Cory_Quicks

I would strongly recommend Prague - looks better than most of the cities of southern Europe.

Cihadlo

Hi Gail

You might be disappointed; only one of the M&S in Prague has a food shop and all of the other ones I've been to in CR did not have anything. Still, Brno is a big city and so you might be in luck.

How's the lovely new kitchen coming along? It's something we want to do too but the priority this year is paying of the house loan and so the kitchen will have to wait. Also, I can't quite work out how we would manage to do such work with all the cats running around. Do you have further renovations planned?

It looks like we have spring here. Most of the crocuses are up in the garden but the daffodils have still yet to flower. We planted a lot in the grass in the meadow, which doesn't appear to be a Czech habit. Last year a friend of ours found the ladies in her office admiring some photographs of a garden and was most amused to discover it was ours - they were of the daffodils in the meadow. Maybe we will start a trend!

I haven't been to Egypt yet but Eva has. I have 8 trips planned this year but they are from June onwards. At least we'll be at home in April and May for the max-grass season. It won't be long now before the mower has to be fired-up for the first time. How much grass do you have at your new place?

Chris

motyl

Chris,

I´ll wait and see what Brno can "come up with" regarding Christmas puds,I might even "work a miracle" and try and make one ! ! Which brings me to our new kitchen.It´s now finished and I must say that we are really pleased with it.I think your cats would find a new kitchen being fitted,very interesting,we have a cat Alfi and two dogs,Eli and Kitty.Eli and Kitty aren´t really fazed by work going on at any one time but Alfi has to investigate all work that is done on the house ! ! We´ve now finished the guest room and now we just want to add "homely" touches like house plants, pictures on the walls etc,.then we will start to work outside.The outbuilding needs to be plastered and eventually Standa wants to paint the house ? ? this year

I planted daffs and tulips around the trees last Autumn and I´m thrilled as they´re coming up now.As you said, the Czechs don´t tend to plant daffs like we do so I could start the trend here in Březník, !! I will certainly be planting more daffs to be more of a show next year.Most of our back garden is grass but though we have a nice sized garden (about 1,500 metres squared) it is much smaller than our last place but we are much happier here.



Maybe the trips to Egypt would be better to be "on hold" for the time being,though I suppose your firm wouldn´t send you or Eva if it was too dangerous ?

Gail.

Cihadlo

Gail

Do you have "indoor cats"? Ours are and so we have concerns about them escaping whilst materials and workers are coming and going. Occassionally, we allow a supervised trip outside and they love it; we then have to put up with them standing by the door begging for another trip for weeks afterwards.

I've been working in Egypt and Bulgaria and so now it's nice to spend a few weeks watching Spring progress at home. The daffodils are fully up. The only draw-back is that The War on Grass has had to begin this weekend! I cut the top meadow on Friday evening and it will be the turn of the bottom one this afternoon. Did you inherit a garden in a good state of control?

A little to our surprise, my mother has booked a flight to come and visit us at the end of May. Part of the attraction for her is the Teplice Beethoven Festival, which will have its opening concert on the day of her arrival. She had her 86th birthday last week and so we should make the most of these visits.

Chris

motyl

Chris,

Our cat Alfi,goes outside,He "arrived on our doorstep " so to speak , at our last house so was already used to being outside.I must say we would find it difficult to have house cats as they have the instinct towant to go out.Is it possible that you could make some sort of run for your cats ? ?

You sound to have been travelling with your job but as you said it´s nice that you can now spen some time at home and enjoy the Spring and get into "grass cutting mode "! ! Our garden was in quite good condition when we moved here and it´s quite low maintenance ,mainly grass with some fruit trees around the edge and of course bunches of daffs and tulips which I planted .I think I´ll be cutting the grass very soon.

Great that your Mum will visit you again my Dad hopes to visit us this year he will be 81 at the end of this month.As you rightly said, these visits are to be enjoyed.

Gail.

Cihadlo

Gail

What a long time since I last wrote! Sorry, I have been very busy.

