Czech work/life balance

In my last post I talked about how a number of my Czech friends are unwilling to consider jobs which require a commute. Indeed when I suggest looking for a better paid job in Ceske Budejovice, less than 30 minutes away from Cesky Krumlov, they look at me askance. What a waste of time they are thinking. The British have the longest average commute in Europe, Londoners spend approximately one month (225 hours) a year commuting. Put like that I am increasingly with the Czechs on this issue.

This attitude is I think part of a wider more relaxed Czech attitude to work and a healthier approach to the work/life balance. Whilst I have met a few Czechs who are driven and devote to their work, I just get the impression that for most Czechs work is not as central to their lives as it is for the Brits. Instead the focus is on the family and the country cottage. They may not be willing to commute for half an hour to get to work, but they will happily pile into their car and drive for hours to and from the cottage every weekend. Whilst there they busy themselves - chopping wood, doing DIY and digging the garden -so that they are exhausted come Monday and so they return to work for a rest.

This can be very frustrating when you are trying to get something done. As a general rule I do not contact Czech offices on Mondays (the workers will be talking about what they did over the weekend) nor on Fridays as they will be getting ready to go. And Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays aren't much better! Not for the Czechs that Anglo Saxon Protestant work ethic they are altogether more Mediterranean in their outlook. Whilst it does make me frustrated at times, I also envy them it and hope that a bit of it rubs off on me over time.

Some thoughts on snow

At the moment the British media are full of stories about the disruption caused by the exceptional snowfalls that have beset the UK over the last week. Commentators ask why the British transport system can grind to a virtual halt when other countries cope happily with much more snow. It is, they argue, the fault of government (central and local) to be adequately prepared, a decline in standards among the Brits - slackers who use the excuse of a few inches of snow to bunk off work, health and safety phobia gone mad, what ever happened to the bulldog spirit, blah, blah, blah.

My other country, the Czech Republic, copes with winter snows that last for several months most years. This gives me something of an insight into the situation. It is not true that all the roads here are kept clear of snow, as this photo near my villages shows, far from it - many of the rural roads are neither cleared, gritted nor salted. Such snow clearance as does take place is done by our local farmer, for good commercial reasons. And my observation is that is true of many minor roads in the Czech Republic, you can spot the road used by forestry logging lorries or leading to a factory as they are clear.

Czech cars are obliged by law to have winter tyres fitted every year, which help with driving on snow, but not so much on ice. Whether such a measure would be appropriate in a country such as the UK, which has heavy snow once every 28 years, is questionable. My old creative writing teacher always had snow chains on her tyres in the Winter, but then she lived down a narrow Cotswold lane on a 1-in-4 hill.

On driving in the snow in the UK after driving in the Czech Republic it is pretty obvious to me what the main problem is - namely that British drivers just do not know how to drive in these conditions. They drive too fast or too slow, the latter being as dangerous as the first when attempting to get up a winding steep hill in the Cotswolds. But is it surprising that this is the case? How can they gain such knowledge/experience unless they are sent to the Czech Republic for a few months? That said, a few weeks ago I was standing at the Spicak bus station in Cesky Krumlov when I saw Czech boyracer do a spectacular but unplanned 180-degree spin on the main road - I and the rest of the bus queue gave him a jeering round of applause.

One other thought about why the British have had so many problems this last week - a major cause is I think the British attitude to commuting. When I was a little girl we had the winter of 1963 - a far worse winter than this one. I can still remember it, although I was only four. For weeks my home town was cut off - it is surrounded on three sides by hills. The snow was so deep I have heard tales of people walking to the local papermill on the tops of the hedges. The school stayed open - even though the children's toilets were outside loos, which required the snow being cleared every morning and the ice broken in the toilet bowls (ah yes I remember them well!). But the difference was the teachers would have lived in the town, now they could not afford it. The majority of the population worked in the papermill and other local businesses, now people commute to Cheltenham, Oxford and Birmingham. I believe it is this reliance on being able to travel long distances that has made this year's "snow event" as the Met Office calls it so catastrophic.

I have observed Czechs do not share this willingness to travel for hours just to get to work. Friends in Cesky Krumlov will not consider a job in Ceske Budejovice only 20 minutes away. Is this because of the Czech Winter? I think not, but rather an attitude to work and the work/life balance which thinks an hour's commute even for a better job too much of a sacrifice.

