Ricky has returned to Rícky

Ricky at Rícky v Orlických horách © Ricky Yates
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 good week in which several positive things occurred.

On Thursday 20th June, TelefonicaO2 finally reconnected our landline phone and internet access at the Chaplaincy Flat, a few hours short of seventeen days from when it ceased to function. To once more have reliable internet access with a reasonable download speed, was a welcome relief for which we are both very thankful. Of course, now we are away from the Chaplaincy Flat, internet connections have once more become a little more intermittent 🙁

The same day, I drove out to Horažd’ovice, to meet up with my good friend Adrian Blank, in order to help me get the ‘Carly’ through its STK, the equivalent of a British MOT Test. It did eventually get through but, at the expense of two new front tyres and some work to re-align the front wheels. Adrian reckons, probably quite rightly, that hitting a few Czech potholes was probably the cause of the problem. But at least the ‘Carly’ is now deemed fit to be driven on Czech roads for another two years.

The third thing of note was our worship and post-services activities last Sunday. Not only was our Sung Eucharist extremely well attended, we also had the privilege of having a guest preacher, Rev’d Dr Peter Walker. Peter and I trained for ordained ministry together at Wycliffe Hall, between 1987-1989. After serving his title in a parish in Kent, Peter has had an academic career, including a spell back at Wycliffe on the teaching staff. He is now Professor of Biblical Studies at Trinity School for Ministry, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. His challenging sermon, which has now been uploaded to our Church website, was widely appreciated by the congregation.

Churchwarden Richard York with Rev'd Dr Peter Walker © Ricky Yates
Churchwarden Richard York with Rev’d Dr Peter Walker © Ricky Yates

Following worship, many of us migrated to the nearby park on Lannova, a street that lies between the Church and the Vltava River, for our annual summer Picnic-in-the-Park. The picnic is always a good opportunity for fun & fellowship before many in the congregation are often away from Prague for several weeks, visiting family and friends in their home countries. Peter and his wife Georgie were able to join us for the picnic and very much enjoyed meeting and talking to members of the St. Clement’s congregation.

Last week was also notable for some very hot and sticky weather, in stark contrast to all of the rain earlier in the month, which was responsible for the very serious flooding in Prague and elsewhere in the western half of the Czech Republic. Fortunately the weather turned a little cooler at the weekend, but still dry except for a few spots of rain – ideal conditions for our picnic. Ideal weather, so I thought, for our walking holiday commencing the next day.

Unfortunately, Monday 24th June dawned cold, grey and with light rain. And when we set out late that morning on the Prague-Hradec Králové motorway, we drove through a positive downpour! However, just before reaching Rícky some three hours later, the rain stopped, allowing us an enjoyable short circular walk around the somewhat scattered settlement, after we had checked into the hotel.

But that dry couple of hours proved illusory. It was followed by forty-eight hours of continuous rain, meaning a couple of expeditions in the car but no walking in the hills. The rain finally stopped on Wednesday evening, so our walking holiday in the Orlické hory finally began today. Watch this space!

ICS Chaplains Conference in Switzerland

The Swiss Alps from my conference centre bedroom balcony © Ricky Yates
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 be incredibly supportive during my time as Chaplain and it is fair to say that without their financial help, the Prague Anglican Chaplaincy might easily have ceased to exist.

SBT Conference Centre, Beatenberg © Ricky Yates
SBT Conference Centre, Beatenberg © Ricky Yates

Every year, ICS organise a conference for all Chaplains and their families who work in Chaplaincies that they are involved with. The location of the conference alternates between continental Europe and the UK. I attended my first conference in April 2009, also held in Switzerland, but surprisingly did not write a blog post about it! I have missed the last three conferences, mainly to save the Prague Chaplaincy some expense with our financial position being so precarious. One of the nice things this year was that the governing ICS Council, agreed to subsidise the conference to a greater degree than in previous years, thus reducing the cost of my attendance.

Whilst the conference centre venue was excellent and its location absolutely spectacular, there was the practical problem of how to get there from Prague and get back home again afterwards. After considering the various possibilities, I opted to drive. I left the Chaplaincy flat in Prague just before 07.30 on Monday morning and finally reached the Beatenberg conference centre some ten hours later at 17.30.

The journey took me through four countries, (Czech Republic, Germany, Austria & Switzerland) and was almost exclusively on autobahn/motorway, with the exception of the crossing from Austria to Switzerland and a most ‘interesting’ crossing of a mountain pass between Luzern and Interlaken. Unfortunately, my journey took thirty minutes longer than it should have done when I struggled to find my way through and out of the western extremity of Interlaken, onto the twisty mountain road leading up to Beatenberg. It was very much a case of being so near yet so far 🙁

Canon Chris Neal © Richard Bromley
Canon Chris Neal © Richard Bromley

The conference itself had been well planned and struck a nice balance between prayer, worship and teaching, and the opportunity for some rest and recreation surrounded by spectacular scenery. The main Speaker was Canon Chris Neal who I had known and heard speak previously over ten years ago, when he was Rector of Thame and I was Rector of the Shelswell Group of Parishes, both of which are in Oxfordshire. His analysis of the world in which we are called to ‘bring the grace and truth of Christ to this generation’ was both incisive and challenging.

