Wood

My apologies for the slight gap in my posts. I have been otherwise engaged. One area of activity was taking delivery of 10 cubic metres of firewood.

Although I have electric central heating, electricity costs thanks to EON's virtual monopoly are extortionately high, far higher it feels (I must do a proper comparision) than in the UK and let's face it electricity prices in the UK aren't exactly low. A friend was telling me recently about the difference in EON's electric prices in the Czech Republic and neighbouring Germany, a ratio of 2:1 she reckoned. It's not as though the Czechs are as wealthy as their teutonic neighbours, the average wage here is still comparatively low. Hence energy makes up a significant proportion of the average monthly bills. One reason the prices we are paying such high prices apparently is the disastrous solar energy subsidy - more of that in my next blog.

But back to my heating, although my heating system is the most cost-effective that can be bought, using only off-peak power and although the house is well insulated with walls at least two feet thick, in order to keep the bills manageable I only use the central heating to maintain a basic level of heat and boost it with wood burning stoves. My stores of firewood were getting badly diminished and so it was time to order fresh.

My experience and those of friends is that you don't always get what you pay for. There are quite a few cowboy suppliers who will charge you a very reasonable price, but then when they deliver somehow there isn't quite as much as you expected. The worst example of this were some local gypsies who sold me 6 cubic metres and delivered 1! I had to admire their cheek and put it down to experience. Of course if they had supplied what they promised, they could have been supplying me for years, but such long-term logic did not enter into their calculations. This time I turned to a neighbour and a friend to organise the supply and I decided to order ten metres on the basis that I would get less.

Last weekend a small lorry turned up and emptied its entire contents on to the road outside my house. The man waved away my money saying I would pay him when he came back on Monday with the next lot. Another lot! The pile was larger than a car. I set to throwing the logs through my open gate to form the heap you can see some of above. It took me two days to move them all into the yard, where they sat (and still sit) waiting stacking. True enough on Monday he returns with a second lorry load - another pile on the road outside the gate. I start to clear away a space so that my neighbours can park their car. Then the following  morning I wake to find I can hardly move.

So the pile is still outside my gate, with the other still in the yard. My back is a lot better, but I am nervous of doing any major log moving. My husband and son are arriving at the end of the week, we were going to have a short-break in Prague but instead we may be doing something a lot less pleasant. I blame EON!

Saying Yes

Czech Waitress: Would you like some more?

Potok: I wouldn't say no

Czech Waitress:  Does that mean yes?

Potok: Yes. Sorry!

For any Czech waitresses reading this blog the following is English for yes:

I wouldn't say no
I don't mind if I do
I could be persuaded to

There are more and I will add them as I think of them. Comments with suggestions welcome

For any English visitors to the Czech Republic - just say yes or better still "ano prosim" (yes, please)

Winter sports at Lipno

Lake Lipno in the summer is a vast man-made lake in the south of the Czech Republic popular with holiday makers as a place to swim, sail and generally have fun. In the Winter it turns into the largest skating rink you can imagine.

On Saturday I happened to be passing on my way to Horni Plana when I noticed the lake was particularly busy. Curious I walked along the shore until I came to the centre of all this activity. It was a windboarding event, the lake resounded to electronic music emitted by two large speakers and  trendy young people were setting up the huge kites which would pull them at speed across the ice on their boards. Soon I was watching enthralled as they took to the ice.

For the more sedate users of the lake an ice-skating path had been cleared, it seemed along the several kilometres from Cerna v Posumavi to Horni Plana. Young and old were skating up and down occasionally interrupted when a passing windboarder crossed the path.

The following day I passed the lake again, gone were the speakers and loud music, gone too alas were the bright sunshine and perfect views. But still there were maybe half a dozen windboarders and many more skaters. I even saw a car driving across the lake! The Czechs know how to have fun. 

Masopust - Czech Carnival

Here is a video of Masopust (Czech Carnival) in my local town of Horice Na Sumave.  What I love about the Horice version is that it is very much by and for the locals. Masopust will be celebrated in Cesky Krumlov in just over a week's time. I will try and get a video of that too, so you can see the differences between the two.

Of course there is far more to Masopust than what you see here, for more see my previous blogs on the subject, or better still come and experience yourself.

PS Sorry about the spelling mistake at the end of the video - goodness knows how many times I watched the thing and still I didn't see it until it went up on Youtube!

