As is illustrated in my previous post about how, on Sunday 25th October 2020, my house was connected to mains water, part of the work involved digging a deep trench right across the front lawn. Because late October is the end of the growing season here, I realised that I wouldn’t be able to do anything to repair the grass, until the Spring of 2021. The photograph above, taken on 13th December 2020, after I had finished severely pruning all the bushes down the right-hand side of the lawn, shows the extent of the damage.
As I wrote in that previous post, there was also excess earth that needed to be taken away from where the contractors had dug the hole for the ‘shaft’.
And the strip of public land between the concrete gully and my front hedge still needed to be made good, which also involved removing excess earth and rubble.
Earlier this year, I decided that I would use the need to repair the damage done to the grass, as an opportunity to make other improvements to the front garden. I wanted to get rid of two unsightly trees, a half-dead bush and a shrub. I also wanted to remove three lumps of concrete near the house, two of which I believe were the base of steps up to the original front door, which was on the far side of the now enclosed verandah.
Believing that some of these tasks were beyond my capabilities, my friend Kát’a kindly found me a landscape gardener, Mr Bezdekovský, and in mid-April, he came to look at what I wanted doing. He gave me a very reasonable quotation and promised start work on Wednesday 5th May, providing it wasn’t raining heavily 😉
And this is how it looked a few hours later, after the unwanted trees, bush and shrub had been removed, together with the addition of a pile of fresh earth to help with reseeding all the bare patches.
But what I and Mr Bezdekovský had not realised was how deeply embedded two of the three lumps of concrete were. Here is the first one that they tried, and failed 🙁 to remove, using a pickaxe and spade.
So the following day, they returned with a pneumatic drill/jack-hammer and eventually managed to extract all three concrete lumps. Here is part of the first one.
And here is the resultant hole! However, the excess earth that the contractors never came back to take away in October/November 2020, proved highly beneficial, as Mr Bezdekovský was able to use most of it to fill three large holes 🙂 The remainder, he loaded onto his trailer, along with the lumps of concrete, and took it all away for disposal.
I am very aware that it is now two and a half months since I last published a blog post. I am also aware that, either in the text of previous posts or in answering comments, I have promised to provide further updates on things I’ve written about. So this post is my attempt to kill two birds with one stone.
Back in late April I complained that ‘Someone keeps trying to kidnap Spring‘. Well Spring did eventually arrive as I hope is illustrated by this photograph of wisteria flowering at the back of my house, taken at the end of May. But it has been noticeable how much later plants and trees have been producing leaves or flowering, in comparison to previous years. The time lag has been in the region of two to three weeks.
I pay for my electricity by a monthly direct debit with my meter being read once a year in June. At that point, an invoice or refund is issued, depending on whether I’ve paid too little or too much over the previous eleven months. In June 2020, I received a small refund of CZK 750/GBP25.00. In June 2021, I received an invoice for CZK 6,985/GBP232.80 🙁
As I’ve said, I did anticipate that I would be asked to pay a little extra, though probably not as much as nearly CZK 7000. I was very aware that, because of the severe weather last winter, I’d made considerable use of the electrical heater in my study bedroom, whilst waiting each day for the wood-burning stove to fully warm the house.
But the other reason is the COVID-19 pandemic. In any normal year, I would spend at least three weeks away from my home. During that time, the only things using electricity would be my fridge and freezer. Everything else would be turned off. But after returning home from the UK on the evening of 27th December 2019, I haven’t spent one night anywhere else but in Stará Oleška 44.
No direct debits were made in either June or July. But because of my increased usage of electricity, my monthly direct debit in August until June next year, will be CZK 600/GBP20.00 more than it has been in the past two years 🙁
No caption required!
