winter – Page 2

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.

Winter has arrived

Stará Oleška 44 in the snow © Ricky Yates

This past weekend, winter has well and truly arrived in Stará Oleška. Whilst since the beginning of the month, snow fell on three or four occasions, it never amounted to much and rapidly melted. But the morning of Friday 15^th December brought a more serious snowfall, and it has snowed again on several occasions since then and it is doing so once more, even as I write this blog post.

However, on the morning of Monday 18^th, the snow stopped for several hours and the sun came out, enabling me to take the photographs accompanying this post. And to take the photograph on the left, I did go out through the side gate, to avoid having footprints in the snow on the path 🙂

Above is the view across the village from the road in front of my house, looking out towards Huntírov. In case anybody is interested, the yellow house in the centre of the photograph is currently for sale. The details can be found by following this link.

Northern edge of the village © Ricky Yates

This is a view of the northern edge of the village, taken from the road leading to the large lake, Olešský rybnik.

Olešský rybnik with snow-covered Popovicský vrch in the distance.

It has always amused me that one of the three camp sites located around the lake is entitled, in Anglicized form, ‘Autocamp Alaska’ – hardly the name I would choose for a summer camp site. But here it is, living up to its name 🙂

Finally for this post, a couple of beautiful snowy trees.

Happy eighth birthday to my blog

Kostel sv. Mikuláse in Malá Strana © Ricky Yates

Tomorrow, Saturday 4^th February 2017, marks a significant anniversary – it is exactly eight years since I wrote and posted my first-ever blog post here on ‘Ricky Yates – an Anglican in Prague’. Yes – eight years on, I’m still blogging 🙂

Believe it or not, this is post number 375. But I have to confess that in the past year, I’ve only managed to add 33 posts since celebrating the blog’s seventh birthday, a year ago. Therefore it sadly ranks as my least productive year 🙁 However, I am proud that if you scroll down the right-hand side bar to ‘Archives’, you will see that in each of the 96 months since I started writing, I have managed at least one post in every single one of them!

However, in its forthcoming ninth year, my blog will have to change its name as, very soon after Sunday 30^th April, Ricky Yates will cease to be ‘an Anglican in Prague’. Suggestions for a new title are welcome. Likewise, I will need a new header photo to replace the skyline of the city that has been my home for the past eight & a half years.

As I write this post, we are experiencing one of the coldest and snowiest winters that we have had for a number of years. Here in Prague, there hasn’t been as much snow as there was back in January 2010, when the authorities were using JCBs to tip excess snow into the Vltava. But the temperature has been below freezing point for about two weeks and, whilst it has risen today to -1°C 🙂 , after a brief thaw, we are are promised sub-zero temperatures again from next Tuesday.

This year’s severe weather has certainly been positive for one part of the Czech economy. As this news article explains, the Czech ski resorts are having a bumper season. Two years ago, when we experienced the mildest of all our nine winters here, they suffered considerably because of warm temperatures and a lack of snow.

I am still trying to get my head around the fact that twelve weeks on Sunday, I will retire. There is still so much to do as part of the day job, not least divesting myself of things that I normally do, to members of the laity. That is before starting to sort out papers and belongings, ready to move.

But I do promise to try and continue adding regular posts here over the coming weeks. And as I’m taking the week of annual leave owing to me in 2017, from Monday 13^th – Monday 20^th February inclusive, I may even finally complete the text of my long-promised book, ‘How to be Czech’. Watch this space!

Winter weather & walks

Where is winter? It is a question I’ve been asking for several weeks. This time last year, there had been snow lying on the ground for about seven weeks. Until yesterday, when we finally had a few heavy snow showers, there had been no snow at all in Prague this winter.

The temperature this evening has just dropped below freezing and the forecast is for temperatures of below 0 degrees Celsius for the next four nights at least. But there is still no sign of any serious snow.

There is a very good reason why I want some serious snow and for temperatures to remain below freezing for many days at a time. To ensure that the mosquitoes are kept at bay!

In the Autumn of 2008 when we first arrived in Prague and throughout the warmer months of 2009, we suffered from an abundance of mosquitoes here in the Chaplaincy Flat and elsewhere. Then two successive severe winters caused their numbers to drop to a handful. I fear that a mild winter might just allow the Prague mosquito population to recover!

In the meantime, a few evenings ago, we did experience this wonderful sunset, the picture being taken from one of the balconies of our flat. The floodlight pylon belongs to the stadium of FK Dukla Praha who, like the rest of the football clubs in the Czech Gambrinus liga, are on their mid-season break which started in early December and doesn’t conclude until late February. In view of the mild weather we have experienced so far this winter, they could still be playing!

As I mentioned in my recent sad post about Sam the dog, one of the many great things he did for Sybille and I was to get us out walking far more than before we adopted him. He became our ‘weight loss programme’ because he exercised us as we exercised him! We are both determined to continue walking just as much as we did when we had Sam so as to maintain our weight loss which between us now exceeds 30 kilos.

Most days, we would walk from the Chaplaincy Flat to the extensive and beautiful Stromovka Park, which lies about twenty-five minutes walk away from where we live. Through doing this, we got to know numerous other Czech and expat dog owners and improved our ‘dog Czech’ no end.

Mobile phone — Talking on my mobile phone © Ricky Yates

However, one behavioural habit which I regularly observed and continue to observe, annoys me intensely – dog owners and parents of young children, who go to the park, but then spend the whole time they are there, talking to someone else on their mobile phones!

The most extreme example I remember was of a woman we met, just by the entrance to Stromovka. She was pushing a buggy with a baby in it; was also holding onto the hand of a toddler and had a dog on a lead. She also was responsible for a slightly older toddler walking in front of her and for a second dog who was off-lead. But at the same time as all of this, she had her head bent to one side to hold her mobile phone next to her shoulder, in order to have a long conversation with one of her friends. I know women are meant to be able to multi-task, but…….

What conscious or sub-conscious message does such behaviour send to either the children or to the dogs? Why do people need to have such phone conversations if they are going to the park in order to spend quality time with their children &/or their dog(s)? Mobile phones are incredibly useful but they can also be a curse.

My photo is of a young woman walking across Václavské námestí/Wenceslas Square, also talking on her mobile, though admittedly, without dog or child in tow. But I hope I make my point – it is perfectly easy to say in response to a call, “I’m in the park with my dog/my children. I’ll call you back when I get home”.

Historical Restaurat — Historical 'Restaurat' in Malá Strana © Ricky Yates

As part of our ongoing walk programme, as well as walking to and around Stromovka Park, Sybille and I have also recently started walking around some of the more central areas of the city, particularly as they are currently relatively free of tourists! However, I’m afraid I cannot resist posting this further wonderful example of Czenglish we spotted one evening recently in Malá Strana. What might be on the menu at a ‘Restaurat’?

Finally for this post, below are two photographs, both of which brought a smile to my face as I hope they will for the many readers of my blog.

This year, New Year’s Day was a Sunday. Our Church Treasurer Gordon is a Scotsman and marked Hogmanay, by coming to Church in his kilt. I did jokingly suggest that he could put the collection in his sporran to take it home to bank the following day! I should add that it is post-Eucharistic coffee rather than a wee dram that he is drinking!

And alongside is an invitation to ‘Explore the meaning of life’ – in Czech!