Happy New Year

Another graphic from my collection of Czech exlibris and PFs (Christmas/New Year cards). This is of course Happy New Year card and was created by Ruda Svab. 

So to all of you a happy 2019, may it be a better year than 2018. 

A Major Decision - Leaving the Czech Republic.

I have finally decided that my Czech adventure must come to an end and that I will be selling my Czech home. It is a heart-breaking decision to have to make. I love this house, this country and its people and they have all enriched my life tremendously, but all good things must come to an end they say.

Over the last two years it has become difficult to sustain my home here.  There was/is of course Brexit which has thrown all expat lives into question. But in the end it is not Brexit that is the reason for my decision. It is something far more important than that: family. My father died in 2017 and my elderly mother is finding it increasingly difficult to manage by herself. She has heart failure and Alzheimers and over the last few months I have seen a decline in her. She needs my in England all the time.

But what tipped the scales against keeping the house going are two financial changes. The largest cost re the house is electricity, which is very expensive here. I have electric central heating for when I am away (when I am in the house I used the much cheaper wood stoves), obviously being in the UK all the time would necessitate having the central heating on more plus an email arrived the other day from EON warning of a price increase. Quite simply I cannot afford it, especially as my husband is about to retire and can no longer support my Czech adventure as he has in the past. Of course selling the house will liberate some money which will allow me to come back here regularly and see my Czech friends.

Will this be the end of this blog? Well of course there are going to be posts to come about my travails selling up and moving. And then there is the backlog of subjects that I never got around to blogging about, which I still want to cover. So no, not for some time.

They are made of tough stuff here...

 

Yesterday I went for a walk in the Sumava Forest. It was a delightful day - pleasantly warm and the forest had that lovely smell of resin and mushrooms. 

My walk began with a visit to the ruins of Hus Castle. The castle like so many in the Czech Republic was built on a promontory above a river thereby maximising its defences. The path dropped steeply to the river, and I found myself watching my feet as I clambered down. In front of me was a family of four. The father was carrying a wheelchair. His wife held the hand of their teenage son,  who appeared to have something like cerebral palsy - he clearly was unable to straighten his legs. At one point the father abandoned the wheelchair in the bracken and went to help his wife support their son in his perilous descent. 

I passed the family as they recovered on the river bank. The next trial was a very high metal bridge over the river. Whilst the steps up were steep, it was the ones down that made me hold my breath - in two places steps were missing and in another the step rocked alarmingly. "I can't believe they will make it over that," I thought. 

The climb up to the castle ruins on the other side was another steep one. When I got to the top I turned to see the family had made it across the bridge. I pushed on along the path to discover that the way was not now flat, as I had expected, but rather a series of descents and climbs where parts of the castle had fallen down and where there may have been an inner defensive ditch. All the time on either side the ground dropped away to the river. I made it out of the castle walls and looking back I saw the father and his daughter (but no son or wife) working their way along.

There in front of me sat an old woman in her wheelchair looking out across the scene. I said hello and we had a chat. She told me her daughter was in the forest collecting mushrooms. The old lady beamed "It is so lovely here," she said and I agreed.

How did she get there? Ah, there was broad path. As I walked along it, I realised that even negotiating that route would not have been easy for someone pushing a wheelchair (and its occupant)  - they were plenty of holes, bumps,and tree roots to make life difficult. And the path was about 2 kms before we came to a tarmacked road.

Afterwards when I chatted to my husband on Facebook, we came to the conclusion that Czechs are made of tough stuff and that they must have a special specification for wheelchairs: able to negotiate forest paths and coming with dedicated mushrooming basket.   

Update on St Agnes in the Garden

My talented neighbour has been chipping away at the statue of St Agnes of Bohemia at the bottom of the garden, and now she is revealed in all her glory.

See https://czechproperty.blogspot.com/2018/07/st-agnes-in-garden.html for the story of how she appeared in my garden.

Alas I can no longer look out of my window and gaze on the medieval Bohemian saint. Three strong men have taken her to her new home.