Neighbouring Mushrooms

When I arrived back at the house a few days ago, I found my neighbour's lawn covered with shaggy ink cap mushrooms and others. I am told this also happened last year. “Shame she can't eat them,” said my other neighbour. Seeing my look of surprise, she said “You can't eat them, can you?”

“The white ones, yes,” I replied. “But you want to eat them young, before they start to turn to ink.”

It turns out that the owner of the mushroom-filled lawn was in Prague performing in a show. Nevertheless, that afternoon there were fewer mushrooms in the lawn.

Update on Selling the House

It has been a difficult year so far. Not long after I had returned from my short trip to check on the house, my mother died. It was quite sudden. On the saturday she went with my sister to a garden centre cafe and enjoyed a cup of coffee and a cake and by the following Saturday she had slipped away with her three daughters by her side. Although she had Alzheimers and was physically weak, we thought we had maybe a couple more years with her. We dreaded the time when she would forget who we were, but that time never came. It was as good a death as one could probably wish for. But nevertheless her death was a shock and I am still feeling it.

As the immediate reason why I had decided to sell our Czech home had been the need to care for Mum, and because I didn't feel able to make decisions at that time, I took the house off the market. Then a few weeks ago I got an email from my friend, saying there was someone who was seriously interested in buying the house and was I still interested in selling. The buyers were willing to pay near the estate agent's estimate. So what to do?

What these few years of having to be in the UK for mum have taught me is that unless I can commit spending some serious time in the house, the old building will start to deteriorate. So can I make such a commitment? The answer is probably no. I have started building a life in the UK – growing a garden, building friendships and committing time to writing and promoting my poetry. I don't want to give that up. Nor do I feel I can leave my husband for the long spells of time I used to. So for these reasons I think I may still sell the house.

From a purely financial point of view: with the pound down against the Czech Korun (because of Brexit) selling now means I should get more £s for my house. The converse is also the case, the cost of running the house is rising, just as our family income is going down.

So I have decided to say yes, I am interested in selling, but not so much that I am putting the house back on the market. I will put the matter “in the hands of the angels” as my friend Hannah used to say. 

Sooo Many Tourists

I have been wondering about blogging about the levels of tourism in Cesky Krumlov for some time now. You may think me a hypocrite for complaining about tourist numbers, having published a visitors guide to the town. But then I have always argued for sustainable tourism with visitors staying long enough to benefit the town, rather than the quick in/out visits we are getting now. 

The major change we have seen over the past few years has been the massive rise in Chinese tourists, so much so that the Czech press had nicknamed the town “Činský Krumlov”.  To put the issue into numbers - the town has 14,000 inhabitants but gets over a million visitors. 40% of those visitors are Chinese.  But until a few years ago Chinese visitors were rare. 

Most of these visitors come on day trips by bus from Prague, but when I say day trip their actual stay in the town is a lot shorter than that. The result is that the town is overburdened with tour groups who do not spend enough time here to actually make a positive impact on the local economy. The centre of the town has basically been surrendered to the tourists. Over the last fifteen years I have watched as shops serving locals have all been replaced by tourist shops, even my bank has vacated its site on the main square and moved out (it is going to be replaced by a hotel). Last year Katerina Seda, a conceptual artist-in-residence at the Egon Schiele Gallery, satirized the situation by hiring locals to live in the town centre. 

The Town Council has just announced that it will be charging bus companies 1500 czk  (60 Euro) for each bus visit to the  town with effect from June of this year. But 1500 czk is not a lot when divided between a coach load of tourists and I doubt will have any impact on visitor numbers.  But then it is hard to see what would. 

The Chinese love the romantic nature of the town, so much so that Chinese tech giant Huawei is constructing a full-size replica of Krumlov's castle at its Chinese headquarters in Dongguan, just outside Shenzhen. Yes you read that right - a full-sized replica! They have as much right to enjoy the town as any other nationality, and who can blame them, but how do we balance that with the adverse impact on the town?