Rococo Treasures at Kvitkuv Dvur

Recently my husband and I were honoured with an invitation to look round the large courtyard farm of Kvitkuv Dvur on the hill behind Cesky Krumlov Castle. This is no ordinary courtyard farm - it was owned by the Schwarzenbergs, the Lords of the castle and provided produce for the Castle's heaving dining tables. At one point in the fashion of the time the chatelaine Marie Theresa Schwarzenberg decided to turn the farm into a place where she, like Marie Antoinette could play at farming. As a result Kvitkuv Dvur has hidden treasures.

We entered one of the main rooms and the owner opened the shutters one by one. With each shutter we gasped at what we saw revealed: a room with walls and ceiling covered with the finest rococo frescos. The frescos showed a series of scenes of the rural idyll – milking, the farmyard, a shepherdess, goat-herding, a man whittling, another gathering eggs (or doves) from a dovecote, and others.


On the ceiling the painting continues seamlessly with faux-balustrades from which people look down and a sky full of clouds and birds. This isn't the only visual joke the painter Jakub Prokys plays with us: at one point a card player is shown at full height (see photo). There is a lovely lightness of touch and humour in the paintings as well as a huge level of detail.


The tragedy of this wonderful place is that it is in desperate need of restoration. The owner is a doctor, who despite huge dedication and having putting every penny he had (and some he hadn't) into doing up the building, is struggling to meet the demands of his inheritance. As he put it “When the communists came they took it away from my family, then it was in good condition, now the state has given it back ruined, and I must meet the costs”. Such grants as are available are never given in their totality, but instead as a percentage for which he has to find the rest. Furthermore the grants are not given for the building in its entirety - so you can get a grant for the ceiling, but have to get a separate one for the roof, even though the latter directly impacts on the second.


I am sure this is a circumstance that is being repeated all over the Czech Republic. Our host is now under huge pressure to pay back the loans he took to start the restoration. He could sell up to a commercial operation which wants to turn the farm and surrounding land into an up-market golf course, but to do so feels like a betrayal of his forebears. He has a vision of area in front of the farm being the new site of the rotating theatre, which UNESCO is demanding is removed from the Castle Gardens, and the farm buildings forming the supporting buildings. But time is running out for him.

Dobry Den

One thing you will notice as soon as you arrive in small town Czech Republic is the fact that everyone says hello to you when you meet them. You are walking down the road and meet someone coming in the opposite direction - “Dobry den” you both say with a nod and a smile, even though you have never met before. As you walk into a shop the shop assistant will greet you and you should reply in kind. As you leave she will say “Na shledanou” and again you reply in kind.

This is not just a custom for the older members of the population. It always surprises me when I pass a group of hooded youths, to hear the largest of them greet me with a Dobry Den. This includes our local gypsies, who, whilst having bought into the fashion and air of the Bronx wholesale, have not bought into the “You looking at me?” demeanour, no - “Dobry den” they go.

Skating on the Swimming Pond

I have blogged about the wonders of the Czech swimming ponds in the past – these man-made ponds where the villagers spend the hot summer days swimming or rafting. In winter they have another function. Last winter they drained the pond in order to clean it out and so I had been under the impression that this might be an annual occurrence. Not so.

As my husband and I walked past the pond on the other day, we watched a family putting on their skates and taking to the ice. They sat on the small jetty from, which in the summer people had jumped into the water, and did up their laces. The smallest child was first on the ice, ice-hockey stick in hand. The Czechs are internationally renowned for their ice hockey teams, but this young one has a lot to learn. The first thing he needs to learn is how to stay upright for more than a minute and once having fallen over how to get up again. Here is a photo of him, looking rather good, although the more perceptive amongst you will have noticed that he has missed the puck. He fell over when he tried to turn round to get it. Shortly afterwards he was joined by his big brother, who gathered up the puck and leaving the little one standing sped across the ice.

These long Czech winters in which the temperature seldom gets above zero combined with the many frozen ponds mean that children like our young friend are soon expert skaters and dreaming of joining the Czech ice-hockey team. I of course being English will never get past the stage of spending most of my time sprawled on the ice.

No Hot Water

My water heater isn't working and nor (properly) is my central heating. With the winter temperatures consistently well below zero, this is a disaster. The radiators are just about lukewarm, which at least means that the chill is taken off all the rooms and the water in the pipes does not freeze, but it is far from satisfactory. Fortunately we do have our wonderful wood-burning stove (see previous post), with which we are able to heat our main living room.

