The Carpenter - Frantisek Jesus

I am sometimes asked how I found our Czech house. The answer is Hannah's carpenter - Frantisek. She told him I was looking and he took it upon himself to find the right house for me. When I said how it called to my soul, he did one of his mysterious smiles and said "Vim" (I know). That comment pretty much summed him up. He was a man of very few words, seldom more than two left his lips at any one time. But he had a spirituality that was beyond words. The first time I met Frantisek was when he was playing Jesus in the Horice na Sumava Passion play - a part he was made for. Hannah and I joked that he was so into method acting that he never came out of character. To my husband and me Frantisek is always known as "Frantisek  Jesus."

Frantisek was an artist rather than a carpenter. I remember how he stroked the curve of a desk he made for Hannah out of one plank of wood. Nothing Frantisek made was ever quite straight, which was a problem if you wanted him to make a door, but not if you wanted something beautiful. How I wanted him to make me some furniture. But first the house needed repairing, and after a disaster in which he removed my windows to repair without numbering them, I was disinclined to offer him precision work.

One day he arrived excited that he could source some wood cheaply for Hannah and me. We both ordered a load of rough hewn planks - Hannah chose oak and I elm. Mine were piled in the barn to wait the time when they could be transformed into furniture. Very soon I discovered that mine had woodworm, something elm is prone too. Woodworm didn't seem to worry Frantisek over much. On a visit to his house and workshop in Horice, I found my feet sinking into the floorboards they were so wormy. When I finally left my Czech home, the elm planks remained unused and were only fit for firewood. I never did get the chance to own one of Frantisek's quirky bookcases.

Over the years Frantisek would occasionally turn up for a wordless visit. But then his visits stopped. When I asked my neighbour, a mutual friend, she told me that Frantisek had been working in Germany (something many local craftsmen do) and that one day coming home over the Sumava mountains and probably tired after a long week of work, he mistook a tight bend and drove into a tree. His son who was with him was thrown clear, but Frantisek was killed.

I shall always be grateful for that silent, strange and wonderful man. When I left my Czech home I left a carving, the only thing Frantisek made for me, a self portrait of Jesus. It was too heavy to take on the plane and besides I very much felt that it should stay there.

Eating fish at Lake Lipno

On a couple of occasions recently we have gone to Lake Lipno to eat at the restaurants along the shore and look out across the lake as the sun sets. One of the things that really strikes you is how in contrast to Cesky Krumlov and even Ceske Budejovice this part of Czecho, only a few miles away, is not geared to the English-speaking tourist.

This is Dutch or German territory. The Dutch have arrived here in their droves – camping in tents and campervans at the various local campsites, or even buying up local properties. The reason I am told for the latter is that they are investing in a part of the world that is sufficiently high above sea level not to be threatened by global warming. Last night we were sitting around a fire in the garden of some Czech neighbours drinking pear schnapps and the subject got on to the Dutch. It would appear that they are not all together popular around here – the comment was made that you would never see Dutch people sitting by a fire with the Czechs. This is probably a problem more with the fact that the Dutch “colony” here is sufficiently large that it can keep to itself (as happens with the Brits elsewhere) than with the Dutch themselves.

Anyway back to the Lipno restaurants the menus were in Czech, German and sometimes Dutch and fortunately I speak enough German to get by and if that fails have a Czech phrasebook with a convenient menu section. The second restaurant we went to was a fish restaurant. Unlike fish restaurants at home Czech fish restaurants of course specialise in freshwater fish – especially the ubiquitous carp (which the Czechs eat for Christmas lunch by the way and which you buy from large tanks set up in town squares from November onwards). Our conversation with our waiter was not good, and he arrived with two portions of butter fried pike which we had not ordered and which was of course more expensive than the trout that we had. We could not work out if he was pulling a fast one, or if he was particularly thick – we had accompanied our order (made in both German and Czech) with much pointing at the relevant menu item. Either way he didn't get a tip at the end of the meal and we will not be going back there again.

As we came out of the restaurant the sun was setting. All along the shore line there were solitary fishermen with rod and line catching a free meal. The lake was like glass in the twilight and the Sumava mountains rose out of mist on the other side. Our tempers calmed, we took some photos and came home.

When yes means no

A month ago I tried to organise the removal of several piles of rusty metal, including old bedsteads, guttering, weird pressed metal kitchen units from the communist times (probably the 1960s), broken cast iron stoves and so forth. They were taking up a lot of space in the yard and making it look awful. The Horice Na Sumave Town Council has a waste metal collection, but by the time the lorry gets to our part of the district it is already full and frankly our delightful assortment of Czech iron would make up at least half a load.

Eventually my friend found a friend who had a friend who would take it. This being the way things tend to work in the Czech Republic. The man arrived and we went round the yard and into the old barn and as I pointed out the rusting piles, he nodded and smiled. Friday, he would come on Friday morning, he said; we shook hands on it and off he went in his car. Friday came, nothing happened. No lorry turned up and I wasted a day waiting for him. On Saturday my friend telephoned me - a major international incident had been triggered by my iron.

Somewhere in the Chinese whispers that had led to the process, the any-old-iron man had been led to believe that there were five tonnes of metal in my yard. He was insulted to be asked to take my paltry piles away, it would cost him more money to hire a lorry than he would make. There had been a major bust up with his friend who had told him about the iron in the first place and now twenty years of friendship between the two was under threat. His friend had then rung mine in distress about what has happened and after she had spent half an hour calming him down, she had had to ring the iron man and done the same to him. After that she rang me.

We both expressed our frustration at the process. Why, oh why, had the man said yes he would take it when he inspected the iron in the yard, when he should have said no? The answer is that they do it all the time. The Czechs have a problem saying no. They will tell you what they think you want to hear, and that means saying yes when they have no intention of doing anything. As a Brit, I hate it, and find it incredibly hard to get used to. I do not mind being told bad news - in fact it is almost a national characteristic to quite like it - but I hate being lied to and regard it as downright rude. I suspect the Czechs see it totally differently. But at least the ironman didn't get halfway and then leave everything partially done - unlike some Czech carpenters I have known!