain’s apartment is located, on my way to the Pollock Bar, that I met Victoria and her twelve-year old son Henry. They, together with Richard, Victoria’s husband/ Henry’s father, had attended both the 19.30 Service of Lessons & Carols and my Christmas Day morning service. Their rented apartment was literally a few steps from the Chaplain’s apartment. Victoria insisted that I should join them for a glass of bubbly, upon my return.

So I did! Not only was I given a glass of bubbly, I was treated to a Christmas Day evening dinner including this delightful dessert.

Whilst Richard had been to Zermatt several years ago, with his elder daughter, he was unaware of St Peter’s Church existence. This Christmas, they all were delighted to have discovered it and to be able to attend worship. Richard also got me involved in an interesting conversation about evangelism and expressed his appreciation of my preaching.

On the evening of Sunday 28^th December there was a congregation of six for Evening Prayer. One of them was a lady called Edith who is a ‘Villager’, someone who lives permanently in Zermatt. She is one of only two ‘locals’ who attend services on a regular basis. She expressed her appreciation of the service and I was delighted to have made a connection to her.

For three of my four Christmas services in December 2024, I was blessed with the presence of Christine from North Yorkshire, who played the organ for me. So I never got to understand how to play hymn tunes through the Church speaker system, and led one Service of Lessons & Carols singing unaccompanied or a cappella.

This year I had no organist for any of my services. But having arrived early and now knowing how other things such as heating and lighting, work, I had time to get to understand the system. And whilst there was frequently, a pregnant pause, between announcing the hymn or carol and the music starting, it worked!

The one thing that was noticeably different to my experience at Christmas 2024, was the lack of snow! In December 2024, I arrived in a heavy snow storm that lasted for a couple of days with snow everywhere in the town. This year, whilst it had clearly snowed previously in Zermatt itself as there was still some snow on roofs and in gardens, no snow fell at all during my eighteen day sojourn. Quite a surprise!

Health update and heading again to Zermatt for Christmas

It is now four months since a little critter got me and over two months since I last wrote a blogpost. So I thought it was high time that I posted an update.

Firstly, I am very grateful to the many people who have been praying for me, sending me their best wishes for a full recovery and wanting to know my current state of health. This post is for all of you!

When I last saw my GP, on Friday 5^th December, and he saw my leg 😉 , he was pleased with what he saw. Whilst the upper part of my left calf is still a bit swollen, it is vastly improved from three & a half months previously. So I have finally stopped taking anti-inflammatory tablets. The other good news is that my INR has finally settled down after being badly disturbed by taking antibiotics. On 5^th December, it was 2.6 – almost perfect, as it is meant to be in the range 2.0-3.0.

As I said in reply to one of the welcome comments on my last post, my planned further hospitalisation on 7^th October, to investigate the scabby lump on the bottom of my left leg, didn’t happen, as there wasn’t a spare bed for me. I am now re-booked to see the dermatologist on Tuesday 6^th January 2026. In consultation with my GP, I will be slightly reducing my intake of Warfarin in the week before that appointment and then having my INR checked by my GP, the day before the appointment. Hopefully it will be around 2.00 and will allow an incision to be made, without the risk of me severely bleeding.

Last December, as I wrote in this post, I answered a cri de cœur and travelled to Zermatt, Switzerland, to provide Christmas services at St Peter’s Church, known locally as the ‘English Church’. Having enjoyed the uplifting but tiring experience, some months ago, I volunteered to return in December 2025, this time for a full two weeks including Sunday 21^st December- Advent 4, and Sunday 28^th December – Christmas 1.

Because my two weeks mark the beginning of the Winter Season, the Chaplaincy flat has been vacant since the end of the Summer Season in September. Therefore I have been able to arrive a few days early, acclimatize myself and enjoy the mountains, before my Chaplaincy duty commences.

Gornergratbahn at Riffelberg Bahnhof © Ricky Yates

Therefore, I’ve had a wonderful journey on the Gornergratbahn up to Gornergrat with amazing views of the Matterhorn.

And I’ve travelled the Matterhorn Alpine Crossing from Switzerland to Italy and back, with further amazing views and a delightful Italian lunch in Breuil-Cervinia.

Christmas services at St Peter’s Church, Zermatt © Ricky Yates

During my two week stint, I will be officiating and preaching at eight different services, as advertised now on the Church noticeboard and on the Church website. With my two earlier services at the Dresden Frauenkiche, that means ten services in December. So much for being retired!

It’s amazing the damage a little critter can do

My left leg – 20th August 2025 © Ricky Yates

Between 02.00 and 11.00 on Saturday 16^th August 2025, I seriously vomited five or six times. During that Saturday, the lower part of my left leg, together with my ankle and foot, became swollen, red and painful. At the time, I didn’t associate the two events.

