Logs

A difficult winter

Sunset over Stará Oleška 10th November 2022 © Ricky Yates

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 13^th 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.

The Embassy Singers & part of the congregation on Sunday 4th December 2022 at the Frauenkirche, Dresden © Ricky Yates

It was an absolute delight on the evening of Sunday 4^th 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 🙁

Introducing Nine Lessons and Carols at the Frauenkirche, Dresden, Sunday 4th December 2022 © Ricky Yates

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.

With Rev’d Dagmar Wilkinson at St John the Evangelist, Friern Barnett, London © Ricky Yates

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.

Here are my first attempt at taking a selfie with each of my grandsons.

This selfie with Finley was taken at the CBS Arena in Coventry on Saturday 17^th 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 19^th 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.

Andrew & Gethin’s Christmas Tree © Ricky Yates

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 14^th 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.

Logs delivered on Wednesday 15th February 2023 © Ricky Yates

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.

Logs stacked in the woodshed 22/02/2023 © Ricky Yates

Here they all are, stacked in the woodshed.

I’m very glad I did as, on the morning of Sunday 26^th February, my seventy-first birthday, this was the view from my front door…

….and from my back door.

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 🙂

From Autumn to Winter 2019

Winter has been rather slow to arrive in North Bohemia in 2019. We were blessed with a wonderful Indian Summer during the second half of October and the weather remained mainly dry and fine, well into November. This allowed me to make a lot of progress in the garden about which I hope to write another blog post in the near future.

But now it has turned cold with overnight frost on several occasions. I noted yesterday afternoon that the the tub into which rain off the roof of my carport drains, was still solidly frozen on the surface. However, we still haven’t had any snow. In my two previous winters here in Stará Oleška, the first snow fell in November.

Wood-burning stove well alight © Ricky Yates

I have to say that I am very pleased with my new wood-burning stove about which I wrote here, a month ago. It is already proving to be a very worthwhile investment. Here it is, roaring away!

Cross-sections of tree trunk, awaiting removal © Ricky Yates

As I said in reply to a comment on that post, I hope that the truckload of logs that I had delivered in January 2019, will last me through the whole of this winter. But as I wrote in a post on 30^th March entitled, ‘From Winter to Spring 2019’, that load included these massive cross-sections of tree trunk; twenty-three of them in total.

Where the cross-sections of tree trunk once were © Ricky Yates

The only way to get them from where they were deposited, on public land, adjacent to my garden, and into the wood shed, was to cut each of them in two with my chainsaw. Having done that, I then transported each section, one at a time, by wheelbarrow, into the shed. Forty-six journeys in total! I finally completed the task on 22^nd April. Here is where they once sat, along with the debris from chainsawing.They did all just fit into the shed!

Being protected from any rain and with the warmth of summer, all the normal-sized logs have developed some cracks whilst sitting in the shed, as the timber has dried out and become seasoned. In turn, this makes them easy to split into a size suitable for the wood-burning stove.

Two of the cross-sections of tree trunk stacked in the wood shed © Ricky Yates

But the cross-sections of tree trunk have only developed a few fine cracks and have therefore proved much more difficult to split. So instead, I’ve had to spend quite some time and energy with my chainsaw, to reduce them into sections of a more manageable size, before they can be used in the wood-burning stove.

Chainsaw ready to tackle the next half cross-section of tree trunk © Ricky Yates

However, because the wood from these cross-sections is so dense, it burns far more slowly. This is particularly useful if I want to go out for a few hours in the evening and join the locals at U Soni. Just one of these reduced size sections of tree trunk will keep burning for at least three hours, meaning I return to a warm house and with no need to re-light the fire.

From Winter to Spring 2019

I hope that I am not being too optimistic by writing, that I believe my second Winter living in Stará Oleška, is slowly coming to an end. There are now signs of the arrival of Spring, exemplified by these snowdrops which made their welcome appearance in my garden about a month ago. However, Spring is far from being as advanced as it is in the UK, which I’ve seen in photos posted online by friends. Likewise, it is not even as advanced as it is in Prague, which I observed when I visited the Czech capital for a medical appointment last Monday. Being situated up in the hills, nearly 300 metres above sea level, does have an impact.

The view from my front door on 3rd February 2019 © Ricky Yates

We have had plenty of snow this winter as can be seen in the title photograph of this post, last month. Here is the view looking the other way, from my front doorstep. Both photos were taken on Sunday 3^rd February when we probably had the heaviest snowfall of the winter.

There hasn’t been lying snow all the time. Usually, each time snow has fallen, after a few days it has slowly melted away, only for there to be another snowfall, a week or so later. Higher in the surrounding hills and mountains, lying snow tends to remain nearly all the time, as you can see in this photograph of Stará Oleška, taken at dusk on Saturday 19^th January.

As I’ve previously written, the main source of heating for my home is a wood-burning stove, located in the kitchen. My previous supply of logs, delivered in early December 2017, saw me through the rest of last winter, and all the way through the first half of this winter, until January this year. But by the middle of the month, I realised that a fresh supply was required.

My new supply came from a different supplier, with a larger truck, and were consequently more expensive. However, the quality of wood seems to be better with at some of it being well-seasoned and consequently able to be used straight-away.

Unfortunately, the larger and heavier truck, couldn’t be positioned so the logs could be dropped into my garden, but instead, were deposited on public ground, immediately across the driveway at the side of my garden, that gives access to the house located beyond the end of my back garden.

Here they are, following delivery.

As you can see, at the time of delivery on Tuesday 22^nd January, the weather was sunny but frosty. This meant that the ground was frozen hard making it relatively easy to wheel a wheelbarrow full of logs, through the opening in the fence, across the back lawn, to the wood shed on the far side of the garden.

This weather held for the following few days, enabling me to shift quite a number of the logs into the shed.

Remaining logs covered in snow © Ricky Yates

But then the inevitable happened…….

Since then, either because of snow, or the ground being far too soft and wet, I wasn’t able to shift any further logs, until last weekend. Fortunately, the Spring-like weather of the past week has enabled me to finally complete the task.

Logs stacked in my wood shed © Ricky Yates

Stacked into the wood shed, the logs are difficult to photograph. This is the best I could manage.

Sections of tree trunks, yet to be moved © Ricky Yates

Unfortunately, there is still more to do. Within my log delivery were these massive sections of tree trunk – twenty-three of them altogether. Each is far too heavy to shift single-handedly. I nearly killed myself just stacking them like this. They will have to be reduced in size, in situ, either by chain saw or axe, before they can be transported by wheelbarrow to the wood shed. And then I wonder whether there will be still room in the shed to fit them all in!

One task that I have managed to complete, is to drastically prune the vine that adorns the front of my house and which each year, has produced an abundance of grapes. I’ve also given the two bushes directly under the front windows, a fairly severe hair cut.

Flourishing vine in late June 2018 © Ricky Yates

But if my experience of last year is anything to go by, vigorously pruning just creates greater growth. This is how the front of the house looked in late June 2018 following a similar pruning earlier in February.

Here is another sign of Spring with which I finish this post. Last Christmas, my daughter Christa, gave me a present of some bulbs for my garden. The instructions said that they should be planted, no later than the end of December. I only got back to Stará Oleška late on 28^th December and the weather wasn’t at all conducive to doing any form of gardening until a few dry and milder days in mid-January. But I got them planted and, about ten days ago, the first green shoots started appearing. It does seem that we are moving from Winter to Spring.