I sadly have to report that I have had no reply to my ‘letter to Victoria Prentis MP‘, other than an automated email acknowledging receipt, despite sending it two and a half months ago. If there are any benefits from Brexit, then Ms Prentis has had more than enough time to compile a list and send it to me. Of course, there aren’t any benefits. But even if she knows that, she dare not say it because it would cost her job as a junior minister at the Department of Farming, Fisheries and Food. To remain in post and to remain as a Conservative MP, you have to be a sycophant to Bungling Boris 🙁
I do however, have one piece of very good news to report. On Friday 11th June, I was vaccinated at my GP practice in Prague and received my EU Digital COVID Certificate. And because I received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, I have only had to have a needle stuck in me once 🙂
The final post about which I promised update was regarding the house now being connected to mains water. The new mains water supply has been completely problem-free. But getting piles of earth shifted and disturbed areas of ground made good has been a long saga which deserves a post in its own right. So I’m going to finish this post now and promise to publish a further one in the next few days.
When I bought my new house in Stará Oleška back in April 2017, I had to make a legal agreement with my neighbours regarding its water supply. This was pumped from an underground source in the garden of Milan and Lucie, my immediate neighbours, and supplied them, Pavel and Vlasta, (Lucie’s parents), who live behind me, and me. This water, whilst perfectly safe, did sometimes come out rather discoloured. So I took to buying bottled water for cooking and drinking and inserting a sachet of ‘Intensive white’ in the washing machine, when washing light-coloured clothing.
Under this agreement, I have paid CZK 200 a month for my water supply – CZK 100 for the electricity powering the pump and CZK 100 for the maintenance and repairs to the pump. Therefore on 30th April each year since, I’ve given Pavel, who masterminded the funds, CZK 2400 for the following twelve months of my water supply.
One part of the agreement stated that, if the village was to at some future date, obtain a mains water supply, I would arrange to be connected to it within a year. There had been an unsuccessful attempt a couple of years before I moved to the village, to obtain funding for the installation of mains water.
In 2019, the Council for Obec Huntírov/ Huntírov Municipality, successfully obtained an EU grant for the installation of mains water in Stará Oleška. Therefore, early in 2020, big holes started appearing in the village with blue pipes sticking out of them.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t at home the day the contractors dug the hole for my connection to the new water main. I had been given a plan showing my connection as being adjacent to the boundary hedge and fence between my property and Milan and Lucie’s property.
The contractors instead put it seven metres away and, in doing so, also dug up several concrete sections of a drainage channel that runs along the strip of public land in front of my front hedge.
In time, the contractors returned and filled in the hole. But they didn’t reinstate the concrete gulley nor did they remove the excess earth and rubble from the grass bank behind it.
The photograph above shows how it looked in the middle of Summer 2020.
With no one returning to put right the mess on the public land in front of my house and wanting to get the position of my water connection corrected, in early August 2020, I wrote an email to Ing. Pacovský, the engineer in charge of the project. My good friend Kát’a kindly put my English text into Czech. Just over thirty-six hours later, I got a phone call in Czech 🙂 from Ing. Pacovský’s junior, agreeing to meet me the next day, to address the problem.
At our meeting on Thursday 13th August, the junior engineer acknowledged that my water connection had been put in the wrong place but said it couldn’t now be changed. But he agreed that the concrete gully should be reinstated and the associated mess cleared up and assured me that the contractors would return and do so. However, as it was August, the men were currently on holiday.
As I am a permanent resident in the village, I have not been required to pay anything towards the cost of mains water being installed. Those people with holiday homes wanting to be connected to the new system, have had to make a financial contribution. But every property owner, resident or non-resident alike, has had to meet the cost of the work required to connect their house to the water main in the adjacent public road.
Fast forward two months to early October. With nothing being done about reinstating the concrete gully and clearing up the associated mess, Kát’a kindly contacted the junior engineer to ask what was happening. As well as assuring her that he would get the contractors to do the work, he said that they would also be willing to do all that was necessary to connect my house to the new water main. They would come and work at the weekend and in turn, I would pay them in cash.
Not knowing anyone else who could do the work and having recently been asked by my neighbours, who was going to do it, I decided that the only way forward was to accept their offer and so contribute to what is proverbially known here as the ‘grey economy’. So it was on the morning of Saturday 17th October, a van appeared with three workmen and their tools.
Having surveyed the route of the channel they needed to dig, I was then asked, ‘Where was my supply of blue water piping?’ I had assumed that the men would bring it with them. Fortunately, despite it being Saturday morning, the leader of the contractors was able to make contact with an employee of Huntírov Council, who a short while later, arrived in his truck,……
……..and with my water meter. He also produced a clipboard with a list of properties and their owners where I had to sign against my name and number, confirming receipt of my water meter.
