After sitting in a warehouse near Prague Airport for several days, awaiting customs clearance, yesterday, courtesy of UPS, a parcel containing three copies of my ‘Collection of Life Stories’ was delivered to me at my home. Yesterday evening, I posted this photo on Facebook and was rather overwhelmed by the number of ‘likes’ and ‘loves’ it received with several people saying that they wanted copies of the book. Therefore I decided that a blog post of explanation was called for.
For my 70th birthday in February 2022, my daughter Christa gifted me a one year subscription to Storyworth. What this has meant is that once a week on a Monday, I have received an emailed question about my life to which I had to reply. Each of my emailed replies were then collated by Storyworth and also forwarded to Christa. At the end of the year, Storyworth then promise to produce a hardback book of all of my answers, together with any photos I submitted.
Fortunately, Storyworth grant you a three-month grace period at the end of your subscription when you can go back and edit, change or correct what you have previously submitted, before the final book is produced. I took full advantage of that period of time which is why copies of my book have only just arrived.
Whilst the book is officially a gift for me, in writing my answers, I very much had Christa in mind, together with Phillip, her brother/my son. Phillip was aware of the gift and early on had expressed a desire to also read the end result.
Many of the questions were about my childhood, my parents, my education and early career, all of which happened before either of them came into this world. Neither of my children ever knew their paternal grandparents as my father died when I was eighteen and my mother when I was twenty-eight. Christa was born just before my twenty-ninth birthday and Phillip nearly four years later.
That is why three weeks ago, I ordered, and paid for 😉 , two additional copies of the completed book, so that I, and both my children, each have one. Whilst I believe it is possible to order further copies, they will be quite expensive. Additionally, coming from the USA, customs duty also applies. I had to pay CZK 349 / GBP 12.80 to get my three copies released. However, if anyone is really interested in having a copy, please message me.
I have to say that I’m very pleased with the end result. So far, I’ve only spotted two typos 🙁 That, despite proofreading my text in advance of going to print! And I hope Christa and Phillip will enjoy reading their copies too.
As I wrote at the end of my previous post, K & K, (as in K & K renovace nemovitostí Decín), besides renovating my study-bedroom, have also done work in other parts of the house. This is the promised further blog post describing and illustrating their work.
The ground floor of the house has only three main rooms – my study-bedroom, a kitchen and adjacent small shower room, (completely refurbished in January 2018), and a sitting-dining room.
The sitting-dining room, along with the adjacent entrance lobby, is the newest part of the house. As a result, there was no need to do anything to the walls, other than painting them white to lose the previous ugly dark orange. Likewise, there was no real problem laying a wood laminate floor matching my study bedroom, as the floor is solid, level concrete. One very nice touch was Karel junior, completely dismantling all the power sockets and light switches, thoroughly washing all the parts, before reinstalling them. Now they are as white as the newly painted walls!
A couple of before and after photos to show what has been done. The before photo dates from early May 2017, after the previous owners had moved out, but before I moved in.
The tiling on the floor of the shower room is the only part of the refurbishment work, carried out by Elefant in January 2018, with which I have had a problem. Only a few months after the floor was laid, a couple of tiles became loose and uneven. The Elefant tiler returned and relaid them. But in the time since then, a number of tiles have once again become loose with a couple of them cracking.
When I showed the problem to Karel junior and Richard when they came to assess all the work I wanted doing, they said the best thing to do would be to completely take up the floor and relay it with new tiles. So that is what Ivan, Richard’s Ukrainian colleague, did back on Saturday 8th April. Below are two more before and after photos.
A few more have slowly worked loose since then. Whilst Karel junior and Richard said that their ideal solution would be to completely strip all the steps and start again, they agreed to re-affix all the loose tiles for the time being. They assured me that it would now be fine for this summer but couldn’t guarantee regarding next winter. Here are the steps following Richard’s repair work.