Another most helpful part of the conference was the opportunity to learn from each other. On two of the evenings, a series of workshops were on offer, led by various of my fellow ICS Chaplains. I had the privilege of helping to jointly lead one of them with my colleague Paul Vrolijk, the Chaplain of Aquitaine, France, entitled ‘Starting new congregations’. I shared my experience of starting the Brno congregation as Paul in turn, explained how he has started new congregations across the the three French départements that make up the area of his Chaplaincy. There then followed a series of questions and answers regarding the various issues involved. For me, it was an opportunity to both give, but also to receive.

If I have any little gripes, it would be that many of the ‘worship songs’ that we sang, were totally unknown to me. We also sang them with the words projected onto a screen, rather than having the printed words in our hands. I have no problem in doing this and can see the value of people not needing to hold books or leaflets in their hands. But the screen onto which the words were projected, almost totally obliterated the congregational view of the cross on the wall at the front of the chapel, which I found disorientating to say the least. And I do wish that several of my ministerial colleagues would be able to offer extemporary prayer, without needing to constantly use the word ‘Lord’, as a comma 🙂

From l to r, Rev'd Richard Bromley, Rev'd Clive Atkinson, Ven Julian Henderson © Ricky Yates
From l to r, Rev’d Richard Bromley, Rev’d Clive Atkinson, Ven Julian Henderson © Ricky Yates

The conference was also the first opportunity to meet the newly appointed Mission Director of ICS, Rev’d Richard Bromley. It was also his first real opportunity to meet most of us as he only took up his post at the beginning of this year. Also present, was the Chairman of the ICS Council, Ven Julian Henderson, along with several other Council members. Between them, they are now providing firm leadership for ICS after a somewhat rocky last couple of years.

I hope both Richard and Julian will forgive me posting this photograph of them both, which was taken during a fun ‘awards ceremony’, held during the Thursday evening celebratory dinner. They were two of the three nominees for the award for having the least hair on the top of their heads. I was actually surprised that I wasn’t nominated in this category as well 🙂 . However, by the almost unanimous vote of the audience, the award went to Clive Atkinson, the Chaplain of Vevey and Château d’Oex in Switzerland.

 

The view from Vorass after our climb up the mountainside © Ricky Yates
The view from Vorass after our climb up the mountainside © Ricky Yates

The views all around the conference centre were absolutely stunning as I hope the accompanying photographs show. On the Wednesday afternoon, Mark Collinson, Senior Chaplain in Amsterdam, acted as Sherpa and guide to a group of us as we climbed up the mountain behind Beatenberg, to Vorsass where we enjoyed some well-earned refreshments. However, I could not help contrasting the price I paid for my 0.5l of beer on a Swiss mountainside, with what I would normally pay in a bar-restaurant in the suburbs of Prague – four times the price 🙁

The intrepid walk group of walkers, awaiting our well-earned liquid refreshments © Ricky Yates
The intrepid walk group of walkers, awaiting our well-earned liquid refreshments © Ricky Yates

The return journey back to Prague went smoothly and took nine and a half hours including stops. I made a slight detour from the route I had taken to get to the conference, and successfully added Lichtenstein to the the list of countries I’ve now visited. Whilst there, I filled up my car with petrol as it is reasonably priced because of relatively low taxation. So my car, which was originally British (it is right-hand drive), but constructed in France (it is a Renault), which is now registered in the Czech Republic, was filled with petrol in Lichtenstein, which I paid for in Swiss Francs 🙂

The Swiss Alps at 06.00 on Friday 3rd May. What a view to wake up to! © Ricky Yates
The Swiss Alps at 06.00 on Friday 3rd May. What a view to wake up to! © Ricky Yates

A ‘White Easter’ in Brno

Komin, Brno in the snow
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 good number of English-speaking visitors from around the globe. Amongst the latter were several young Christians from India, all of whom are currently studying at various universities in Germany, who had organised to spend the Easter weekend together in Prague, and had made attending Christian worship on Easter Day, a central priority of their trip.

Having on Easter Eve, put the third member of our family, Oscar our elderly black & white cat, into the care of Hellam family for a few days, it meant that Sybille was able to travel down with me to Brno and attend worship there for the first time. So after fellowship and post-service refreshments in Prague, we set off together in the ‘Carly’, along the D1 – the Prague-Brno motorway.

We stopped for a late lunch at a service area some 60 km out of Prague, which advertises itself as serving the largest rízek/schnitzel on the D1 🙂 As I was eating mine, so snowflakes started falling outside. And as we drove on after lunch, across the Vysocina/Highlands, so the snow got heavier. Fortunately, the motorway remained relatively clear, but we arrived to see Brno covered in snow. Apparently, it had been snowing there for most of the day. So in Brno on Sunday 31st March 2013, I experienced the first ever ‘White Easter’ that I can remember.