I assumed the vomiting was because of something I’d eaten. And my left calf and foot are always slightly bigger than their opposite numbers on my right leg, ever since August 2015, when a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) escaped from there and became a pulmonary embolism in my lung, as described in this post.

After a day of resting and not sleeping very well that night, on Sunday morning I was still feeling quite unwell and also not very mobile. So I made the reluctant decision that I couldn’t officiate and preach at the Frauenkirche that evening, the first time I’ve ever had to cancel a service since I took up my Dresden responsibilities almost ten years ago. Thankfully, my friend and colleague Andrew Allen, stepped into the breech.

After another uncomfortable night and no improvement during Monday 18^th, late that afternoon, I decided the time had come to go to my local hospital in Decín and seek medical help. Fortunately, I had a friend staying with me, my first guest in my renovated upstairs rooms. We were unable to get a taxi and so Libor, husband of Sona, the boss of Restaurace U Soni, kindly drove us to the hospital.

At the hospital, I was seen by a nurse and had some blood samples taken. Then I saw the duty doctor who told me that I needed to be admitted to hospital that evening, in order for the infection in my leg to be treated with antibiotics and pain killers, fed intravenously. The doctor fortunately, had some English and used Google translate on his phone when he became unstuck. My friend got back to my house by taxi and the following day came to the hospital by bus, bringing me clothes, pyjamas, toiletries etc.

The ward whilst receiving antibiotics intravenously © Ricky Yates

I took this photo from my bed whilst receiving antibiotics intravenously. It gives you an idea of the four-bedded ward where I spent three nights. Every morning, the doctor came around to see each of the patients. He only spoke to me in Czech, most of which I didn’t understand. He didn’t seem to have a word of English. Fortunately, a couple of the nurses spoke fluent English, the one who got me to fill out my consent forms was particularly helpful. Czech hospital food was as unappetising as I remember it being ten years previously in Vojenská nemocnice in Prague 🙁

On the morning of Thursday 21^st August, the doctor told me that I was being discharged and could go home. That was one bit of his Czech that I did understand 😉 I was presented with four prescriptions, (two for further antibiotics, one for anti-inflammatory tablets and one for pain relief), and a two-page report about me and my time in hospital, obviously all in Czech. But from the report, I finally found out what I had been diagnosed with – Erysipelas.

Erysipelas, historically known as St Anthony’s Fire, is a bacterial infection of the skin and the lymphatic system. Its origin is the bacterium Streptococcus pyogenes, almost certainly caused by an insect bite. When I wrote this on Facebook, along with the photo of my leg at the beginning of this post, a friend commented that, ‘It’s amazing the damage a little critter can do’, a sentiment with which I completely agree and why I have chosen it as the title for this blog post. One of the symptoms of being infected with Streptococcus pyogenesis, is vomiting. The two events of the morning of Saturday 16^th August were connected.

Whilst I’ve now lived in Stará Oleška for over eight years, I’ve remained registered with the GP practice, Young & Co, in Prague. This is for a number of reasons. They have looked after me brilliantly since my pulmonary embolism in August 2015. All the doctors have to be able to speak English. And going on a train trip to Prague once every six weeks to have my INR,(the level of thinness of my blood), checked, makes for a nice day out.

But having to travel there with a badly swollen leg, has been a little more difficult. So far I’ve been for five follow up visits, the first on Monday 25^th August, the most recent on Thursday 25^th September. Both my regular GP, Dr Josef Stonawski, and the boss of the practice, Dr Adriana Youngová, have been very helpful and supportive. Whilst the infection has been dealt with and I no longer have pain or numbness in my left leg, it is still swollen. Dr Youngová told me that I will probably have to take the anti-inflammatory tablets for up to three months which means I have another five weeks to go.

The other problem that has caused me to make frequent visits is that the antibiotics have totally upset my INR – a well-known problem. My INR is meant to be between 2.0 and 3.0. On 25^th August it was 4.2. Having reduced my Warfarin intake, on 2^nd September it was 1.6. on my last visit it was 2.9, just within range, but still rather high. And this has caused me further problems.

On my last visit to my GP practice, on the morning of Thursday 25^th September, I had an appointment in the afternoon with my dermatologist, at Vojenská nemocnice. This was to investigate a scabby lump, near the bottom of my problematic left leg. Is it a Basel Cell Carcinoma to be treated with liquid nitrogen? Or is it a leg ulcer requiring different treatment? But to extract a small sample for testing would involve an incision in my leg and with my INR being 2.9, my dermatologist is afraid I will bleed too much.

As a result, tomorrow morning I am being admitted to Vojenská nemocnice for four or five days, whilst my INR is reduced and closely monitored and then appropriate treatment will follow. It will be a very early start to catch the 05.40 bus from the village, to then catch the 06.25 train from Decín to Prague, in order to reach the hospital by 09.00. So I’m off to bed as soon as I’ve successfully posted this text.

