Late Autumn

Okay, so I often blog about my walk home up the hill from Horice na Sumave, but there is always something new and lovely to see. And I just thought you would like to see some photos of the leaves and rosehips in the bright autumn sunshine. There was, as you can see, not a cloud in the sky.

Empties (Vratne Lahve)

As a follow-up to my previous post about recycling beer bottles in the Czech Republic, I thought I might share with you a video clip from one of my favourite Czech films - Vratne Lahve. Its English title is Empties and is a story of a 65 year old man, who having given up a job teaching literature to annoying school children, ends up in a supermarket recycling beer bottles. It is set at a time when automatic bottle machines were just appearing in Czech supermarkets, instead you handed your bottles to a man on the other side of the hatch, who would give you a receipt.

The film comes the father and son team, Zdenek and Jan Sverak, which also gave us the Oscar-winning Kolya. Zdenek wrote and starred in the film, whilst son Jan directed. The film is a gentle comedy about a man, who has problems facing the approach of old age. It is full of wonderful characters including the man's long suffering wife and the many denizens of the supermarket. In the hands of Hollywood this film and this subject matter could be mawkish and certainly would be quicker paced, but instead it is lovely and forgiving (Zdenek's character is no angel), funny and sad, and ultimately life-affirming.

Bottles

One of the things that surprised my friends on their visit to the Budweiser Budvar Brewery was the spectacle of old beer bottles being cleaned and recycled.

When I was a child in 1960's Britain we used to pay a deposit on lemonade bottles. I remember the delight of handing the empty bottle over to Mrs Evans in our local cornershop and getting back a nice coin, which if allowed I used to buy some sweets. We Brits stopped recycling bottles sometime in my childhood - a mistake I think. 

But the Czechs sensibly have retained the system of paying a deposit on beer bottles. You save your empty bottles and crate (if you paid a deposit on that too) until you decide to return them to the supermarket. There you will find a machine - with a hole into which you feed individual bottles and another for crates. The machine weighs the bottle (checking you're not trying to fiddle the system) and then a converyor takes the bottle and drops it with a clink somewhere on the other side. When you have finished, you press a button and the machine gives you a receipt, which you hand in to the checkout. It is amazing (and pleasant) how much money you get back. You certainly are motivated to recycle every beer bottle.

When the Circus Came to Town.

A week ago my husband and I were walking into Cesky Krumlov, when we found ourselves behind two men who were wearing strange multi-coloured wigs and riding on kiddies scooters. 

"What is that all about?" asked my husband.

Later we got our answer when I pulled a flyer advertising the arrival of a circus from under our windscreen wiper. The day after we were passed by a van announcing the circus' arrival through a tannoy and towing a trailer on which was a life-size model of a crocodile. 

Going to the circus seems to be a common activity in the Czech Republic, more so than in England. The circus has been to Cesky Krumlov at least twice this year already. It is set up on a piece of ground in front of the blocks of flats near to the Lidl supermarket. This is a traditional circus with animals - there are stalls for the various animals - zebras, etc. which the locals can wander round. And there are the traditional caravans, such as the one shown here.

Traditional circuses in England have been in decline, hit by popular opposition to exploiting wild animals and increasingly replaced by non-animal based circus. Although there's a ban in the Czech Republic on the use of certain wild animals, or maybe because of it, the circus seems to be going strong here. The circus website shows performing elephants, camels, bears and zebras. As you can see we didn't go to the circus, despite the publicity.

Silver Anniversary

The reason why my blogging has been so intermittent recently is that for the last three weeks my husband and I have been celebrating our silver wedding anniversary by making a long-planned trip across Northern Europe and back. We've had a lovely time in various German and Belgian cities, but chose to spend the big  day itself in the Czech Republic - well, I can't think of anywhere more romantic.

After a lazy morning we drove to the lake district around Trebon via the lovely countryside around Novy Hrady. At Trebon we sat at a table in front of a fish restaurant on the town square and enjoyed a meal of fried carp. Carp has such a bad reputation with the Brits, who consider it at best tasteless and at worst muddy, but the Czechs love it. And cooked well, by a restaurant which knows what it is doing, it is delicious. We then walked away from the square and around the corner to a cafe, which serves some of the best Czech cakes I have ever tasted.