K & K together managed to eventually remove it and replace it with this shiny new one which works perfectly and makes watering pots and flower beds much easier.
Finally for this post, the double-glazed window in the toilet, which was fitted back in November 2017, now has a wooden windowsill and attractive surround 🙂
I have now lived in my retirement home in Stará Oleška for six years. During that time the only major work I’ve had done to the interior of the house was the refurbishment of the kitchen and adjoining shower room in January 2018 when, for three weeks, I was living in the middle of a building site.
At that time, I did ask Elefant, the firm that installed my new kitchen and shower, if they would be interested in carrying out further work on the house. But they were booked up for several months ahead and also were really only interested in work that involved kitchens and bathrooms, installing units and fittings that they themselves sell out of their showroom in Decín.
Over the past five years since then, I’ve had work done in the garden and to the outside of the house, such as the completion of the lean-to. But nothing further has been done inside for two main reasons. Firstly, I’ve struggled to find a person or business, capable and interested in doing the various things I’ve wanted doing. Secondly, I’ve been dreading the prospect of again having to live in the middle of a building site whilst any work was done.
Just over a year ago, I had to have work done to the outside of my house after strong winds blew numerous tiles / asphalt shingles off my roof. As described in that post to which I link, my roof was re-tiled and repaired by K & K renovace nemovitostí Decín, a father and son team, both of whom are called Karel, hence K & K. Karel junior promotes and advertises the business using social media, especially Facebook. Videos and photos of their work on my roofs have appeared several times 😉
More recently, Karel junior has been advertising that he is taking on more people with different trades, so that they can undertake a wider range of projects than just roofs, downpipes and gutters. So in mid-February I contacted him, asking if he would visit so that I could discuss with him, the work I wanted doing.
Two visits followed, the first with K & K together, the second with Karel junior and his bricklayer Richard. Following those visits, Karel Junior gave me an approximate price for labour to which the cost of materials would need to be added. During the second visit, they indicated that they would be able to start work in about two weeks time which gave me a provisional start date of 27th March.
After hearing nothing for several days, on Palm Sunday 2nd April, Karel junior messaged me. He apologised for the delay but said he had been waiting for Richard and his Ukrainian colleague Ivan, to be available as their work, particularly on the walls of my study-bedroom, had to be done first before he and his father could do anything. Could they start work on Holy Saturday 8th April? Despite this meaning that celebrating Easter wasn’t going to be possible, I felt that having waited so long for a start date, I couldn’t say, ‘No’.
My study-bedroom was the room requiring the greatest amount of work and is the oldest part of the house. In particular, the wall at the back of the alcove in the centre of this photograph, was extremely thin. In the top right-hand corner of the alcove, where you can see that a small amount of plaster is missing, it was nearly possible to put my finger right through it!
The photograph, taken in May 2017 just before I moved in, also partially illustrates another issue I wanted solving. The limited electrical fittings within the room were all fitted external to the walls, rather than being within the walls. The two power sockets were also halfway up the wall, rather than being near floor level. There was an identical fitting on the pillar on the opposite side of the room.
On Saturday 8th April, Richard rapidly got to work building a new insulating wall filling the alcove, as you can clearly see in this photo. He also removed the old electrical wiring and power sockets. The new wiring now goes down behind the new wall and comes out near the bottom where Richard carved a hole in the pillar for two new power sockets.
What this photo also illustrates is the amount of mess this work inevitably created. Yes, that is my bed, covered with a couple of old sheets to try and keep it reasonably clean. And having nowhere else, that is where I had to sleep each night!
In the opposite corner, Richard carved a channel in the existing wall to both reposition the main light switch and to create four new power sockets, adjacent to where my desk is normally located. Up until now I’ve had an extension cord with three sockets at the end, plugged into a socket halfway up a wall pillar across the room, in order to plug in my laptop, printer and desk light. I have lived in constant fear of tripping over that extension cord and sending a whole load of expensive equipment flying across the floor.
