Winter peace

One of the reasons why I love living here is the utter peace one experiences whenever getting out of town - you don't need to go far to find vast swathes of nature where you won't meet a soul, indeed where you won't see a house or any other overt signs of human habitation.

So you can wander quietly for hours just enjoying the signs of animal life, and when you get up to the higher levels, there are vistas to die for - as we are surrounded by mountains everywhere you look.

And when the bright Winter sun gets low and begins to set, it offers spectacular beauty that reminds of old religious paintings - you kind of expect an angel or two to descend, instead of the white trails of the high-flying passing aeroplanes.



 And then, being Winter, there is Silence: the snow buffers any sound, and the windless stillness adds to the magic of it all.

Well, the photos can't quite show it, but here are a few to share at least a pale reflection of the real experience.

Natural disaster

 I am breaking the Cesky Krumlov blog to go somewhere very far - to Almara in India. It's because I want to share an email sent to me by an American woman friend who has lived there - and also in the Czech republic, hence the connection.
She writes with such dreadful news - what gets me is that I listen daily both to BBC Radio 4 as well as the Czech radio, and we've heard nothing of this. Just Labour party elections, financial crises, Czech government shenanigans - it's as if natural disasters with masses of people, animals, trees and crops dying, were something that's no longer newsworthy unless we really have thousands dead. We are getting imured to what we are doing to the planet, it seems. But no more from me - here is the text of the e-mail itself:

> things have been very bad here this past week - we have had 4 days and nights of unrelenting heavy rain and that came on top of weeks of heavy monsoon. the ground had been saturated for some time. when the cloud burst came, the mountain fell down the mountain. landslides are everywhere, many many many people are dead or disappeared, whole villages are gone. 2 of my friends died and many people i know lost their homes. me too. my beautiful house was lost to the landslide day before yesterday. now i am homeless and staying at at a guest house until i figure out what to do.... and i have no money to speak of. god knows how this one will play out.... the atmosphere around here is so heavy. people are all crying or trying not to. many go out for search and rescue though there's not much rescue. i am exhausted from 2 days of heavy work trying to save my house from the mud (also tired from sleepless nights listening to every little sound that might spell disaster)until i thought i would drop dead. but then the big slides came and i had to evacuate. i am so tired but i can't even sit still for a minute. something in my nervous system can't rest after all the "high alert" stuff. and when i do sit, like everyone else who is not rushing about trying to help, i just cry. not for myself though there is that too, but in response to the heavy grief in the air....it is very bad here. you see these feelings on disaster clips on tv, but until you are in one, you have no idea how it feels in your cells. it's like an alien force has taken you over and everyone is prey and there is no escape.
don't know if any news of this has gotten out. i just looked on the google and they report 65 dead in the state which i think is nuts. on the first day we had 30 dead in the next village and yesterday i heard there were 100 dead in almora town. there are mass cremations in the rain with corpses lined up waiting their turn... i was never in a disaster like this. i couldn't imagine....
this morning i heard one on my friend's body was recovered. he was lying on what was once his bed holding his 2week old first born. his whole family died except for one sister who is in a coma. this is an unreal state.
i think i am still in shock. i think everone is. somehow it is all just so horrible that you think you must be dreaming it....
that's all for now. i am in a safe place. please send prayers for all of us.

Winter walks on skis

When you feel like a walk in the middle of Winter, you'd have a hard time going unless you put on a pair of walking skis. There are two ways to enjoy this pastime: one, when you take yourself on the many kilometres of prepared cross-country, or 'langlauf' walkways, kept by the municipality and well signed.
You can buy maps that clearly mark these paths, and as moving on skis is faster than walking on foot, you can cover further distances in the Winter than you would in the Summer, and see much of the countryside, stop off in villages for a mulled wine or beer, go alone or in groups, and take it easy, or exercise your athletic prowess :-)

Two - and this is what I prefer - is to go into uncharted territory and make your own marks. There is nothing like the feel of the snow squashing under the narrow ski. Of course you don't cover as much ground as you would on a made-up langlauf highway, but, especially when going quite alone and being quiet you meet animals: hares, rabbits, deer.... I even saw a fox as I was coming back the other afternoon close to dusk.

I love this country with all it has to offer. And being here in Krumlov means you needn't go far to get these pleasures: five minutes outside the town, and you are in a forest. So you have the best of both worlds.

skating at Lipno lake

When Lake Lipno freezes over, as it does every Winter (and it freezes so deep that people even drive cars, even lorries, over - as ferries obviously don't operate at Winter time) it is time for families to go skating, a must for most people here. When much snow has fallen, the Lipno resort obliges by keeping a clear path over the ice - 11km long - so you can skate to your heart's content and it never gets crowded like normal municipal outdoor ice-rinks tend to at this time. They also keep a path for people on walking-skis - 'langlauf' being another activity beloved by Czechs of all ages and shapes. But that maybe is a subject for some other blog.
In the evening, tired and full of endorphins from the sun and the exhillaration of skating, you get an added bonus of the famously spectacular sunsets over the lake. What more can one ask of a piece of Nature?

