On Saturday 1st September, a group from my former congregation at St Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church, Prague, are travelling by train to Decín, for me to take them on a guided walk through the Labské pískovce Protected Landscape Area where I now live. This post is both an account of my research for that walk and is also aimed at giving the prospective participants, a taster of what they can look forward to experiencing 🙂
The walk starts in the village of Ludvíkovice, which lies between Decín and Stará Oleška. From outside the Post Office, where I parked my car, I then walked into the forest a short way, to join the red waymarked route that comes up from Decín and is part of the E3 European long distance path. Heading north and climbing steadily for about 1.5km, the path arrives at the first spectacular viewpoint, Vyhlídkové místo.
This is the view looking north with the Labe river flowing towards Germany, where it becomes the Elbe.
Slightly further on, there is second viewpoint, also called Vyhlídkové místo 😉 , from where the full extent of the forest lying below the cliffs and stretching down to the valley floor, can be seen.
From Vyhlídkové místo, there is a shallow valley to be crossed, followed by a short climb up a zigzag path to Ružová vyhlídka, at 433m above sea level, the highest point on the route.
This is the view south from Ružová vyhlídka. Decín in the far distance, stands at 135m above sea level which means that Kanon Labe is nearly 300 metres deep.
From Ružová vyhlídka, the red waymarked route is followed for a further kilometre before turning off onto the green waymarked route, heading back south through the forest.
The path then passes this fascinating geological feature, Slunecná brána, a small sandstone rock arch formation. As you can see, there is a seat provided if you need to rest your weary legs 🙂
The path then undulates through the forest, with glimpses of the village of Ludvíkovice through the trees, completing a circular walk and rejoining the red waymarked route.
Retracing my earlier steps for about 0.5km, rather than then walk back into Ludvíkovice, I continued along the red waymarked route, in the direction of Decín. This leads to two further viewpoints.
The first of these is Vyhlídka Labská stráž where there is this sandstone pavilion, originally built in the late nineteenth century. As you can probably see in the photograph, the safety barriers have been recently repaired. The stonework has also been re-pointed, restoring the building to its former glory.
From the pavilion there is this splendid view. On the west/left bank of the Labe is the Prague-Decín-Dresden railway, whilst on the east/right bank, is the main road from Decín to Dresden.
From Císarský výhled, the red waymarked route then descends down this zigzag path to a bus stop opposite Decín hospital. There is a local bus from here, directly to the main railway station. On the day of my exploration, I had to walk to another stop to get a bus back to my parked car.
This is a question, sometimes with slight variations, that I’ve been asked time and again this past year. So as this is my four hundredth blog post 🙂 🙂 🙂 , I thought I would put into written form, the answers I’ve been giving to all those who have enquired. I’ve broken the question down into two parts, with four reasons under each heading. If you have further questions, please leave them in a comment and I promise to respond.
Why did I decide to retire?
1. Because I could
On 26th February 2017, I celebrated my sixty-fifth birthday. Although, because of increasing longevity and consequent increased costs, both the Church of England and the British government are raising the age of retirement for younger people, these changes have had very little effect on me. I remained entitled to retire at age sixty-five and claim both my Church and state pensions.
When I left the UK and moved to Prague in September 2008, I knew that in the previous financial year, I had completed paying sufficient National Insurance contributions, to be entitled to receive the minimum state pension at age sixty-five. Continuing working past my sixty-fifth birthday in the Czech Republic, was not going to increase my UK state pension 🙂 I did work on for two more months, retiring on 30th April 2017, but all that did was to slightly increase my Church of England pension.
2. It is what I always envisaged
When I was offered and accepted the position as Anglican Chaplain in Prague, I always envisaged being in post for the following eight and a half years and then retiring. My predecessor as Chaplain, John Philpott, had done exactly the same, except that when appointed, he was one year older than me and therefore served for seven and a half years before retiring at age sixty-five. As I pointed out to the Prague congregation at my final Annual Church Meeting on 9th April, compared to many other European Anglican Chaplaincies, Prague had enjoyed a long period of stability with only two chaplains in nearly seventeen years.
3. Repeating myself
Over my final two or three years at St Clement’s, Prague, I increasingly felt I was saying the same things over and over again in my preaching. Because of the relatively high turnover of congregational membership, with people only being in Prague for relatively short periods of time, this might not seem to be a problem. But I felt sorry for the long-standing members of the congregation who might well have heard me say something at least once too often 😉
4. My health
In August 2015, I had a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in my lung, which nearly killed me. As a consequence, I have to permanently take the blood-thinning drug Warfarin, (aka ‘rat poison’), and wear a compression stocking on the lower half of my left leg.