The Dermatology building at Vojenská nemocnice © Ricky Yates

The appearance of my blog has changed

My first sunflower of 2025 © Ricky Yates

If in recent days, you have arrived on my blog for the first time, you won’t notice any difference. But if you are a regular visitor, maybe checking up as to whether I’ve actually written a new post, then you will have noticed that its appearance has changed. And having not written and posted here for over three months, this is the perfect reason for me to get blogging again.

Back in July, I received a message saying that my PHP needed updating. PHP is a general-purpose scripting language that powers my blog. Apparently, my PHP was 8.0.30 when it should now be 8.3. As things such as this are beyond my competence, I contacted my technical guru to ask whether she could help and she kindly updated me almost straight away.

A few weeks later, my technical guru wrote saying that, whilst updating my PHP, she had noticed that my WordPress theme, the way my blog appears, was no longer supported by the developers and was therefore a security risk. It was time for a change.

Amazingly, the last time I changed my WordPress theme was over thirteen years ago. This post describes what happened then. I have since altered the blog header from being an Anglican in Prague to being an Anglican in Bohemia & Saxony, but no other changes have been made to the appearance of my blog, until now.

My new theme has the slightly bland title of ‘Twenty Sixteen’. But it is clear and uncluttered and, most importantly, it is secure. I like it and I’d be interested for feedback from any of my regular visitors.

Inevitably, changing theme has slightly disrupted a few earlier posts. In particular, any text that is at the side of a photo at the beginning of a post, sometimes has large gap in it mid-sentence, before continuing under the photo. I’ve managed to solve this problem a few times, by hyphenating a long word – for example making Frauenkirche, Frauen-kirche. But if any reader spots a similar problem, please let me know, either by commenting on this post or using the contact link in the right-hand sidebar.

Whilst I prefer to read things on the internet, using my laptop computer on which I’m compiling this post, I am aware that many people read things almost exclusively using their mobile phones. One positive result of updating my WordPress theme is that the blog is now much easier to read on an Android mobile phone. Well it certainly is on mine 😉

After Eight Years

Drop-down loft ladder February 2024 © Ricky Yates

In the last few weeks, the eighth anniversary of my retirement as Priest-in-charge/Chaplain of St Clement’s, Prague (30/04/2017), and of moving into my new home in Stará Oleška (15/05/2017), have both passed. And I am delighted to be able to say that, just in advance of those anniversaries, I have finally managed to see the completion of the renovation of the interior of Stará Oleška 44.

Back in March 2024, I wrote a post entitled, ‘House renovation – the next stage‘, in which I outlined how I wanted a staircase installed to give decent access to the two rooms in the roof space which were then only accessible by a drop-down loft ladder into my study bedroom. Karel junior of K & K renovace nemovitostí Decín, had assured me previously that he doesn’t know anything that isn’t feasible. So on Monday 16^th December 2024, he and Karel senior, came to look at what I wanted.

They said that to insert a staircase in the little un-renovated room, as I outlined in my March 2024 post, would involve making alterations to the roof and would be very expensive. Instead, they suggested completely dismantling the tall double cupboard just outside that room, (which I had installed back in May 2018), and reassembling it in the little room and installing a staircase in the space vacated by the cupboard. This would involve no external alterations. So I accepted their suggestion and work commenced on Monday 6^th January 2025. I’ll let the photographs do the talking.

Little room following decoration but before repositioning of the light © Karel Konvalinka

Tall double cupboard to be moved © Ricky Yates

Tall double cupboard in its new location with the freezer slotted in alongside © Ricky Yates

Where the tall double cupboard once was © Ricky Yates

Once the cupboard had been relocated, then a hole was cut in the ceiling, from below and in the floor, from above.

I was expecting that K & K would then install the new stairs. But they told me that they wouldn’t do that until they had completely renovated the two rooms in the roof space as they wanted the stairs to abut the floor of those rooms at exactly the correct height. So whilst they worked, they used their own ladder in the newly created hole to get up and down.

Lining the walls of the room at the rear of the roof space © Ricky Yates

Over the following couple of weeks, K & K lined the sloping sides, the narrow central strip of ceiling, the triangular walls at either end and the dividing wall between the two rooms.

The walls of the room at the front of the roof space lined & wood laminate flooring being laid © Ricky Yates

Only once this was done, together with removing the old drop-down ladder and new floorboards being laid over the resultant hole, could the final task of laying a new wood laminate floor be carried out.

I’ll let the following photos speak for themselves to show what has been achieved and the high quality of K & Ks workmanship.

Safety barrier around the new stairs © Ricky Yates

The new staircase as seen from below © Ricky Yates

So after living here in my retirement home in Stará Oleška for eight years, I finally have the ability to host guests. My son Phillip has already asked when the Airbnb listing is going to happen 😉 It isn’t – the two renovated and accessible rooms will be purely for visiting friends and family. And I’m pleased to say I’ve already had my first guest 🙂