Wild mushroom harvest

Winter is coming, and the forest is slowly getting ready for a good rest - nevertheless passionate mushroom-hunters were still able to pop out for a basketful well until a week or so ago. Now you can still get blewits, honey fungus and the odd late chanterell, especially the 'brown', yellow-stemmed variety, and the few other late species. But I just had to share with you the photos from my trip a couple of weeks ago when the array of fungi was still quite spectacular. What to do with such a harvest? Well, some mushrooms get dried, some pickled, some eaten there and then. The Czechs have hundreds of ways to cook their beloved fruit-of-the-woods, but to me I always prefer not to use the mushrooms as an ingredient in another dish: there is nothing better than to savour the taste of each one as it comes, just with a little bit of olive oil and butter, black pepper and a pinch of salt. Yum.

The first residents at the riverside house

As the riverside house is far from ready to move into, we are spending happy hours civilising its garden in the meanwhile. Ever since we started, a couple of blackbirds followed our every move, getting worms out of the freshly dug earth, and generally being extremely friendly and unafraid. Well, now they've settled in, beating us to it :-)
They found a lovely nook in the wall under the balcony and we watched the male busily flying in and out feeding his mate who sat on the eggs. And now there are 4 fresh chicks there. We waited for a moment when Mum flew off to feed to take their photo - the quality of the pictures is not so good as it's done with a zoom, but still...

the protest is growing in strength

Today groups of people were seen discussing the issues around the disappeared trees and the about-to-disappear island. And in just two hours, over three hundred more signatures were added to the petition. Generally, outrage is still being felt, not just by the citizens of this town but by native visitors, too (the petition is in Czech so no foreigners signed, although they, too, often stopped by and expressed their interest and support).
And the model duck on the island has attracted media interest so the issues are also being aired by journalists (very cautiously!) and on various newspaper web-forums.
Mostly, people are cross that they haven't been told in advance about the demise of the trees. Or the planned removal of the island. Well, the most often quoted defense by the town's luminaries is that 'information was given out duly, and well in advance'. So a couple of activists spent hours in libraries looking through past issues of local papers, and examining the town hall's past public notices. Yes, there were a few tiny - sort of 'by the way' - mentions of an application for grants for flood prevention back in 2007, but no mention of trees or island in particular, or of the actual extent of the works in question. The actual applications and building permissions, as well as the environment commission approval somehow happened. Quietly. More work needs to be done in this area before any meaningful action could be taken - but I am happy to report that the protest activities must be stirring the Town hall at least a little bit, as the Mayor who until a couple of days ago was always saying 'it's been approved, what can I do now?' has been quoted in a local paper saying he will see what he can do!

So keep those fingers crossed please. The trees can't come back now, but we may - just - save the island. And make sure no other damage is being quietly prepared within this 'flood-prevention project': apparently the grant given for this is 180 000 000 crowns (cca 6 million pounds) that's a lot of money to spend on the poor old river within such a tiny town area as Krumlov. The river rising has always been part of every Spring's picture, sometimes barely lapping the bank, sometimes spilling like fury. But the sturdy mediaeval houses on its banks, built with floods in mind, saw no damage except getting very wet. Unpleasant, yes - some years VERY unpleasant, but people who lived there always knew, and know now, that this may happen from time to time - and the calculations about removing the island would mean a difference of 10cm(!) in the water-height flow. Which actually means no difference at all, given how high the floods can get once in a hundred years or so. And by the way, the biggest flood, in 2002, was allegedly caused not by Nature but at least partly by mismanagement of the outflow of the dam upstream during high water, because its reservoir (Lipno lake) is a popular place with Dutch tourists whose Marina had (allegedly) a contract with the river authority about keeping the water level at a constant height. Whereas before, the lake was always let down in anticipation of Spring surge in its inlets.
But I am no engineer, so maybe I am veering onto a territory I am not qualified to touch. All I can say is that every single person asked who lives in the riverside houses (bar one) has answered to the activists' questions that they would rather suffer the occassional floods than watch the devastation of their so-far gentle and pleasant banks. Let alone the gaping damage to the UNESCO town monument's overall feel. Goodness, they'd better start printing new postcards now that the greenery has gone from the banks!

Ducks fight back

This morning, the citizens of Cesky Krumlov woke up to a strange sight: there under the bridge at the island stands a proud, three metres high Duck, with banners proclaiming: 'Ducks against diggers', and 'don't take our island away'. Whatever next???? :-)

Barbaric? The sad demise of a jewel

A few days ago, there was a shockwave going through the town. Phones rang, people stopped eachother in the street: have you seen what's happening??? And down by the riverside, shocked groups wondered about like lost souls, shaking their heads in disbelief - one by one, 21 beautiful, mature trees were being felled in front of their eyes. Some even hundreds of years old. Huge pieces of machinery were carving deep ruts in the soft banks as their hungry teeth and jaws picked the fallen trunks, some up to 120cms in diameter, dragging them away like powerless matchsticks. 'You can't do this'! shouted those who were able to find some voice through their tears. To no avail, of course: the workmen had permission, this is all completely legal so what's the fuss? And when the trees are felled, it'll be the turn of the small narrow island that for centuries provided the so often photographed, soft, green contrast to the stone and cobble architecture of this picturesque town, and was a home to a much loved population of wild ducks - just getting ready to raise their young.