The cause of my pulmonary embolism was a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) that formed in my left calf, then escaped from there and travelled to my lung. Despite wearing a compression stocking, I continue to have problems with my left calf and foot. Sometimes they become swollen with areas of bleeding through the skin, which in turn is difficult to stop, because of taking Warfarin 🙁 Currently the calf and skin are as good as can be expected but I had a serious flare up this summer, not helped by being stuck in cattle class for two hours on a Wizz Air flight to the UK.
Why did I retire to North Bohemia and not back in the UK?
1. Affordability
In simple terms, I can afford to retire here in North Bohemia and live fairly comfortably, but in no way could I do so in the UK.
For the nearly twenty-eight years I was in full-time ordained ministry, I was always housed as part of my job. But I do not own a house in the UK and with the absurd price of property, there is no way I could now afford to buy one. The Church of England does have various schemes to help retired clergy with housing. But they would all eat into my pension giving me much less income to live on.
In contrast, using just over half the lump sum from my Church pension, I have been able to purchase outright, my new home in Stará Oleška, and still have funds left over to make improvements to it – five new uPVC double-glazed window units were fitted last week 🙂 Major work to completely refit the kitchen, is due to commence on 8th January 2018.
2. Frauenkirche, Dresden
Although I have retired from full-time ministry, as I have previously explained, I have been granted Permission to Officiate (PTO) by my bishop, in order that I may continue as the Coordinator of Anglican worship in Dresden. This currently means officiating at the monthly English-language Anglican service of Evening Prayer, hosted by the Frauenkirche, but will hopefully lead to a second monthly service, starting in the new year.
Stará Oleška is only a twelve kilometre drive from the main railway station in Decín from where it is just forty-five minutes by train to Dresden. Therefore by living here, I can now return home following the evening service, rather than staying overnight and returning on Monday as I was doing whilst living Prague. To answer the question as to why I didn’t then choose to set up home in Germany, the answer is simple – cost! Housing, and so many other things, are considerably cheaper on this side of the border, as explained in this recent post.
3. ‘Location, location, location’
‘The three most important things to consider when buying a property are location, location, and location’. A quick check on the internet reveals that no one can be sure who first said this but it is a mantra that is often repeated. As well as proximity to Dresden, I love the surrounding environment of the CHKO Labské Pískovce, the landscape protected area in which Stará Oleška is situated. As I have already explained and illustrated in this post and this post, it offers wonderful opportunities for walks out in ‘the nature’ as English-speaking Czech people often say.
4. Xenophobia in the UK
Besides cost, the other main reason for not retiring back in the UK is the rise of xenophobia, at times bordering on racism, which is now being freely voiced in parts of British society as a result of David Cameron’s ill-thought out EU referendum. Each time I visit the UK, the more I feel like a stranger in a strange land. I visit in order to spend time with my two adult children, their spouses and my two grandchildren. But even if I could afford to do so, I’m not at all sure that at the present time, I would want to make the UK my home once again.
Not that the Czech Republic doesn’t also have a vocal right-wing, recently winning electoral support by voicing anti-refugee, anti-Islam, anti-Roma propaganda. It is a politics of fear, bearing mind that very few refugees have come here, there are extremely few Muslims, and the country has had no experience at all of so-called Islamic terrorism.
However, as an ‘immigrant’ myself, I have been made very welcome in the community where I have now chosen to live in my retirement, smiling and waving helping to overcome the language barrier.
Ever since I announced that I was going to retire as the Anglican Chaplain in Prague and move to live near the Czech-German border, I’ve been asked both, whether this blog would continue, and if so, would there be a new header and tag line. This post is a definitive answer to both questions.
Whilst we currently are still living in Prague – we don’t move to the new house in Stará Oleška until Monday 15th May, I decided this evening, to ask Sybille to upload the new header that she had created at my request some days previously, in anticipation of the forthcoming change.
The new header is a combination of two photographs of mine. On the left is the gorge through which the Labe river flows north of Decín, on its way to cross the border with neighbouring Germany, where it becomes the Elbe river. On the right is the skyline of Dresden, featuring the prominent dome of the Frauenkirche.
The aim is to reflect my life over the next few years. I shall be living in Ústecký kraj, North Bohemia, but continuing in my role a coordinator of English-Language Anglican worship in Dresden, Saxony, or Freistaat Sachsen auf Deutsch.
Getting the new header uploaded and writing this new blog post, is a nice distraction to the current major task in hand. On Monday 1st May, sixty cardboard boxes were delivered to the Chaplaincy Flat, along with a massive roll of bubble-wrap and several rolls of wide sticky tape. Yesterday & today have been two solid days of packing boxes, together with separating what belongs to the Chaplaincy from what belongs to us.
