Ricky has returned to Rícky

Ricky at Rícky v Orlických horách © Ricky Yates

I am writing this, sitting in the bar/dining room/lounge of Hotel Konšel, located in the small settlement that bears my name, Rícky v Orlických horách. Yes, after our short, very snowbound visit in early April this year, Ricky has returned to Rícky 🙂

This time, Sybille and I are here, hoping to spend the first eight days of two weeks of my annual leave, enjoying a walking holiday in the Orlické hory. And, if the hotel’s slightly dodgy wifi internet connection had allowed me, I would have posted this on the evening of Wednesday 26th June, as my first ever blogpost not posted from my office in the Chaplaincy Flat in Prague.

We arrived here on the afternoon of Monday 24th June, following a . . . → Read More: Ricky has returned to Rícky

ICS Chaplains Conference in Switzerland

The Swiss Alps from my conference centre bedroom balcony © Ricky Yates

I spent the week, (Monday 29th April – Friday 3rd May), attending the annual Intercontinental Church Society (ICS) Chaplains and Families Conference held in Beatenberg, near Interlaken in Switzerland. ICS is an international Church of England mission agency seeking to make known the good news of the Christian Gospel to people who speak English, who find themselves living, studying, working or holidaying away from home in countries where English is not the main language. ICS mainly works in continental Europe and other countries that surround the Mediterranean, together with few far-flung outposts such as the Falkland Islands.

ICS has financially and prayerfully supported the Prague Anglican Chaplaincy since August 2000, their support allowing the appointment of the first full-time Chaplain in Prague, my predecessor Canon John Philpott. They have continued to . . . → Read More: ICS Chaplains Conference in Switzerland

A ‘White Easter’ in Brno

The view across Komin, Brno on Easter Monday 2013, with snow on the hills & the rooftops © Ricky Yates

With Easter Day being quite early in 2013, and with Northern and Central Europe experiencing one of the coldest months of March on record, I did rather expect our Prague Easter Day congregation not to be quite as large as it was in 2012. Added to these two factors, was the change to Central European Summer Time (CEST) during the previous night, another discouragement &/or confusion to add to the mix. In view of the weather, the term ‘summer time’ did seem somewhat inappropriate 🙁

Despite all of this, we did still have a large congregation for Easter Day worship in Prague with a very good turnout of our regular congregation, a few of our ‘lost sheep’ reappearing, and being joined by a . . . → Read More: A ‘White Easter’ in Brno

A snowy weekend in Prague

Kostel sv Kliment / St. Clement’s Church in the snow © Ricky Yates

Last weekend, we had the heaviest snowfall here in Prague, since early January 2010. It started snowing late on Friday 22nd February and rarely stopped until just before Sybille and I left the Chaplaincy Flat to go to Church on Sunday morning. To give you a visual impression, here is a picture showing what Kostel sv Kliment / St. Clement’s Church looked like last Sunday, covered and surrounded by freshly fallen snow.

But in contrast to the UK, where everything seems to grind to a halt as soon as any snow falls, here in the Czech Republic, that just does not happen. So it was that Tram 8 arrived on time at 10.07 at the Podbaba tram stop, and whisked us off on our sixteen minute journey to Dlouhá trída, . . . → Read More: A snowy weekend in Prague

A small victory over Czech bureaucracy

With my new Czech Driving Licence outside the HQ of Prague City Council © Ricky Yates

Further to my earlier post, and the update in a later post marking the fourth birthday of my blog, today I became the proud owner of a Czech Driving Licence. I now have a driving licence, valid for the next five years, which inevitably also includes a far from flattering photograph of me 🙁

Compared to my two previous visits to Magistrát hl.m. Praha / the HQ of Prague City Council, today’s visit went remarkably quickly and smoothly. Following my second visit on Monday 4th February 2013, when I successfully proved that the Chaplaincy Flat where I live, is my family home, I was given a little slip of paper telling me to return today, with my passport and residency permit, to surrender both parts . . . → Read More: A small victory over Czech bureaucracy