And by the end of Thursday in Easter week, K&K had prepared all the walls and completely decorated the whole room despite no work being done on the Wednesday as Karel junior got serious toothache and had to seek emergency dental treatment 🙁
With the room being decorated white, it showed up just how dirty everything else was 😉 This photo shows the difference when a small section of wood beamed ceiling was cleaned. So I accepted Karel junior’s offer of my study-bedroom, kitchen and shower room all being given a thorough clean on Friday 14th by himself and a young lady called Simona. The transformation was wonderful 🙂
On Saturday 15th April, as well as giving all the walls a second coat of paint, K&K commenced the final part of renovating my study-bedroom – laying a new wood laminate floor. Unfortunately, progress was not as quick as they had hoped, because of the unevenness of the floor which became clear once all of the disintegrating linoleum covering it had been removed. One half is solid but covered with three different varieties of tiles. The other half is constructed of wooden boards, several of which needed to be more firmly screwed down.
This photo was taken at the end of work on Saturday 15th April. It shows the nature of the underlying floor with two of the three varieties of tile on the left and wooden boards on the right. It also shows the foam underlay on which the wood laminate flooring was being installed. And finally, my bed was back where it belongs.
K&K completed laying the new floor on Monday 17th April. So, a month short of six years from when I moved into the house, I finally now have the study-bedroom in the state I have always envisaged, except for bookshelves which is another topic. And K&K have also done work in other parts of the house but that needs another blog post as this one is already long enough 🙂
I have to start this post by once again apologising for the long time gap since the last one. I had been hoping to publish the final instalment of my ongoing saga with Barclays Bank plc. I’ve already written the first half of a draft post. But unfortunately, the matter is still not resolved so I will hold off posting until it is brought to a satisfactory conclusion.
The other reason for the lack of a new post is that I have had a rather rough winter, particularly with regard to my health. Now that I am finally feeling nearly 100%, here is what has been happening to me this winter.
Back on Thursday 13th October 2022, I paid my regular visit to my GP in Prague, for my International Normalised Ratio (INR) to be checked, to establish the exact amount of Warfarin that I have to take to thin my blood. I also asked about having a Covid booster vaccination and Dr Stonawski said it could be done there and then and passed me on to Dr Youngová, the boss of the practice. She vaccinated me and suggested that I really ought to also have a flu jab, something I’ve never previously had. So I agreed. Therefore I had a needle in my finger for INR, one in my left arm for Covid, and one in my right arm for flu 🙁
Eleven days later, I visited my friend, Adrian Blank, down in Nepomuk for the changeover to winter tyres on my car. He also accompanied me to the testing station in nearby Horažd’ovice, where the car successfully passed STK, (the Czech equivalent of the UK MOT test), meaning it is safe and legal to drive for the next two years.
With all of that done, I felt that both my body and my car were ready to face the coming winter. But whilst the car has continued to function perfectly, now nearly two years on from when I bought it, the same cannot be said for my body 🙁
Unfortunately, soon after receiving my jabs in October, I developed a most annoying cough. Particularly during the night, I would wake up, start coughing and then not be able to go back to sleep. It also considerably affected my ability to sing.
It was an absolute delight on the evening of Sunday 4th December, to be able to hold a service of Nine Lessons and Carols in the Frauenkirche, Dresden, for the first time since December 2019. As in previous pre-Covid years, the Embassy Singers from Berlin under their director Andrew Sims, provided a number of choir items as well as supporting the singing of the congregational carols. But as I tried to sing, I regularly ended up coughing 🙁
The following Friday, I set out to travel to the UK, driving across Germany and the Netherlands to take the overnight ferry from Hoek van Holland to Harwich. I then spent the weekend, staying with my Czech friend Rev’d Dagmar Wilkinson, who has previously featured in this blog here and here. Dagmar is now the Rector of St John the Evangelist, Friern Barnet in North London. It was a privilege to be the preacher at a Sung Eucharist on Sunday morning.