After lunch we decided to walk off some of the calories with a visit to the nature reserve at Cerveny Blato. A wooden boardwalk takes you for four kilometres through a forested peat bog. The place is just incredible - it's like stepping back in time to an age before Man cleared the forests and drained the swamps. You half expect to see giant dragonflies and dinosaurs appear out of the bog pine forest. You certainly get to see some rare plants, fungi, butterflies and birds. A black woodpecker twice shot up from bushes as we passed, its red head standing out against the rest of its dark plummage. We were stopping so much to ooh and ahh and take photos, that the four kilometres took two hours to complete.

After our work we returned home, where we finished our special day eating chanterelle mushrooms and Czech chocolates, washed down by Czech bubbly. Just the two of us, plus our lovely old house, and the crickets serenading us in the garden.

Butterflies

The last butterflies are enjoying the warm sun of late September. As I was scything the grass and weeds in the orchard, peacock and tortoiseshell were flying over the orchard weeds. As always I left patches of nettles, which are a favourite foodstuff for caterpillars. Of course this has nothing to do with how hard scything is. In the woods when I was mushrooming, there were brimstones and dappled brown butterflies flittering in the strands of light descending through the leaves. But the nights are getting cold, soon the butterflies will be arriving in the cellar and barn looking for a place to overwinter.

My favourite is the little blue (above), which in the summer collected in huge shimmering crowds on the sand by the swimming pond. It is very special for all my family, in that when a beloved aunt died over ten years ago we noticed the little blue everywhere. It was and is forever her butterfly. Strangely enough when we moved into her house, we found that it clearly was a favourite of hers before she died, because there were pictures of it around the house.

More on Wayside Advertising

In my last post I wrote about the political posters on the sides of our roads. As two comments have pointed out, there are local and senate elections coming up that in some way account for this. But nevertheless there do seem to be a number of posters that have remained unchanged from the general election. Why is this? Are they being recycled for some reason? Or is it that nothing has replaced them?

I wrote my last post in haste - I was feeling guilty that I had not put anything for over a week. Since then I have had more time to consider my feelings on the subject and I am surprised by how strong they are. Something in my British sensibilities is reacting adversely to Czech roadside advertising. For starters I am shocked by the amount, location and size of it all – from huge posters to poles chocked full of fingerposts pointing the way to different banks, supermarkets and hotels. Signs hanging off roadbridges tell the driver that s/he is only x kilometres from their nearest Tescos/Obi/etc. Scantily clad young women advertise everything from non-stop clubs to machinery. On every side the marketing clamour presses in, even in towns as spectacularly beautiful as Cesky Krumlov. I know from my previous career in England, that in the UK this simply would not be allowed. The planning process regulates the amount and position of advertising. The local civic societies are keen to prevent visual clutter from damaging the appearance of towns and the Police and Highways Authorities will oppose signage which could confuse or distract the driver.

I think my dislike of the Czech roadside adverts is rather deeper than that. I feel the current adverts let the side down. As you will have realised from reading this blog, I have a great love and regard for the Czech graphics tradition and this extends to advertising and indeed signs. When I first visited this country I spent quite a lot of time photographing Czech signs, which I considered delightful and infinitely superior to those of my British home. I certainly wouldn’t do that now. These current signs are typical of those we see all over Europe, part of a lowest denominator mass communication.

These political posters are some of the worst culprits. There is one which for some time really disturbed me and I could not think why – it was just some man talking to an audience. And then today I realised – it was the hand gesture. To be precise it was the Tony Blair hand gesture, which is no doubt taught in "politician school" the world over. The hand is open with palm revealed and thumb up, as if he is about to shake your hand. Don't make a fist he has been told, an open palm is non-threatening, consider you body language. Only somehow it doesn't work, he looks false.

Politicians' body language, advertising signs, - all part of a homogenization of communication across the world in which true communication is lost.