With the work I've been doing in Egypt, I had the rather interesting experience of arranging for some Egyptians to come to our factory in the Czech Republic and see what we're doing. They seemed to enjoy the visit but were rather bemused when I referred to Teplice (population 25,000) as a "city". Being used to Cairo (population 20,000,000), Teplice probably seemed like a little village to them. Somehow, we managed to avoid accidents with pork in the local restaurants - I had never really noticed before how many Czech words on a menu can mean something that contains pork.

My mother has had her trip here and we had good weather this time. We went to the opening concert of the annual Beethoven Festival in Teplice, sitting in the middle of the front row from which we had no difficulty hearing the orchestra! We also went to the permanent Old Master exhibition in the Zwinger gallery in Dresden - well worth a visit if you've never been but there is almost too much to see and take in.

Of course, the garden has been going through the "grass max" period but it looks like growth has now slowed to mid-summer levels.

So Gail, how is your garden and will your dad really visit?

Chris

Sir Harry le Fise Lake

Excuse me butting in with slight OT posting, but thought this might be of assistance.

In the Brit Embassy Slovenia news letter this week, they sent out an interesting warning regarding PASSPORTS.

Since the Slovenia section seems moribund, I thought I would post this link in couple of places on this board.

I am not always a fan of the UK foreign office, but I think they are working hard on this one, and deserve to be noticed.

SEE
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/b...led-on-holiday

rgds H lFL

motyl

Chris,

I´m also a bit late in replying to you ,how time flies Did your Egyptian visitors enjoy their stay in Teplice ? ?

Sounds like your Mum had an enjoyable visit with you .As to my Dad ,well what can I say.He says he wants to come ? ? ? when .My youngets sister ,who lives 6 miles from him ,said that he talks about visiting but just seems to be ambling along .The last time I talked with Dad on the phone I said that I would leave things up to him as I feel quit silly asking him to come all the time.So we´ll see how things go.

With this heat wave at least the grass isn´t growing but I must say that I think the rain is now long over due .

Do you have any plans for a holiday Chris ? We are hoping to go away in our camper for a few weeks soon ? ? Italy or Chorvatsko.

I´m now off to water the plants.

Gail.

Cihadlo

Gail

Our garden has pretty much died in the drought that we are experiencing. We haven't had significant rain for several weeks. Much of the grass is turning brown; there are only some smal bit that hold moisture that I have had to cut. The fruit trees and bushes have largely given up too. I guess you are in much the same situation?

With several animals, I don't suppose you can have escaped needing to be involved with vets at some point? We've tried a few before finding a practice that we feel we trust. The three vets are all young ladies, two of which look implausibly young to me. The first time we went there with a cat that had hurt his leg doing a rather amibitious jump. I wondered why the work-experience girl was manipulating our cat's leg and surely the vet would be along in a minute. It only slowly dawned on me that the "schoolgirl" was indeed the vet!

Anyway, with Eva travelling a lot recently and more planned, we've wondered what would happen if I had to take one of the animals to the vets whilst she was away. Eva called them and asked whether any of them spoke English - they are all young enough to have studied English at school rather than Russian. They said that they all had a little English but it had suffered from lack of opportunity to practice. So, if it ever happened, it was agreed that we would use my poor Czech, their poor English and Google Translate on the practice computer.

Feeling I needed to take a more proactive approach, I've been role playing "at the vets" with my Czech teachers. One of them has many animals and plenty of expererience of vets. I began with "muj kocour ma prujem" and, over several lessons progressed to ever more complicated scenarios with "Dr Dalibor". Dr Dalibor in turn, prescribed ever more complicated treatments.

So, last Sunday, Eva set off for Cairo early in the morning and one of the cats had a fit even before she had reached the airport. Now this wasn't a great surprise as he does occasionally have fits and has daily medication for them. Then in the early evening he had another one! I decided to increase his medication a bit and watch developments. I had a lesson on Monday and an emergency session of "můj kocour měl záchvaty" but fortunately Mikes's condition appeared to stabilise; there were now more fits during the week and Mikes and I didn't need to embark on this particular adventure!