People of Cesky Krumlov (like so many others?) roughly divide into two kinds: ordinary citizens, and politicians/bureocrats. And then there are a few who occasionally try to have their words heard (some hope!). And so very quickly a petition was put together, hundreds of signatures are being collected still - but of course everyone knows it won't help because - as usual - this barbaric idea got through the planning stages as cleverly as so many others. 'There will be some flood prevention works on the embankment', we were told, but the details were subject to a 'special regime', so no mention that the ancient trees, mostly willows that ancestors planted precisely to prevent the banks from eroding during high water, would be felled, and certainly not a mention of the planned demise of the small island that was a mini-nature reserve in itself, home not just to the ducks but also to a (locally rare) bird Motacilla cinerea, a diverse population of rare species of insects, and to the occasional otter. One stroke of a bureocratic pen, and voila! all gone.

I am watching an old woman, frail but dignified: 'flood prevention?' she says. 'No; it's the way forests are managed, water-meadows and peat bogs are kept, that floods are prevented. It's in management of outflow from Lipno dam - not here. Casing the banks in concrete? What arrogance... how can you try to outwit Nature?' Her neighbour chipped in: 'Someone somewhere got their hands on a grant, it's that simple'.
Could it really have been that simple?
(the picture below is a reverse pov of the embankment last Summer: the trees within the marked circle are no longer here)

Winter ride

I haven't been blogging for a while (will fill you in on what's been going on, soon) but for now I'd love to share with you a beautiful, if a bit intrepid, day trip in the snow. The weather wasn't all that good, bit of snowfall among the bits of sunshine - but hey, who minds. Starting in Krumlov at dawn, we rode 60 kms (that's the distance by road, I don't know how many overland, but quite enough!), getting soaked through, then spending a wonderful warm lunch at a pub, with garlic soup, and tea with rum. Dry again, we rode back through woods and over fields. What a balm for the soul. Come and join us sometime! :-)

Krumlov to Forest House - the journey

There isn't any building work going on at the Forest House as it is mid-Winter, but I'd like to share with you the journey from Krumlov to the house and back - with a few pictures taken along the journey. I find it an incredible journey whatever season. Even though it's only a 15 minute drive, the last quarter it's like entering a different world, every time.

tree-lined country roads

As I drove to the Lake house the other day I was reminded, by seeing the last apples clinging onto a roadside tree, that I keep meaning to blog about this typical feature of the countryside. While the British roads have their lovely thick old hedges, almost all the minor, and many of the major, roads here are lined by - mostly old - trees. Now roadside trees are not something you wouldn't see in other European countries, but what is so special here is the frequency of them, and the variety. You get the giant lime trees or oaks along the routes that once were linking the important market towns, you get acers and ashes along others. Elsewhere you get liquid gold tunnels of beeches, especially colourful now in their Autumn glory. You see willows holding the road-banks in damp places, or tall poplars shielding the more exposed roads from the wind. But the most touching of all are the avenues of fruit trees that decorate the smaller roads, village to village everywhere: plums, apples, cherries, pears.
It is said that all these trees have a double function: 1/ to strenghten the road edges, and b/ to serve the travellers. Of course, in the days before cars, people used to travel more slowly, in their wagons and coaches, and so many just on foot. To markets, to work, to see the world. And the trees were there to shade their path from the sun, to shelter them from rain, and to provide them with sustenance. To this day, these trees bear their fruit for the travellers, but who needs shelter in rain-proof, air-conditioned cars, and who would eat the fruit polluted by so many passing exhausts? So the trees come to blossom and fruit, mostly to drop piles of rotting, unwanted produce - quite poignant, really. And there are many drivers who would have all these trees cut down. They curse and swear at them, because they slow them down, keeping the road span narrow, having never been intended for such speed. Indeed you see far too many little sad remembrance wreaths on the old tree-giants' trunks along the major roads, where two speeding cars coming in opposite directions had no room to move over and swerved head-on into the tree's arms.
But I do hope that the trees stay. And it seems that some local authorities here, including ours, favour the trees over the 'freedom to drive' too. I was very unhappy to see some giants felled on the road to the Mill but then, just a mile or so, I saw a brand new avenue planted, leading to the village where our friendly carpenter lives. So the tradition is surviving, and long may it live.

... and one more photo for those who may be interested how the Lake house is doing: currently it is a total mess of pipes, but it's progress : soon I hope to be able to report that the bathroom, hall and pantry are at the stage of rough finish. Watch this space :-)