Update

Tim is still slaving away at work so it has been left to me to post a few words.

Building is going slowly as it is entirely cash dependent but at least the roof is now insulated so the heating can turned on.

Our fantastic builder installed a large rusty wood burner into the living room of the part of the house that is habitable so at the moment all is toasty but we have already had a week of snow so I can tell you that I wasn't looking forward to the next few months without working radiators. With an electric fan, I am able to transfer some of the heat into the bedroom and the kitchen although the temperature differences remain high. At the moment it is about 30C in the living room and 8-9C in the bathroom.

As you probably know, when you use ground source heating, the temperature that eventually reaches the radiators is much lower than we Brits are used to from our gas/electric heating. Usually you have to install much larger radiators and/or underfloor heating. This will mean that whilst the heating - on this side of the house - in our standard sized radiators will be effective for most of the winter (especially as heat loss takes longer through metre thick walls) I will probably still need to use the wood burner when the temperature really drops.

Some of the plaster boarding is also completed. Our builders have curved the apex of the ceiling in the master bedroom and it is going to look beautiful when finished. Unfortunately, it took so long to complete this feature that we have had to make the decision that the other rooms will have to be boarded in a more straightforward fashion to save time/money.

Tim plans to share some of the photos of what was our garden at some point. I am glad that its winter as there isnt a blade of grass that survived the ground pump digging. We ended up with 6 x 90m bore holes (hit water 3 times!!) which were then connected via pipes buried 2m in huge trenches.

Oh well - we are in this for the long haul...

Deer Hunter

I am more than a bit behind with a few postings as you can see. The following happened a couple of months ago before "the snow came..."

As you are probably aware, Tim and I have a mad little “Min-Pin” called Spike. Up until Oz the “Mys hunter” came to live with us Spike ruled the roost and dictated the daily goings etc.

Since said relentless cat arrived we have made particular effort to take Spike for walks and give him some attention (He doesn’t get much with Oz demanding all of our full focus!). Funny thing is that whilst Spike seems to have become “all grown up” not he has a younger playmate he also become naughtier when we are out with him.

As you probably know, in Czecho you cant walk a few yards into the countryside without seeing a few deer loitering in a field or running across the path. Spike can smell the deer and it is clear that he feels the need to be with them! On the odd occasion that he has noticed deer (he isn’t all that observant!) he has chased them across fields like Pepe Le Pew, never quite catching up but very enthusiastically bouncing up and down through fields of corn/daisies (everything is taller than him) to get his bearings and further the chase. As “parents”, Tim and I find it all very disconcerting especially as Spikes excitement gets so much the better of him that no amount of calling and bribery will make him come back until he is well and truly ready. To this end – and also because it is now hunting season- he is now on “lead restrictions” except when he appears to be doing as he is told.

Our mistake…

Half and hour into a stroll in the forest and Spike just turns left off the path a few feet ahead of us and he was gone. Twenty minutes later and we were at panic stations. I was dispatched home to get mobile phone and car and Tim carried on calling for errant hound. At the hour point I think that we were losing hope but then this is Czech so what happened next shouldn’t really have been a surprise.

Tim turned back to retrace along the path that we had come only to hear a dog bark. (Ours doesn’t bark except at strangers at the house). Thinking – wisely – that where there is another dog, Spike might be drawn, he followed the sound… only to be met on the path by a woman with a large otter hound, Spike on a lead and…

a tame pet deer.

Yes, a deer. It seems that this lady has hand reared the fawn and now it follows her around like a –well behaved- dog. You can just about see the collar that it is wearing in the picture below.

So dog found and a new experience to add to the ever growing list.

Mysi

So we saw a mouse (mys)…

Tried to explain to Spike – please bear in mind that he is a Min-Pin and was therefore bread as a “ratter” – that he should catch and kill all small moving things. Most especially, we have tried to re-instill this killing instinct in relation to anything that runs across the living room floor or that jumps out of our kitchen cupboards. It hasn’t worked. In fact our not so bright hound is usually totally unaware when the little critters are eating out of his food bowl or running around behind his back. On the odd occasion that he spots one of the little monsters creeping about, he wags his tails and chases it in a sad effort to find a new friend!!!