Here we both are in front of the high altar, following the service. Fortunately, my voice was OK for preaching but I once more ended up coughing when trying to sing the hymns.
That Sunday evening, London had the fairly rare experience of a heavy snowfall. Here is my car parked outside Dagmar’s Rectory on the Monday morning. I had to clear that lot off it before I could drive up to Nottingham.
The centrepiece of my December UK visit was to attend my son Phillip’s graduation ceremony at Nottingham Trent University. He was awarded his Masters in Business Administration (MBA), with commendation, a tremendous achievement for someone with a full-time job, a young family, and coping with the Covid pandemic through most of the time of his studies.
However, I did feel I had the right to stand in front of the board saying ‘Congratulations’ as I proofread, spell checked and grammar checked each of his assignments before he submitted them. As Phillip famously wrote to me after he received his final assessment, we got a commendation, Dad 🙂
I also spent two nights staying near Daventry in order to visit my daughter Christa, son-in-law Ian, and my two grandsons.
This selfie with Finley was taken at the CBS Arena in Coventry on Saturday 17th December where we watched my football club, Coventry City FC, playing Swansea City FC. Taking Finley to the match was his Christmas present from me as well as a Christmas present to myself 😉
My return journey started the following day when I drove to Harwich for the ferry back across the North Sea to Hoek van Holland. By this time the cough had become some form of respiratory infection. I was coughing up large amounts of phlegm, had a runny, but blocked nose, problems with my hearing and feeling increasingly weak. Normally I do not mind the long drive across the Netherlands and Germany, in order get home. But I have to say that I struggled to keep driving on Monday 19th December, not helped by the very limited hours of daylight.
I arrived home late that evening to find snow lying in my garden and a sheet of ice on the driveway and path to the front door. There is a gentle slope from the road up to my front gates but it took three attempts before I managed to drive the car up that slope and into the carport. And the house was absolutely freezing!
During that week before Christmas, I received an email from my GP surgery, setting out dates and times their surgery would be open during the Christmas period. But it also acknowledged that there were a lot of respiratory viruses circulating and offered some helpful advice on how to treat their symptoms, including details of over-the-counter drugs that are available without prescription. I decided that I would try not to trouble the surgery but instead, follow their advice.
On Christmas Eve evening, I was invited to the home of my friends Andrew and Gethin in Obercunnersdorf, about fifty minutes drive north from Stará Oleška, in Freistaat Sachen. A wonderful supper was followed by a candlelit Carol Service in the village Lutheran Church. Unfortunately, because of my respiratory problems, I could hardly hear or sing.
Knowing that I had my next GP appointment for INR already arranged for Tuesday 3rd January, I spent the days after Christmas and into the New Year, taking things easy and my health slowly started to improve. When I saw Dr Stonawski, he checked me thoroughly all over and declared that I had been suffering with bronchitis as he could hear that there were still problems in my chest. However, all he could suggest was that should continue to take it easy and my condition should slowly improve. It took until the end of January before I finally lost the last vestiges of my cough.
However, at the beginning of February, I began to get an itchy rash on my back, which soon spread around the sides of my chest, to my arms and to my right leg. Again, as I had my next INR appointment booked for Tuesday 14th February, I decided to hang on until then before seeking medical advice. When Dr Stonawski took one look at my back he immediately wrote a report asking the dermatology department of Vojenské nemocnice, the Military Hospital in Prague, to see me that day as an emergency. There, the dermatologist that I saw, diagnosed it as some form of eczema. I was given a cortisone injection in my rear and prescribed various pills and creams.
The photo above shows all the prescribed drugs I took away from the pharmacy that afternoon. I should stress that it does include repeat prescriptions for the medication I regularly take for the problems with my blood and heart. But I have been rattling with pills in the morning for the last two weeks. Fortunately, I am please to report that my skin is responding to treatment and whilst it is still discoloured, I’ve all but lost the itch. I’ve already had one follow-up appointment and another is due next week.