New Trains

The Czechs are busy upgrading their railway system. The latest development has been this swanky yellow replacement for the little train on the line from Ceske Budejovice to the Sumava via my home station of Horice Na Sumave. And very nice it is too. My only grouse with it is that for some stations like Hodnov which serves Olsina Lake you have to make a request stop. I found myself hurtling towards Hodnov without the means to attract the conductor who was clearly ensconced in the nice warm cab chatting with the driver. I ended up pressing the button by the door several times which seemed to do the trick. The conductor came out in time to speak with me only when I had dismounted (maybe I pressed the wrong button). But then this is only problem if you board at a station without a ticket office. The advantage was he was too late to collect the fare!

The other major change that is coming is the upgrading of the line between Prague and Ceske Budejovice. The change will mean the line can take high-speed trains, which will in turn cut the travel time to South Bohemia. Sadly part of this upgrading has been the installation of large concrete sound-proofing screens to protect houses along the route from the increased noise. I say sadly because one of the joys of the route was looking at the villages and into people's orchards and gardens.Now all you see is the corregated concrete wedges.

The new trains will replace what my nieces refered to as "Harry Potter" trains, with their individual compartments. These could be a blessing and a curse - a blessing because they afforded some privacy, a curse because if you were unlucky to get in one with someone with body odour there was nowhere to go and if you opened the window you could almost bet your fellow travellers would close it again!  Meanwhile I have stopped using the Prague train, the Student Agency Coach is currently faster and delivers me direct to Cesky Krumlov and at the moment because of the works on the line you may start your journey on a train, but you usually end up being transfered on to a coach and back again.We'll see whether the new fast trains can tempt me back.

Snow, ice and yaktrax

This is what I woke to yesterday. This is the view from my window. It had started snowing again late on Friday afternoon and continued to lunchtime. I decided I would walk to the bus through the winter landscape and enjoy the snow whilst it was soft and pristine. All very poetic.

But my relationship with Czech snow and ice is a somewhat fraught one. You will have seen in previous posts how much I love the snow here; it is in my opinion in a different class to the British version – dryer, finer, crisper. Ice and compacted snow however is a different matter.

Whichever way I approach my home I am required to go up hill. Two roads enter the village and neither of them are ever gritted. The passage of cars and the snowplough turn my lovely crunchy snow to ice in a matter of a few days. I probably should buy myself a sledge and slide down to the station, but I would still have to haul it back up the slippery slope.

Whilst in England on the recommendation of my osteopath I bought myself some Yaktrax. This incredible invention is probably best described as snow chains for shoes and the difference it makes is remarkable. They have one, rather major, drawback – they should not be worn on gravel or tarmac. When the snow thaws on my roads, which this year it has been doing off and on a lot, I am faced with expanses of bare road and patches of ice. I tried leaving the Yaktrax on and had the alarming experience of the metal springs actually sparking on the granite grave. And so I leave them off and try to avoid ice patches.

A week or so ago I walked down to the station on just such a day of thaw, I had done well. And I turned off the road on to the concrete path to the station. It was covered with black puddles and I walked confidently on looking at my goal. Suddenly my legs just slid out from under me and I landed on my side in an inch of icy water. Unsteadily and somewhat painfully I made my way across what I now realised was black ice to the station, only to discover that I had misread the timetable and I had a further forty minutes to wait on the cold platform in my wet clothes.

I am beginning to think, that like all the other villagers, I should get a car.These romantic walks in the snow are all very well, but I'm a fifty-year old woman with a back to think about

Winter in the Sumava

This is a picture of my Czech home. It huddles under a hill called Liska Dira (Fox Hole) and is well-named given the number of foxes I hear and see in these winter months. It sits just outside of the Sumava natural landscape protected area, in the foothills of the Sumava Mountains and Forest.

The name Sumava comes from the sound leaves make in the wind - the whispering or russling forest. But at this time of year there is very little sound of whispering leaves, just that silence that comes with snow and maybe a "whoosh" as snow falls from the branches. Right now, I'm sitting in a friend's cottage which sits next to a frozen, snow-covered lake. In a few minutes I will put on my walking shoes and head off into the forest. I need to clear my head and fill my lungs with fresh Czech winter air. But first I am writing this for you.

Our local little train which I travelled on this morning was full of Czechs heading for the deeper snow and forests of the Sumava National Park. The Park is one of the Czech Republic's best kept secrets - forming with the neighbouring Bohmerwald the largest forest in Central Europe - "Europe's Green Lung." Only it's not very green now. On the slopes of the Sumava's mountains there are ski resorts - affordable ones - and through its forests, across its plains and along its lakes run hundreds of kilometres of landlaufing trails.

The sun is out, the snow is virginal and I'm heading for the hills.