By the time we saw the third mouse, we realized that there was a bit of a problem. OK, so we have lived in old houses before so I was prepared with the poison. The problem with poison is that it doesn’t kill the mys immediately. This leads to the unsettling problem of finding (or worse, Spike finding) small critter staggering around in the final throws. The worry that said dog might suddenly decide that dead poisoned mys might provide a tasty snack put an end to the poison stations.

Everyone said “get a cat”!

Our builder provided the second solution. He arrived one day with 5 of those spring loaded death traps and advice about potato. Apparently potato is the ideal bait….

No it isn’t, and neither is chocolate or anything else that I found in the fridge. In fact the little critters seemed to prefer Spikes food above all else and Spike didn’t seem to mind sharing at all. So dog food was the solution. The problem with dried dog food is that it doesn’t stick to the trap. In the first few cases the bait was taken and the traps remained set. So, I tied the bait to the hook – little buggers weren’t going to get it off without a struggle.

Of course, I hadn’t quite prepared for the first success. Spike saw it before I did! The trap had not worked exactly to plan and the mys was still writhing in it. Whilst I can usually cope with most things – I am after all a trained medical professional! – the sight of a spasming little mouse being harassed by an excited little dog was too much and I did the “girly” thing and ran out to find a man who dispatched the thing with a large boot.

Again, everyone said “get a cat”!

I sent a text to all English speaking friends to ask where it might be possible to find a “mys killing” fiend of a cat and was instantly besieged with messages and locations.

The next day my Czech friend and I visited a farmhouse. On entry the little girl of the owner presented me with a dangly little 8 week old ginger kitten who immediately became part of the family.

Oz is cuddly, cute and relentless. You should see him and Spike play together – no-one could have foreseen this strange bond occurring. When they are not rolling around on the floor play fighting, they are sharing Spikes food or curled up together in his bed licking each others faces.

And the mice…..

Well, we still see the occasional mys but now that Oz is the grand old age of 12 weeks the critter is usually very dead and soon becomes one with cat. Why is it that when we kill a mouse we feel inhumane and guilty but when our littlist boy does it we feel like proud parents!

Will post some photos when TOH brings back the camera cable!

Mushrooms

According to our lovely heating engineer “Mushroom picking is a competitive sport in the Czech Republic”.

He is right you know! As you drive along the back roads at ridiculous times of the early morning you can already see flashes of clothing through the trees as the foraging starts.

For us Brits Abroad, mushroom picking is not so much competitive as an “Extreme” sport. Bear in mind that on the whole Brits do not forage (although Hugh F-W is helping with the recent surge of interest in this area). A neighbor once turned down fresh carrots from my garden because she preferred to see what she was getting all wrapped up at Tesco. OK so we might pop down a local lane to pick blackberries but how many people actually pick the wild plums and cherries that grow locally.... not many I can tell you.... in fact whilst eating some during dog walking, I am often asked by fellow walkers whether it is safe to eat the fruit from the trees!!

Anyway I diverge. “Extreme”, yes because we Brits on the whole have absolutely no idea what we are doing when it comes to mushrooms. It is a bit like Russian Roulette for us. Our parents didn’t teach us what to look for and I guess that as children a giant puffball was there to be kicked not eaten. Over the last few months my lovely Czech friends have taken time out with me for foraging/teaching trips to various good mushroom hunting spots. So far I have managed to pick some of the most deadly specimens and also some pretty good eaters.

I have a fairly simple system to decide whether I will eat something that I have picked myself. Firstly I try to identify it in one of several mushroom books that I now own. Usually I am left with a choice of two pictures, one of a very poisonous mushroom and one of a particularly delicious mushroom – both of which appear to look the same. Then, I present the mushroom and the pictures of specimens in the book to my builder (yes, the builder – most Czech people have a pretty good understanding of mushrooms). If he says yes, I then take it to my friend Hannah who gives me a definitive answer before I cook/eat it. If he says no, I abandon the mushroom and try to remember what it looked like.

So far, I have Chanterelles in the freezer and I have dried some Boletes ready for winter stews. Of the mushrooms that need be eaten fresh the Parasol is probably the most interesting find. You fry it whole and it tastes a bit like scrambled egg but has the texture of fish (sort of!) The best thing about them is that they are kind of easy to spot because of their size. We measured the last find up against the dog (I didn’t have a tape measure with me) and just look at the size of it!!

