Summer weather

A very hot summer and a visit to the UK

The dry stream bed of Olešnicka © Ricky Yates

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 25^th June – Monday 2^nd 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 30^th 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 29^th 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 2^nd July 2017. The ordination service took place in Sheffield Cathedral on the afternoon of Saturday 30^th June, presided over by the new Bishop of Sheffield, Rt Rev’d Dr Pete Wilcox.

Standing between Rev’d Frances Eccleston & Rev’d Dagmar Wilkinson © Ricky Yates

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.

With Dagmar, following her first celebration of the Eucharist © Ricky Yates

On the morning of Sunday 1^st 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.

It’s too darn hot!

The temperature in Prague today © Ricky Yates

My sincere apologies for the absence of a fresh blog post for over three weeks. It isn’t as though there is a lack of things to write about – quite the reverse. July 2015 has been far busier than than my previous Julys in Prague and I’ve got at least four prospective posts to compile. But the real problem has been the weather. In the words of Cole Porter and best known for being sung by Ella Fitzgerald, ‘It’s too darn hot!’

Sybille frequently describes the summer weather pattern in Prague as being pleasantly warm, followed by getting hotter, then much hotter, before there is a major heavy thundery downpour and the temperature returns to being pleasantly warm. After that, the same cycle resumes. But this year, especially since the beginning of July, the weather has been very hot and sticky with little or no relief and hardly any rainfall. According to news reports I read today, river levels and ground water levels in the Czech Republic are very low and the prevailing conditions are being described as a drought – the worst the country has experienced since 2003.

The weather has made even fulfilling my regular duties, a tiring exercise. As a result, rather than sitting down and compiling a coherent blogpost, all I’ve wanted to do each evening is either sit on the balcony and try to recover with a cool glass of wine, or head to the bedroom and lie down, with a total absence of the need of our duvet!

Today has almost certainly been the hottest day of the year so far. I took the photograph at the beginning of this post, of the clock and thermometer in my car, when I returned this afternoon, from conducting a wedding at Château Mcely, about seventy kilometres outside Prague. The thermometer actually reached thirty-eight degrees at one point but I was driving at the time and was therefore unable to photograph it. Currently my black clerical shirt is being washed in our washing machine, to remove a whole series of white sweat stains with which it had become decorated whilst I was officiating today.

According to the BBC weather forecast, we are promised some rain and reduction in temperature this coming weekend. But previous promises of rain and reduced temperatures have failed to materialise. As my wife often ironically comments, she doubts whether the Prague weather actually reads the BBC forecast 🙂

I do promise to start blogging properly once again, very soon, providing the Prague weather finally manages to return to something nearer to normality for July.

Summer comes to Prague

Farmer's Market 1 — The Saturday morning Farmers’ Market at Vítezné námestí © Ricky Yates

After a few false starts, it does seem that summer has finally arrived in Prague. Over the last couple of weeks we have had temperatures well into the twenties Celsius, plenty of sunshine and only the occasional thundery downpour. So here are some words and pictures to give a flavour of our life in Prague now summer is here.

Since soon after Easter, each Saturday morning, there has been a regular Farmers’ Market at Vítezné námestí, just a short bus or tram journey from the Chaplaincy Flat. So now the weather is so much more enticing, Sybille and I are trying to make visiting the market part of our regular Saturday morning routine. We are not the only ones as you can see from the crowds on the photograph above!

Farmer's Market 2 — Freshly baked bread for sale at the Farmers’ Market © Ricky Yates

Despite now having a new Kaufland supermarket on our doorstep, it still is nice to be able to buy fresh vegetables and freshly baked bread at the Farmers’ Market each week.

Farmer's Market 3 — Cakes for sale at the Farmers’ Market © Ricky Yates

However, so far we a have resisted buying any of these delicious looking cakes…….

Farmer's Market 4 — Select your Moravian wine at the Farmers’ Market © Ricky Yates

Or bringing our plastic screw-top bottles to be filled with any of these various Moravian wines.

Church Family Picnic on Sunday 24th June 2012 © Ricky Yates

However, this week sees the end of the school year for both the International and the Czech schools. And this impacts considerably on the congregational life of St. Clements as it marks the beginning of an eight week period when many of our regular members head off on holiday and/or travel back to their countries of origin. Whilst Sunday worship continues, midweek activities cease, to recommence at the beginning of September.

Therefore last Sunday 24^th June, before many of the regular congregation depart to various corners of the world, following our Family Eucharist, we held a Church Family Picnic in an attractive small park that lies between St. Clement’s Church and the Vltava River. We were blessed by the recently arrived dry, warm and sunny weather and good time of fun and fellowship was had by the many who attended. Courtesy of the generosity of all those who brought picnic food to share, we were able to invite several of our visiting worshippers last Sunday, to also join us for our picnic.

The arrival of warm summer weather has also encouraged Sybille and I to take more frequent late afternoon/early evening walks to Stromovka Park, just as we used to do when we had Sam the dog. As well as the warmth and sunshine, there is the opportunity of being able to enjoy ‘a cool glass of something’ in the Šlechtovka beer garden, located in the middle of the park. For Sybille there is the additional attraction that many dog owners also frequent the beer garden allowing her to make the acquaintance of numerous four-legged friends and get a regular fur-fix.

The one drawback of Šlechtovka beer garden is that the music played over their speaker system can at best be described as ‘somewhat difficult on the ears’. On occasions, I would struggle to call some of it ‘music’! There is an adjacent covered stand for live music and on one occasion, a couple of weeks ago, there was a guitarist and drummer playing whose live music was much more to our taste.

However on Tuesday of this week, we were delighted to discover upon our arrival just before 6.00 pm, that there was to be a concert that evening, given by students and staff of the Prague Conservatoire. What could be more delightful than enjoying a cool glass of beer listening to the playing of various young talented Czech classical musicians?

The concert lasted just over an hour and was thoroughly enjoyable. One of the highlights was a Sonáta by the French composer Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, played by Dudlajdá Fagotiky, a quartet of young ladies playing bassoons – three normal ones together with a bass bassoon. I’m not sure of the exact meaning of the quartet’s name though fagot is Czech for bassoon.

4 Bassoons — Dudlajdá Fagotiky playing at Šlechtovka beer garden © Ricky Yates

As you can see, not only were the four young ladies excellent musicians, they also seemed to compete between themselves as to who could wear the highest stiletto heels and shortest black minidress 🙂