When we bought the house we took a load of professional advice on the best heating system for it – given there would be times when we would not be there and when we would want to temper the house to just above freezing. This seemed to preclude the exclusive use of the woodburning stoves, as these require topping up. The heating system we got was meant to be the best – with four large tanks installed in the back basement room in which water, that had been heated at times when the electricity rate was lowest, could be stored before being pumped to the radiators. The control system was again meant to be brilliant, with thermostatic controls, a digital timer with a multitude of programmes to choose from, and even the facility to be controlled remotely by phone – the idea being we can ring from England and it would come on in advance of our arrival. The remote control option didn't work from the beginning – the receiver was set in a wall with poor telephone reception. Within a year of use the digital timer had broken and had to be replaced, and now the bit that tells the boiler to come on and by how much seems not to be working. Added to that bills far in excess of what we had been led to expect – we are now told that a switch has been installed wrongly and so not only have been heating the water when the electric is at its most expensive but the surges in the current are what have been breaking the equipment – and you can see why I am close to suggesting we get rid of the lot.

Then when we got back from England just before the New Year the water heater failed to heat. Aaarghh!!! Of course all the Czechs were taking extended Christmas and New Year holidays and so it was not until the 12th that I was able to arrange for the electrician to turn up. I waited for him in vain, he had decided to go down the pub instead. I hate to say it, but I have come to recognise this as being par for the course here in the Czech Republic. The only consolation was I was so angry I managed to chop all the logs in the barn. Previously I had struggled in vain to split them, now imagining them to be someone's head I did the lot!

Czech Train Journey

In previous posts I have talked about my pleasure at taking train journeys in the Czech Republic. But here is a post about another such journey and a fellow passenger.

Czech trains (well certainly the ones that run from Ceske Budejovice to Prague) tend to be somewhat old compared to British ones. This is no bad thing, as I rather feel that the Pendolino's aren't as good as the old trains - not enough luggage space and smelly loos. The Czech ones still have compartments, which caused my delighted two nieces to say it was a Harry Potter train, even if their journey began on a very unmagical platform in Budejovice. It is the nature of compartments is that you have a different relationship with your fellow passengers. This can be good and bad. If you are unlucky you will have difficulty escaping them without obviously moving away and so offending. For example recently I spent a three-hour journey in the confines of an overheated compartment with a woman with a bad cold, who didn't appear to know how to use a handkerchief. My fellow passengers and I looked on in horror, but said nothing - the Brits aren't the only ones to have a problem with challenging anti-social behaviour. In some cases your fellow travellers can be a joy, such as an elderly American doctor I met who, when her husband died, had set up a medical centre in Odessa much to the dismay of her children. If your fellow travellers are Czech, then the language barrier need not prevent your enjoyment - you can study Czech behaviour close up, you may find yourself answering questions about the UK or even sharing one of the picnics the Czechs usually bring on a journey (there are no buffet cars on our train).

But to my recent journey: I had settled into a compartment when an elderly man looked through the door at me and the empty compartment and asked if it was okay to join me. I waved at the empty seats and said "Ano, prosim". As a point of note, this is normal practice on Czech trains. To ask, without knowing Czech, it is sufficient to look in, catch the eyes of the other passengers, look round the compartment and say "Prosim?" The old man shuffled unsteadily to his seat, took off his coat, put it and his walking stick on a hook and loaded his luggage on to the rack. He sat down next to the window and opposite me, closed his eyes and went to sleep. This allowed me to study my travelling companion, he was a tall man, with grey hair receding at the temples, his hands were large and covered with liver spots, his grey jumper was hand-knitted but clean, his coat a good quality one. My first impressions of the usual poor Czech pensioner had been perhaps mistaken. I was now struck by what a remarkable bone structure he had, his face did not look Czech to my eyes, in fact he reminded me of a British aristocrat. He had been incredibly handsome when young and still looked pretty impressive.

After a nap he woke up and started to look out of the window. His gaze was an intense one and he was clearly thinking, my presence was not just ignored but didn't seem to register with him. After a while he opened his leather briefcase and took out three tattered notebooks held together by a rubberband and removed one which still had blank pages. He started to write and despite a shaking hand his writing was firm and clear. Ever so often he would stop, look out of the window with his steel-grey eyes, think about what to write next and then return to his notebook. He filled two pages and altered only one word. He was writing poetry!

At Prague he put away the book, put on his coat and shakily started to leave. As is customary he wished me "Na shledanou" and I returned it. I very much regretted not being able to speak to him properly, but then I wonder whether he would have written so openly in front of me if he hadn't noticed the English language novel I had been reading.