My greatest concern was how much disturbance there would be to the paved area in front of my carport. As you can see, the men removed paving blocks and the stone chippings on which they were sitting, and put them under the carport. Then they dug a channel and laid the piping. They had already refilled the channel before I took this photograph.
……and across my front lawn. This was the incomplete channel when they finished work that afternoon.
On Sunday morning, the three men returned and completed digging the channel across the front lawn and up the side of my house. Fortunately, Milan had been in his garden when the workmen had arrived the previous morning. He was able to tell them the exact point where the pipe from the underground source in his garden, came under the fence into my garden, heading to my house. He also kindly said that they could take down the fence to make their task easier.
When the workman dug the channel, they found the pipe, exactly where Milan said it would be. It is somewhere at the bottom of the channel in the photograph above.
The following day, during normal working hours and whilst I was in Prague for a medical appointment, the contractors finally reinstated the concrete drainage channel. I have to say that they didn’t do it very well as the reinstated sections are slightly higher than they should be, causing a puddle to form in the channel when it rains. My general impression of the workmen is that they are very good at digging things up, but not so good at putting them back afterwards 🙁
In advance of the contractors returning on Sunday 25th October, to complete the work to connect me to the new water main, the leader of the contractors told me that they needed to purchase a ‘shaft’ at a cost of CZK 8000. I had to produce the cash and then they would obtain it from a firm in Ústí nad Labem. So I handed over the cash early in the week and a day later, the ‘shaft’ appeared under my carport, once more when I wasn’t at home.
On Sunday 25th October, the three men reappeared as agreed, and proceeded to dig a very large hole immediately inside my front hedge, in order to bury the ‘shaft’ in the ground. Here it is being inserted.
What is it for? It houses my water meter with steps down so someone can climb down and read the meter. The handles on either side of the meter enable the water supply to be turned off if ever that is required. It needs to be so deep, along with the channel for the piping through my garden, to ensure it doesn’t freeze up in the winter. After the winter weather we’ve had in January and February this year, I’m grateful for depth at which it has been installed.
In the mid-afternoon of Sunday 25th October, the contractors completely turned off my old water supply and then connected their newly laid piping to the existing piping that brings water right into the house. Half-an-hour later, Stará Oleška 44 was connected to mains water.
There are two postscripts to this long saga, one positive, the other, negative.
A few days after I was connected to mains water, late one afternoon, Pavel came down from his house having seen me in my back garden. He presented me with a little slip of paper, explaining that I’d only used water from the old supply for six months since I gave him CZK 2400 on 30th April 2020. Therefore, I was due a refund and he thrust CZK 1200 into my hand. Whilst technically correct, I wasn’t expecting a refund, not least because not many weeks earlier, there had been a major failure of the old pump which needed a couple of visits from an engineer in order to fix it.
On Sunday 25th October, when I gave the contractors the requested cash for the work they had done, there were still three outstanding things to be completed. There was excess earth that needed to be taken away from where they had dug the hole for the ‘shaft’. They still needed to make good the strip of public land between the concrete gully and my front hedge which also involved removing excess earth and rubble. And my paving blocks needed to be reinstated. They promised to return on Wednesday 28th October, a public holiday, with a vehicle in which to take away the earth and rubble and complete the job.
Wednesday 28th October arrived but the men didn’t appear. We chased them up and they promised to come on Sunday 22nd November. At 09.00 that morning, they rang up with some weak excuse about a car breaking down. The reality of course was that they had been offered another job for cash which they would much prefer to go and do, rather than complete a job for which they had already been paid 🙁 The problem of using the ‘grey economy’ 😉
I have managed to use most of the excess earth elsewhere in the garden and in places where the in-filled channels have sunk over the winter. And I will work via the Council to get the mess cleared up on the strip of public land. But I decided eventually that I would ask and pay František, who constructed the new path in my back garden, to reinstate the paving blocks. He kindly did so on 2nd January, just a week before the snow arrived, doing a brilliant job as you can see.