The day after my trip to Prague for INR and my emergency visit to the dermatologist, I had my second delivery of logs for this winter, deposited in my back garden. So despite still not feeling well, I had to transport all of them into my woodshed and stack them there, before they got rained or snowed on. I’m quite proud of myself that I managed to achieve this in the space of a week.
As far as I can remember, it was the first ‘White Birthday’ I’ve had since 1963. Yes, I was singing, ‘I’m dreaming of a White Birthday’, numerous times that day 🙂
Since the death of Queen Elizabeth II, much has been written about her life and legacy. Living in Central Europe and with my ongoing ministry at the Frauenkirche in Dresden, two articles have particularly resonated with me. The first, written by the Anglo-German historian Katja Hoyer and published in ‘The Spectator’, has the subtitle, ‘She (QE2) understood the importance of reconciliation’. The second, written by +Robert, my Diocesan Bishop, has the title that I’ve stolen for this post 😉
Both articles mention that the Queen paid an eleven day visit to the former West Germany in 1965, twenty years after the end of the Second World War. Katja Hoyer goes on to say that the Queen ‘did not shy away from making difficult trips to places that had seen large-scale devastation through RAF bombing campaigns.’ She cites the visit to Düsseldorf where 90 per cent of buildings had either been damaged or completely destroyed and 5000 civilians killed.
Hoyer rightly says that the visit was not an easy one to sell back in the UK. Many British cities had experienced bombing by the Nazi Luftwaffe causing serious damage and loss of life, including my own home city of Coventry. But the Queen was determined to move forward and help establish good relationships with the German people, who in turn, warmly welcomed her on that first visit.
Hoyer then recalls a visit in 1992 to Dresden, less than three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Inner German border. Her Majesty visited the ruins of the Frauenkirche, destroyed by allied bombing raids in February 1945. I can do no better than to quote from her article.
‘Ignoring a number of people jeering and whistling, the Queen stoically took in the site and concentrated on the quiet majority of Dresdeners who had come to thank her for attending a reconciliation service nearby. The following year, the Dresden Trust was set up in Britain, collecting donations of over £1 million, including contributions from Her Majesty herself, to rebuild the famous church. Dresden and its partner city Coventry have been powerful symbols of post-war reconciliation – a process that the Queen and her family have lent their invaluable support.’
The Queen’s support for the work of reconciliation between two nations, previously at war with each other, stands in stark contrast to the words and actions of many right wing British politicians and much of the UK tabloid press. They portray modern-day Germany as the enemy that still needs to be fought against. Margaret Thatcher, for quite some time after the fall of Communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, was strongly opposed to the reunification of Germany that finally took place thirty-two years ago yesterday. She expressed the fear that a united Germany would be too powerful.
Part of the Brexit campaign was based on the premise that the EU was run by Germany and that the UK should ‘take back control’. In particular, the then German Chancellor Angela Merkel, was portrayed as someone to be disliked, even hated.
The tabloid press forever harks back the Second World War, which of course, the Brits won single-handedly. It is as though the UK is still fighting, seventy-seven years after the Second World War ended. As I wrote and preached back in February 2020, ‘the EU was founded in part, to prevent a repetition of the two World Wars which had laid waste the continent of Europe in the first half of the twentieth century, something which the city of Dresden and my own city of birth, Coventry, know about all too well. Seventy-five years of peace have ensued!’
So I am thankful for Her Majesty being an ‘Ambassador for reconciliation in Europe’, especially in Germany, where it is still my privilege to minister once a month in the Dresden Frauenkirche. As Bishop Robert writes, when opening a meeting of General Synod in 2015, the Queen quoted St Paul writing in his second letter to the Corinthians – ‘As ambassadors for Christ [we] are entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation’.
