I don’t even know how it happened, but suddenly we are living in a village and living the real village life as it comes. Not the Instagramable village life where you gather walnuts, bake delicious goodies and your kids are somehow still clean. It’s the real Czech village life experience. In a house that’s god knows how old and hasn’t been renovated since the father of my children was born. I know he looks young, but let’s just say renovations were desperately needed a decade ago. There’s no heating system, except for a fireplace and when we first started using it, there was almost no running water. The walls are crumbling in more than one place, the spiders have been its sole inhabitants for years and they are refusing to leave, the bathroom is so old that my teenage self would rather do a bush wee than to use it and the stairs creak as you walk up. Either way, I understand the spiders because despite all this, it’s an amazing place. If I exaggerate a little, I would go as far as saying that there’s not that many places like this in the world. The view is spectacular, right into the fields behind which you can see a historical church, on a clear day, you can see the ruins of an ancient castle on a hill, all this behind a lush greenery of beautiful trees, which now have started to turn colours. Don’t get me started on the sunset, put a wine glass in my hand, give me ten minutes on the terrace and the poet in me will get teary. I am a sucker for a great view, always have been. The garden is in desperate need of love, but even the little we can currently give, she soaks up and gives back multiple times. From the impenetrable bush that we encountered on our first visit here, she turned into a tame picturesque oasis where the kids run wild and actually give me a moment of peace in the sun. The neighbours are as you’d imagine in a place like this. We have already received a multitude of baked goods, homemade jams, picked vegetables, apples, strawberries and dumplings. We have a 91 year old neighbour who doesn’t let us pass by without inviting us in and she’s still driving. She also offered to mow our garden. Some people like to live a private life, I actually like to live in a community where you can ask someone for eggs. Despite being in the middle of nowhere, it can’t be so lost because we barely have a weekend without visitors. I might be cooking in pots that have been regularly used when Lukas was still in nappies, but we keep our wine and dine standards, turns out the couriers have no trouble finding us and the wineries deliver, it’s also possible to order bread from bakeries and Prague and have it here by the evening and thanks to our wonderful friends, the best roasted coffee in Czech Republic is also now available in this cottage.
This has been an unexpectedly positive stream of thoughts so I might just leave it as it is and return to the pressing question, that you are all surely asking, of how we started living here for next time.
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