I need to start this post with a sincere apology to those who regularly visit and follow my blog, for the very long gap between my post about further progress with the house and garden in early June, and my post about walking above Kanon Labe, published ten days ago. As a result of my blogging inactivity, July 2018 became the first month in the nine-and-a-half years of my blog’s existence, in which I did not publish a post 🙁
My main excuse for my lack of blogging over this summer has been the weather. For the past three months, the Czech Republic, along with much of Central Europe, has experienced a heatwave with daytime temperatures well in excess of 30°C and virtually no rain. These conditions have not been conducive to me sitting down and writing coherently. They have also not been conducive to making much further progress either with the house or the garden.
The photograph on the left shows the course of Olešnicka, the stream that runs through Stará Oleška. As you can see, it is completely dry! The only consolation is that the grass at the side of the stream bed is still green, unlike my front and back lawns which are completely yellow and rock hard 🙁
Some relief finally arrived two days ago when I was woken at 07.30 by the crash of thunder and a heavy downpour of rain. We then had further rain off-and-on during that day and yesterday. But we still need plenty more! However, what there has been is a most welcome drop in temperature with the day time high today being only 18°C and the forecast saying that it will only rise into the low 20s°C in the coming few days.
This improvement in the weather has made me determined to get my blog going again and start posting regularly here once more. I have plenty of things to write about, but for this post, I’ll confine myself to the week I spent in the UK, Monday 25th June – Monday 2nd July, which at the time, was also experiencing a heatwave.
I flew from Prague to East Midlands Airport (EMA), with Jet2.com, who now regularly fly the route twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. I have to say I was impressed, with both flights leaving on time and arriving early, a considerable improvement on my previous flying experiences with Wizz Air between Prague to Luton.
From Monday night until the morning of Saturday 30th June, I stayed with my son Phillip and daughter-in-law Lisa at their home in Nottingham. And of course, I got to spend time with my granddaughter Pearl 🙂
Here she is with her Dad!
Whilst this is Granddad’s favourite photograph of his granddaughter, taken during his visit.
On the afternoon of Friday 29th June, I also travelled down to Daventry to visit my daughter Christa, son-in-law Ian, and my grandson Finley. Here I am with Finley on his bike. Grateful thanks to Ian for the photograph.
I spent the weekend in Sheffield, in order to attend and take part in the ordination as priest, of my Czech friend Dagmar Wilkinson, whose ordination as deacon I attended on Sunday 2nd July 2017. The ordination service took place in Sheffield Cathedral on the afternoon of Saturday 30th June, presided over by the new Bishop of Sheffield, Rt Rev’d Dr Pete Wilcox.
Here I am once more, standing in-between two ordained ladies – the newly ordained Dagmar on the right and her training incumbent Rev’d Frances Eccleston on the left. Frances and her husband Steve, kindly hosted me over the weekend as Dagmar had her parents and other friends and relatives staying with her.
Here is Dagmar, standing between her proud parents, following the ordination service.
On the morning of Sunday 1st July, I was privileged to be present at the Parish Church of All Saints, Aston cum Aughton, as Dagmar celebrated the Eucharist for the first time. Here she is with me, fully robed!
Following worship, there was an excellent parish lunch, held in the adjoining Church Hall, at the end of which we all got to share in a piece of this cake, especially made by one of the parishioners to mark the occasion.