Recent posts

Hi all,

As I started the posts a fair while ago they didn't exactly post in the right order so please take the time to go back through and re-read in case there's anything you find of interest ..., will post some more stuff soon .... its all happening, including our budget nearing crisis point so I'm off back to the North Sea for some overtime today having travelled back to the UK from CZ last night in 16hrs ...
See you soon with more updates on the build and I think 'S' has some other stuff to post on Mushrooms and Elder Flower Champagne.

cau...

Heating - a change of mind

After agreeing that we were going to go with solar heating we have changed our minds .... why??, because solar heating is proving to be expensive and not as green and energy efficient as you might think !!.

Basically, despite your solar system heating your water you will still require an electric heating system that heats your water in a storage tank during night time and low light hours. This will require an increase in your electric mains power from 12 to 34Kw. Using the building and room dimensions we calculated our energy, (electric) usage would come to nearly 20,000Kc, (over £660 per month) !!!. I am so glad I held the initial site meeting now as it was our appointed buildings engineer who ensures all works are carried out in accordance with the authorised plans that raised the issue. Without asking he went away and did some of his own calculations and advised us against it. Turns out he was looking to do the same to his own property until he found out about about geothermal heating and ground pumps and has had the system fitted to his property. We went to visit and its very impressive. Ive attached some pics of the system as you can see. We have since had a survey completed and are looking to go this way. Despite the outlay being a little more that the solar system we are looking at a considerable overall cost reduction with a limitless source of heating ....

We have now engaged an engineering company to do the geothermal, (ground source) installations and they recently arrived on site and started installing all the pipework ...

Window problems

(above computer animated image)

Prior to submitting your final plans to the local planning office its a good idea to make contact with them to tell them your intentions. We have done this via our 'girl in krumlov' and have explained to them our intentions and exactly what we want to do. Up to now they have been very helpful as far as explaining what we need to do and which things we need to be compliant with. Turns out we are in a conservation area so need to be sympathetic to our surroundings. We showed our window plans to the office and explained how many we intended to fit in order to provide a sufficient amount of light in the new bedrooms. They were given the ok so based on this we obtained quotes and agreed a company to do the fittings for us. Unfortunately it turns out that the person who initially agreed our plans has since left the Krumlov planning office and their replacement informed us that we had to reduce the amount of windows we intended on installing. This was based on the fact that despite the fact you would see no structural changes to the roof from the street you could see them on the inside of the courtyard from the main road as you pass the village, (from about 1/2 K away, on a good day if your really paying attention !!!, we think some politics going on). Potentially there could be major isues with this ... no windows no light in our new rooms. We were then told we could have them visible from the street instead ??!!. If we had known this before we would have done it this way so had to revise our plans at additional cost. Our architect has been great about all our changes, (he is also a member of the historical society) so did this for a minimal cost. We have had the plans re-submitted along with all the rest of our building permissions and finally recieved the final papers and approval a couple of weeks ago. We have done all we have been asked to do, (again with Czech help) so all should be fine. Prior to final approval we were told that we could start some of the work so long as it didn't effect any of the structure so the builder started work waterproofing and lining the roof as no weatherproof membrane had been previously fitted. Building works have since commenced with a fervour .... including some feets of extraordinary engineering .. ( the beam was huge!!!! ..400kgs) ... I think I'll entitle that one 'Health and Safety' ... but thats another post.

Exchange rates - important

Money is always going to be a big deal when buying / renovating abroad ....

When we bought the house in 2007 the exchange rate was 41.5 Ck to the Pound, we recently bought Ck's for as low as 27.50 .... our last transfer which was a pretty large amount we managed to get 30.45. Hopefully the market will pick up again but with the interntional monetary crisis the market is slow although there have been some improvements. With exchange rates so bad it can't be helping the tourist industry which Krumlov so relies upon.

You will need to consider how you are going to get your money from the UK in CZ. We did this using either one of 2 ways, ...
1) hand carrying sterling and exchanging it once we got over which means you need to shop around to get the best deal .... locally the best appears to be Petra Tour s.r.o no. 4 Karla street in Cesky Budejovice which is about a 1/2 hour drive from Krumlov but you can also go to Pilzen or Prague but that involves a fair trip from Krumlov.
or
2) using an International Money transfer company ... you really need to shop around with these to get the best rates and when you have all the rates you need to palm them off against each other to see if you can get an even better deal. You can try the following ...
http://www.hifx.co.uk/, http://www.moneycorp.com/ or http://www.currenciesdirect.com/uk/ .... these seem to be the best. One thing to be sure of is that you have a Czech bank account and also be aware your bank may charge you for transfering to them from the UK !!?? sounds daft but most seem to do so, up to 1000Ck+. When you do your deal with the exchange company make sure that they will cover any of those costs. Basically follow the process as described at http://moneysavingexpert.com ..... good luck.