Unfortunately, the adverse weather discouraged a small number of people from attending our evening Eucharist in Brno. But I was thrilled that Phil and Lenka, an English-Czech couple whose wedding I conducted in September 2010, came along to boost the regular congregation. They are currently having a house built for themselves, just south of Brno, with a view to moving there permanently from the UK, later this year. Two more future members of the Brno congregation!

Even better was the news that Phil & Lenka had taken note of what I had said in my sermon at their wedding. I had spoken about the Christian understanding of marriage as outlined in the preface to the Marriage Service in ‘Common Worship- Pastoral Services’. In the preface it states that the third reason that marriage is given is, ‘as a foundation of family life in which children may be born and nurtured’. Yes – Lenka is pregnant and is expecting their first child in August this year!

After post-service refreshments, Sybille & I drove out to Komin, a former village that is now a Brno outer suburb, to stay overnight with Katka, my chief Brno service organiser, and her husband Josef. The photo at the beginning of this post, is of the view from their guest bedroom window that greeted us on Easter Monday morning. Please note the snow on the nearby rooftops & the surrounding hills. Bing – I’m not dreaming of a ‘White Christmas’ or a ‘White Easter’ – I’ve just experienced one!

 

A snowy weekend in Prague

Kostel sv Kliment / St. Clement's Church in the snow © Ricky Yates
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, two minutes walk from the Church.

Tram 8 arrives at the Podbaba Tram Stop © Ricky Yates
Tram 8 arrives at the Podbaba Tram Stop © Ricky Yates

 

But although public transport almost always keeps going when it snows in Prague, I generally believe that ‘discretion is the better part of valour’, when it comes to trying to drive the ‘Carly’ when it is covered in this amount of snow. The irony of having finally obtained my new Czech driving licence just a few days earlier, was not lost upon me 🙂

The 'Carly', deep in last weekend's snow © Ricky Yates
The ‘Carly’, deep in last weekend’s snow © Ricky Yates

 

 

 

 

 

 

After Church, Sybille and I took Tram 26 to Letenské námestí and had a celebratory lunch for Sybille’s birthday, in Fraktal Bar-Restaurace. Then we walked home through Stromovka Park where some park visitors were not put off by the snow, but were sitting out on deckchairs, enjoying liquid and other refreshments from the Slechtovka Restaurace, located in the middle of the park.

 

 

 

Deckchairs in the snow at Slechtovka Restaurace in Stromovka Park © Ricky Yates
Deckchairs in the snow at Slechtovka Restaurace in Stromovka Park © Ricky Yates
Cross-Country skiing in Stromovka Park © Ricky Yates
Cross-Country skiing in Stromovka Park © Ricky Yates

Others were taking full advantage of the late winter snow, to practice their cross-country skiing.

A small victory over Czech bureaucracy

New Czech Driving Licence
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 of my UK Driving Licence and collect my shiny new replacement Czech Driving Licence.

On both my previous visits, I was accompanied by Lisette, an American member of the St. Clement’s congregation, who read Slavic languages at university in the USA, and speaks fluent Czech. But because of health issues, she has since had to return to the US. However, as a result of my earlier posts here, about all that is involved in successfully registering a right-hand drive car in the Czech Republic, I have recently been contacted by a Czech-British couple, Vlad & Jan, who kindly offered to provide language help in future, should I need it, as a ‘thank you’ for meeting with them and giving them the low-down on how to register their British right-hand drive car here.

Unfortunately Vlad had to pay a brief visit back to the UK this week, making himself unavailable. So he organised for his good friend Pavel to substitute for him and, together with Jan, they were both waiting for me when I arrived at Magistrát hl.m. Praha / the HQ of Prague City Council at 3.00 pm this afternoon.

The whole place works on a numbered ticket system. On my two previous visits, Lisette and I had been required to wait for about twenty minutes before our number came up. Today, no sooner had Pavel worked out which button to press to produce our ticket, the ticket number immediately came up, summoning us to cubicle 56. I produced both parts of my UK Driving Licence and my ID, and then my new Czech Driving Licence was shown to me. A quick visit to the cash desk to pay the fee of CZK 50 (about £1.70), produced a receipt. With that, the Czech Driving Licence was mine.

As I have previously explained, the Czech authorities would not allow ‘Rev’ or ‘Rev’d’ as my title as they officially do not recognise religious or hereditary titles. So my new Czech Driving Licence has also made me a layman. But just to make my point, I today deliberately wore my clerical shirt and collar. Therefore here I am, outside Magistrát hl.m. Praha / the HQ of Prague City Council, with my new Czech Driving Licence, having successfully obtained a small victory over Czech bureaucracy, but at the expense of my title 🙁