Chris

motyl

Chris,

Well, you certainly appear to have used your role playing "at the vet"to active use with poor Mikeš ,hope his fits have stabilised now ? ? and hope you now feel more confident to go to the vets if you need to ? ? Where we live d previously, the vet did speak a bit of English but I always spoke in Czech and seemed to be understood .The vet we go to now is older and doesn´t appear to speak English but that´s fine by me as he appears to understand me so I´m pleased.

Gail.

Cihadlo

Gail

I think we've passed from autumn to winter this week. The wood stove has been lit every day. There was snow higher up the hillside last Monday.

Micky has been fit-free since that weekend. He does remarkably well for a 15 year old cat. His favourite food is English breakfast sausage and I am pestered by him continuously every Sunday morning.

We've had a surprising and welcome development in our little village during the summer; we have a new restaurant/pub. Several have closed even since I've been here and so it was a little surprising. More surprising still is that it is a Belgian restaurant! It's run by a Belgian cook and his Czech partner and the food is really excellent. The cook has been taken on by one of my Czech teachers. It seems that they had no local connection but just liked the place when they visited - we're very pleased that they did. So, Belgian specialities have become a weekly treat for Eva and me. Local Czechs seem to have taken to Belgian cuisine and a booking is necessary on most nights.

Chris

motyl

Chris,
We´ve also started heating though the weather has been milder over the last few days.We did have a cold spell a week or so ago with frosty mornings and one morning we had a bit of snow but it melted very quickly .
The Belgian retaurant in your village sounds interesting,what sort of food is typical on a Belgian menu ?
I expect you and Eva are getting ready for Christmas ,are you staying in Č Ř or going to England ? Though our daughters are older now they still love Christmas so we will have a traditional Vánoce.
I´m off to Brno today to do a bit of Christmas shopping with my eldest daughter and while I´m there I´m going to look for mince pies as I haven´t had a mince pie in the last 21 years ! !
Gail.

Cihadlo

Gail

Happy New Year!

No I didn't go to the UK for Christmas - I haven't been there at all for two and a half years. So, it was our usual mix of Czech and British Christmas traditions.

Our old cat Mikes survived to get his Christmas sausage but didn't live long in to the New Year. Having not had a single fit for 6 months, he had several in a single day. On the vet's advice we increased the medication; this did not make any difference but the vet said we should be patient and give it time to take effect. Next morning he was in a terrible state and Eva rang the vet to make arrangements for us to take him there to be put to sleep. So many times in the past Micky had surprised us by returning to good health from apparently hopeless situations. We loaded him to the car and set off - he never liked visits to the vet very much. When we got to the vet's car park we found that Mikes had given us one last surprise - he had died during the journey! At least he had a happy life until the last few hours.

I've been in Egypt since New Year and was due to go again today but the trip was cancelled due to security concerns around possible trouble around the annerversery of the January 2011 revolution. And so we can go for a walk and have a Belgian beer this afternoon. You asked about Belgian food - meatballs cooked in beer is my favourite. Most dishes have a pretty heavy sauce to eat with chips. Pig tongue in Maderia sauce is another favourite. There are lighter alternatives but much of it is quite heavy.

Chris

BEVS

I'm sorry to read that, despite all the very best of love and effort , Mikes died.

Leaves a big hole where a cat should be doesn't it. 15 is not a bad age I suppose but personally I think all pusscats should live as long as their owners. At least that is what I am telling my TylerBaba cat who is nearly 18.

Not the best of starts to your 2016 but I do hope the year is a good one each and every day.

motyl

Chris,
Sorry to hear about the loss of Mikes,as you said he´d had a good life but it still doesn´t make the loss of a dearly loved pet any easier to get over.
Sounds like the cancelled trip to Egypt was a good excuse to drop by at the Belgian restaurant though the food wouldn´t be for me as I´m a vegetariánka but the beer sounds good.
I was thining tat Spring was round the corner bt we have really chilly weather at the moment as I expect you have too.though the tops of hyacinths are already above ground so hope we don´t get any heavy frosts.
Gail.