Problems with an old house episode one

Of course ..... buying an old house is going to mean that you are going to find things that need fixing ... unfortunately when they have been covered up for years and left unchecked you don't tend to find these things until you happen upon them. Luckily we have some experience with these things so along with our builder we have been doing some uncovering .. (its helps when you know the right places to look).
Roof and ceiling timbers are a major issue so one of the first things we have done is got a roofer in to inspect and repair some of the slipped and rotten / damaged timbers .... once that was done we got our builder to treat all of the exposed roof timbers with an insecticide to kill any beetle / worm infestations. Unfortunately after further inspection, to see if the chemical treatments had worked we came upon further issues, mainly within the areas where the house had been renovated over the last 20yrs or so. It would appear that the oldest parts of the house, mainly the ceiling timbers have remained unaffected but the newer parts where the ceilings have been modified show signs of dry rota and woodworm infestation so we decided to get an independent surveyor in to have a further look who along with the builder highlighted further areas for concern. So after much brick moving and disposing of timbers all areas that require to be addressed have been identified now all that is required is fixing / replacing and treating them so that any infestation is effectively irradicated. Irradicated being the operative word. Did you know that know that there is no 100% guarantee that chemical treatment will work, (have done quite a bit of research on this) as the chemicals cannot penetrate deep enough into the wood, especially the thickness of some of the timbers we have. The Beetles will literally come up for 'air', have a sniff and if they don't like what they smell they just wait and go back to hibernation. Apparently they can 'live' in the timbers for years. Your modern, thinner roof timbers can be treated effectively by chemicals. So ... what to do, as far as I knew this WAS the only way to treat timbers ... there is however a more modern and effective way to do this using microwaves. Apparently it can be done on floor boards and has been used on antique furniture for a few years so makes sense that it should work on roof timbers. This typically involves heating timbers to between 50-54 degC and has proven to kill larvae at all stages of development. We got in touch with a company called Impreg who are in Budejovice, see http://www.impreg.cz/ and had them treat our roof and ceiling timbers. Once the renovation work begins timbers etc. will get covered so we would rather have the piece of mind that the roof and ceiling is solid enough and bug / rot free to prevent even worse problems in the future.

Blowing up the house (our recent visit)

Hello all,

get ready for a load of posts, there is a fair amount to bring you up to date with, here is the first .....

Things have progressed since our last post and we are getting even closer to being full time in CZ. It is now just the tying up of those loose ends that are stopping us and of course getting all the planning permissions in place to start the renovations at the CZ house.
The planning side of things has taken up a fair amount of time, especially with the drawing up of plans and deciding how we are going to fit a completely new central heating system that will cover the whole of the living areas, (and not cost the earth in doing so) as well as windows to bring enough light into the rooms as well as the layout and position of the rooms etc. We have even had several complete changes of plans which includes issues with windows as well as changing from a solar heating system to a geothermal one. I'll tell more on this in further posts.
First of all we had a trip back to the house recently and had an exciting trip ....., after taking our friend H's advice I bit the bullet and had winter tyres fitted .... despite the fact this is likely to be a legal requirement throughout Europe very soon you just need to get this done. It makes a huge difference to your driving ... so we avoided the problems we encountered the last time we were over !!. It was the being at the house that was the fun bit ..... SNOW ... did it ever, in bucket loads and kept doing so during the whole stay ... great powder for skiing though !!!. The temp was a balmy -10deg C during the day and we had -20 at night. On our first night yours truly thought that it would be a really good idea to get the boiler started so after turning on the water supply and re-filling the system I started a fire .... in the boiler of course but it was a good one and it was happily roaring away but with freezing cold radiators and a pressure gauge creeping into the red zone rather rapidly with some pretty good clanging and banging of pipes !!!. Note to self and warning too others ... despite the central heating being drained down you will not get rid of all the water in the system. Yes you will prevent the pipes from bursting in your absence but you need to refill and heat your system slowly. I started the boiler using wood which provided the heat but as it couldn't circulate far beyond the boiler I managed to melt the pressure and temp gauges off of the front of it. Its a good job that the system is simple enough that you simply shut it all in to starve it of oxygen and then drain the water down so the pressure is reduced within minutes. Didn't save the gauges though !!. Unfortunately my neighbour did not have so much luck and thank god nobody was hurt .... her back boiler to an open fire in the lounge did blow .... took out all the windows to the front of the house and lifted the roof off!!!!. Turns out she never had a pressure relief valve fitted, not even a pressure gauge and it was just a matter of time and a hard freeze.
So as I said more to follow .... cau T

