Remembering Hannah

I am in a strange state of mind. I have returned to finalize the house sale. Unless things get delayed, which they might, this is my last stay in my home. I am already saying goodbye to places I have loved for years, and not just places.

As I walked through the woods with Helena, and again when I went alone up to the woods above my house, I found myself thinking a lot about Hannah who introduced me to the Czech Republic and all things Czech. I owe this whole Czech adventure to Hannah. I realised as I walked with Helena, that the route was one that Hannah and I had followed on my first walk in a Czech forest several years before I bought my house. The same was true of the woods above my home, where Hannah gave me my first lesson in mushroom collecting. Over the brow of the hill the woods drop down to the road to Lake Olsina, where Hannah had her cottage.

Hannah's main home was in Cesky Krumlov. She moved three times in that town, so everywhere there are reminders of her. Although she died in April 2011, those memories never used to bother me. I always took comfort from them. But now I am glad the willows planted on the island she fought for have grown so large that they curtain the view of her last home, where my memories are most painful.

Selling my Czech home seems like letting her down. When she was dying she worried that the little colony of Brits that had grown up about her would break up. I told her: no offence but I didn't just buy the house because of her and wasn't planning to sell up after her death. She was relieved by this. It mattered a great deal to her that I bought the house as a place to write poetry. She loved my poetry and wanted to encourage it. The visit I made with her to Prague in 1990 was the inspiration behind my poem for voices Fool's Paradise.

I was chatting to her son the other day, who told that his mother would have been delighted that my poetry had suddenly blossomed and that at last I have a book of poetry accepted for publication next year with Indigo Dreams (more of that anon). I know too that Hannah would have understood the fact that I now need to be in UK to pursue my poetry dream. And yet...

Mosquitoes, midges and other biting insects

Olsina Lake

As I was lying in bed the other night I watched a battle taking place above my head. Mosquitoes that had escaped from the cellar when I was fixing the pump now bounced over the ceiling. Whenever I turned off the light, their whine came closer and closer as they homed in on my scent. I knew I was in danger of waking with itchy red bites. Fortunately the ceiling was being patrolled by a number of thin legged spiders and harvestmen and I watched as they pounced on passing mozzies, the predator become prey.

I remembered evenings at Hannah's cottage next to Lake Olsina. I loved Hannah's cottage. Its position was idyllic, with the lake encircled by the steep hills and deep forest of the Boletice. But you always pay for such divine pleasure and in Olsina you pay with blood. As evening drew on there would be so many mosquitoes rising from the lake that the sound was thunderous. There was another danger at the cottage, horseflies. I remember Hannah commenting on what a beautifully marked fly had landed on her trousers, only to yelp as the fly's sharp mouth parts bit through the thick fabric.

The forests have their own pesky insects, most dangerous of all being ticks. These small insects, barely visible as they wander on your clothes and skin, will swell up as they suck your blood and be buried head first in your skin. As they can carry Lyme disease and encephalitis, I always spray myself with DEET-based insect repellent. I do that in the UK as well, as disease-bearing ticks have spread there too. Another annoyance are the midges that rise in clouds and bite any exposed skin. And finally there is a small black insect, which looks like a spider but has wings. I have not been able to identify it, but it has a sharp bite and is often a problem when I am mushrooming. Any suggestions as to its identity are welcome.

Anyway back to my bedroom ceiling, although the spiders were doing a good job, the number of mozzies was too much for them, so I resorted to chemical controls – sliding a tablet into the plug-in mosquito killer. Turning off the light I settled down to an unbitten sleep.

Squatters in the Septic

The other day I was clearing moss from around the hatch to the septic tank. I lifted the metal hatch to ease some moss out to find that we have squatters in the septic tank. One – a large toad – was on the ledge where the hatch sits. Further down what I think was a frog could be seen with its head stuck into a hole where the pipe from the cellar pump sits. It was just like a small child playing hide and seek – “If I can't see you, you can't see me.” A movement in the water revealed two more frogs or toads. Goodness knows how many there are living in the tank, as the area of water revealed by the hatch makes up not a twelfth of the water surface and no doubt there were more in the depths.

I was surprised by our squatters, as I had always thought the water coming from the house with its mix of detergent and other chemicals would have caused them problems. But I suppose the majority of the water going in is pure spring water and the silt at the bottom must be feeding all sorts of worms and other food. That combined with the protection from predators and cold weather, probably makes the septic an amphibian des' res'. I put the hatch back carefully so as not crush the toad and let my squatters get on with it.

A Walk in the Woods with Helena

On Saturday I met my friend Helena in Cesky Krumlov and walked with her over Dubik hill along the old pilgrim's way through the forest to Kajov. It was a slow affair, as we stopped to admire nature and the scenery, and of course to look for mushrooms. I had thought that there would be lots of people with mushroom baskets, but no the woods were empty apart from a child with her mother and they had no basket.

Helena explained that September had been a fabulous month for mushrooms. The summer here has been very dry, indeed there had been a drought, so it wasn't until the rains came in September that the woods exploded with mushrooms. You apparently couldn't move for fungi. Last week there had been frosts – earlier than usual – and they had put paid to many mushrooms. We found the blackened remains throughout the forest.

“I know my Zoe will find mushrooms,” said Helena with an optimism I did not share.

The first edible mushrooms I came across were amethyst deceivers. Not great mushrooms but better than nothing, they went into the basket. I remember my friend Hannah showing me them, when first I learned to identify edible mushrooms. Without her guidance I would never had got up the courage to forage. My son and his girlfriend are going on a day's workshop about hunting mushrooms. I am delighted they have taken an interest, but a side of me wonders how much one can learn in a day. The only way to learn is to go repeatedly into the woods at different times of year with someone who knows what they are doing.

Up a path that branched off the main track through a plantation of fir trees we came across yellow-legged autumn chanterelles, hedgehog mushrooms and the normal chanterelles. All favourites of mine. Now as we walked along the track nearing Kajov we picked more chanterelles, and even some boletus which had been sheltered from the frosts by mosses. The basket wasn't full when we got to Kajov, but there certainly were enough mushrooms for at least two meals, plus some put down in the freezer.

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?