By Ricky, on March 28th, 2025
The candle with ‘Peace be with you’ in German & Czech © Ricky Yates
Kralupy nad Vltavou is a city with a population of around 20,000, situated on the Vltava river, sixteen kilometres north of Prague. On 22nd March 1945, it was subject to a devastating bombing attack by USAF planes. The two reasons given for the attack were the presence of an important oil refinery and the city being a key railway hub. The aim was to disrupt the ongoing Nazi war effort.
The first wave of bombers successfully hit the refinery, setting an oil storage tank on fire, from which erupted a very large cloud of thick black smoke. This left the follow-up wave of bombers with very poor visibility to see their targets. As a result, further bombs were dropped fairly randomly, . . . → Read More: Commemorative Ceremony in Kralupy nad Vltavou
By Ricky, on January 30th, 2025
The Matterhorn, as seen from Zermatt with the aid of the zoom feature on my camera © Ricky Yates
At the end of my previous post, I said that I hoped to go up into the mountains surrounding Zermatt and that there would be more photos. A little belatedly, here are the promised photos and a further blog post.
On Friday 27th December, my plan was to head to the mountains, once I’d successfully banked the collections from my Christmas services. But, by the time I had approved and responded to numerous, most welcome comments on my previous post and answered a couple of emails, it was just after midday when I reached the post office.
When I did get there, I discovered it had just . . . → Read More: A cable car journey up into the Alps
By Ricky, on December 27th, 2024
St Peter’s Church, Zermatt © Ricky Yates
After conducting a wonderful service of Nine Lesson & Carols in the Frauenkirche, Dresden on the evening of Sunday 8th December, I was planning on spending a quiet Christmas at home in Stará Oleška. My Christmas worship was going to be attending a service on Christmas Eve, in German, at the Lutheran Church in Obercunnersdorf, led by my good friend and colleague, Andrew Allen. I’m not due to officiate again at the Frauenkirche, until Thursday 2nd January 2025.
Then, early in the afternoon of Thursday 19th December, an email dropped into my Inbox. It came from Jim Perryman, who oversees what is known as ‘Seasonal Mission’ for the Intercontinental Church Society (ICS). ICS are the C of E mission society who supported me when in . . . → Read More: Christmas in Zermatt
By Ricky, on November 24th, 2024
Les Gaves Réunis, a tributary of the River Adour, at Hastingues © Ricky Yates
Two & a half months ago at the end of my post entitled ‘A Blogpost about my Blog‘, I declared that I had a couple of future posts that I intended to write. The first, about how I became a hymn book smuggler into the EU, I published a month later. However, I am unsure whether anyone has ever read it as it has attracted zero comments 🙁 Despite that, here finally, is the second promised post.
In late August/early September this year, I travelled from my home in the Czech Republic, to South-west France, for a ten-day holiday. As part of that trip, I explored the course of a river I had first . . . → Read More: Exploring the River Adour in South-west France
By Ricky, on October 2nd, 2024
Smuggled hymn books in the boot of my car © Ricky Yates
As I posted here a year ago, since May 2023, I have been officiating at a monthly English-language Anglican service of Evening Prayer held on a Thursday evening in the Unterkirche of the Dresden Frauenkirche. This is in addition to the monthly Sunday evening service in the Hauptraum for which I’ve had responsibility since January 2015.
For my monthly Sunday evening service, the Pfarrbüro produce a twelve-page complete Order of Service based on the text I send them at least a week earlier. Hymns are taken from ‘Hymns Ancient & Modern New Standard’, published in 1983, with the melody line of the tune, as well as all the words, reproduced. As I understand it, the Pfarrbüro was given a copy . . . → Read More: How I became a hymn book smuggler into the EU
|
rickyyates.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.
|
Recent Comments