We've Sold !!!!!!

Hello all ..... good news .. but first I am sooo sorry we haven't posted for far to long .... sorry to my dear friend 'H' who's been watching and waiting ..... so hears my explanation;

We had a buyer for the house in June / July last year so hopes were raised and we were thinking that we would be in CZ by the end of 2008 but alas, the credit crunch was looming and despite even putting in an offer for our buyers buyer's property it all fell through and the property values continued to fall ... things were not looking good. Our buyer had to withdraw their offer which left us back at square one. We had a few viewings but no real interest until, finally, after months of waiting and wondering if we were ever going to sell our original buyer came back to us with an offer but at a significantly reduced amount than before which meant that we would have to find a property at a price which would still give us the capital required to do the work to the house at Mirkovice, and so the house hunting began. Not only has the housing market suffered but also business including my own work which meant additional time away from home and a new posting in Singapore leaving my wife to do ALL the work sorting things out. In total Shelley must have seen in the region of 30 properties before settling on what turned out to be a bargain at the price and would give us what we needed. The idea was to get everything completed by October during my first home leave but as is the way with these things there were further delays with mortgage offers and lawyers not doing anything, (not ours) and we didn't complete. Finally, a completion date was set for 3rd Nov only for our buyers buyer to transfer funds late and the completion not going through despite Shelley having packed up and then having to stay with relatives with a loaded lorry parked in the driveway until everything finally cleared 2 days later. So on 5th Nov 2008 we finally sold and moved to a smaller house in the UK that will be our base for now and also a place for my son to live when Shelley and I finally make the move full time to Krumlov. I didn't return from Singapore until the 11th December.
Since getting back we have managed to get over to Krumlov to see friends and catch up with things. We had the Xmas week there which was sooo good. It is such a relaxing place to be, we had plenty of walks but unfortunately no time for skiing although a huge dump of snow put a dampner on things as we were driving across the Czech border from Germany and meant a detour via Linz. Our friends inform us that we need snow tyres as its against the law not to have them as well as giving you that all essential grip you need which we didn't have when it was needed. Trouble is I have low profile motorway tyres on our Vectra and they can't be changed that easily. I will look to buy new wheels so that I can just change them when we get over, meantime I bought a set of snow chains just in case.
We had a meeting with our chosen builder and also pulled up some of the flooring to explore concerns about wood rot and beetle infestations. Thankfully things look okay. We are anticipating challenges like this so will let you know what else we find as things progress. We have already treated most of the wood work as well as removing some of the damaged beams. It looks like all the stuff that's a couple of hundred years old is fine ..its the stuff that was done in the 70's / 80's that isn't so good. The plans have all been done including the solar heating, plumbing and electricity .. we are just waiting to get the building engineers stamp that is required before they can be submitted to the planning office. We have been told it can take anything from 10 days to 3 months to get plans approved .... I'll keep you posted on that one. As soon as we get the go ahead we can get the builders in to start work installing windows and the solar heating system as well as the internal frame for new walls for the proposed 4 bedrooms with en suites.
Of course the 'new' house in the UK has needed some work including new boilers, carpets and a new kitchen. This has not been without its own challenges after flooded bathrooms after the plumbers apprentice forgot to shut the radiator bleed valves properly but good to his word the plumber has had the offending ceiling repaired and the new vinyl is being done on Monday. Shelley and I have been tiling the kitchen today...we make a good team and are honing our renovation skills ready for the big move to CZ once the plans are approved.
So .. that's how things are .., the main thing being we can now go ahead with what we've wanted to do for so long and that's to live full time in Krumlov.

Back with more news soon ... take care all,

Tim and Shelley x