Summer 2020

Your Truly on 5th November 2020 © Kát’a Burešová

I must start by making a serious apology for not posting anything here for five and a half months 🙁 I will not make any excuses. Instead, here is a new post about what has been happening over these past Summer months and a promise to resume writing more regularly in the coming weeks.

In contrast to the Summer of both 2018 and 2019, this past Summer has not been so excessively hot and we have had far more rainfall. Across the Czech Republic in June, rainfall was double the average for the month. Throughout the Summer, the Labe/Elbe maintained a decent level, allowing the passage of commercial craft, unlike in the two previous years. My grass has also remained green and has immediately . . . → Read More: Summer 2020

My walnut tree

My walnut tree © Ricky Yates

In my back garden there are three trees – an apple tree, a cherry tree and a walnut tree. You can see all three trees in this photograph, taken in early October 2019. The apple tree stands immediately to the side of the woodshed on the far side of the back garden. The cherry tree is on the left front in the photograph. Towering above both of them is the walnut tree, in the centre of the photograph, with its leaves rapidly turning yellow.

As you can see, the walnut tree stands quite close to my garden fence, with many of its branches extending over the adjacent public land, across which runs a driveway to the house behind my garden, the home of my neighbours . . . → Read More: My walnut tree

Winter 2019-2020 and progress with my front garden

This past winter, which is hopefully now over, has been my third spent in Stará Oleška. Yes, I’ve now lived here for two weeks short of three years.

The view from my front door on the morning of Saturday 29th February 2020 © Ricky Yates

One of my regular commenters asks for me to post snowy winter photographs. Well this one – the view from my front door on the morning of Saturday 29th February 2020, is the best I can do, as this past winter has been remarkably mild. And within a few hours, all the snow in this photograph had melted.

A combination of it being a mild winter, together with my new wood-burning stove, has meant that I’ve had no problem at all in keeping . . . → Read More: Winter 2019-2020 and progress with my front garden

My Vine

The house and vine in March 2017 © Ricky Yates

On the front of my house is a well-established vine. In this photograph, you can see the outline of it, in between and along the top of the double-glazed windows that enclose the verandah. The photograph was taken by me in March 2017, at the time I agreed to buy the house. It has appeared previously on the blog, in this post entitled, ‘The new house in Stará Oleška‘.

At some point in the previous six months, the vine clearly had been pruned for which I am most thankful. It was the only thing in the garden that appeared to have received any attention in the months before I purchased the property. I believe that once the previous . . . → Read More: My Vine

Further progress with the house and garden

Empty room © Ricky Yates

At the end of an earlier blog post entitled ‘Finishing touches and next steps‘, I posted this picture of one end of the small room behind the kitchen and stated: ‘My plan is to decorate it to get rid of all the orange 😉 and then get Elefant to fit further matching units along the wall on the right, to store all those things that didn’t fit in the kitchen’.

 

On Wednesday 23rd May, just over two months after I wrote that post, my plan came to fruition when Martin from Elefant, came and fitted my chosen units. Before that, I spent many hours over several days, removing unwanted things attached to, or sticking out from, the walls, and . . . → Read More: Further progress with the house and garden