We’ve made good progress, but my sixty-five year old body is aching! This evening, I also discovered a rather large bruise on my right arm, presumably where I banged myself carrying a heavy box. This is an inevitable consequence of permanently taking Warfarin following my pulmonary embolism in August 2015.
I do hope that everyone who has enjoyed this blog for the past eight years, as I have reflected on my life in Prague and my travels further afield, will continue to visit and also hopefully comment, as I move into a new phase in life. No longer am I ‘An Anglican in Prague’ but instead, ‘An Anglican in Bohemia and Saxony’.
Today I conducted my final service at St Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church, Prague. After nearly twenty-eight years of full-time ordained ministry, I have retired.
I really didn’t quite know what to expect today. But during the week beforehand, I decided to prepare for worship just as I have done previously week by week, for over eight and a half years since arriving Prague in September 2008.
My sermon was therefore based on the Biblical readings set in the Revised Common Lectionary for the Third Sunday of Easter. – in particular the resurrection appearance of Jesus to the the two disciples on the road to Emmaus as recorded in Luke 24. 13-35, together with the end of Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost – Acts 2. 36-41. As I always do, I tried to put the readings into context and explain the historical and cultural background. Having done that, I then asked what the passages have to say to us about our faith and how we might live out that faith in the coming week.
Whilst we had a small number of visitors, the rest of the congregation was made up of our regular worshippers, together with some of the less regular ones who had made a special effort to be present on my final Sunday. Yet as our Welcomer Sally, (who did the head count), said, the attendance was actually slightly higher than that on Easter Day.
At the end of the service, I was presented with a framed drawing of St Clement’s, along with a framed photograph of myself wearing cassock-alb and stole. But I also made my own presentation, much to the amusement of the congregation – that of the Chaplaincy mobile phone, to Rev’d Nathanial Bm who will be the interim Chaplain over the coming months.
Following worship, there was a very well-attended bring and share lunch, held in the hall on the third floor of Klimentská 18, across the road from the Church. Here there was a second presentation, this time of a dummy cheque for a very large sum of money, which I was promised would be paid to me by bank transfer, early next week. This was then followed by a champagne toast.
After a whole series of ‘goodbyes’, Sybille and I finally set off for the tram, waving a goodbye to the Church as we passed by. We made our way to one of our favourite bar-restaurants for a beer and a bite to eat as, because of everyone wanting to speak to us, we ate very little of the bring and share lunch 🙁
Whilst we were sitting enjoying our drinks, what song should come over the bar-restaurant’s sound system? ‘Time to say Goodbye’ 🙂 We both felt it was rather appropriate.
As Sybille declared this evening, I look like a geek! On the desk in my office is not one laptop computer, but two! So a blog post of explanation.
Nearly five years ago, I started to use my first ever laptop computer. As I explained back then, it was purchased as a result of a generous donation by a member of the St Clement’s congregation, supplemented by a contribution from Sybille and myself. It has served me well since May 2012, both for running the Prague Anglican Chaplaincy, and for reasonably regularly updating this blog. But right from the day of purchase, we agreed that it belonged to the Chaplaincy, not to me.
Therefore with my forthcoming retirement now less than three weeks away, I have started the difficult task of separating my personal and Church life. So last Wednesday, I bought myself my own personal laptop computer, the one on the left in the photo above.
Earlier on Monday this week, we left both computers in the care of Hardware & Software Services, for them to transfer everything from the Chaplaincy computer, onto my new laptop. Also at our request, they kindly removed unnecessary and unusable software and services of both Microsoft & Hewlett Packard, from my new laptop. It cost CZK 1000, just under £32.00 – money well spent I believe.
Today, aided by Sybille, my two email accounts were separated. After Sunday 30th April, I will no longer be chaplain(at)anglican(dot)cz. Therefore, whilst all my past email correspondence to this address has been downloaded onto my new laptop, no new emails can be. They can only be accessed by using the Chaplaincy computer.
Likewise, my new private email address, ry(at)rickyyates(dot)com, set up four years ago but hardly ever used until now, can only be accessed from my new personal laptop. The small amount of past correspondence on the Chaplaincy computer has been transferred to my new laptop, and then deleted from the Chaplaincy computer.
Over the next few days, I have the task of carefully deleting from the Chaplaincy computer, all my personal material, letters and files, leaving only material which will be useful to a locum Chaplain and my eventual successor.
Also, from now on, each time I arrive at my desk, I will first of all have to decide on which computer I should be working, depending on what I’m doing 🙂 The next few weeks should be fun!
