Spring Day

Believe it or not, today it is officially spring. You would never say so judging by the weather, but the girls came home today full of the joys showing off their "spring fairies" that they had drawn.


She has even has flower eyes and flower boobs :)

Andělská Hora and Locket

After our walk in the forrest on Sunday morning, we headed out of Karlovy Vary to visit the castle at Andelska Hora.

It was founded sometime in the 14th century along the trade route to Prague. It is now in total ruin, but somehow that just feeds the fantasy. Walking through the rubble and ruin, you find yourself dreaming and imagining what used to happen there during that time. I would imagine the knights standing at the lookouts watching the approaching horseback riders coming over the hills in the distance.

The wind was blowing an outright gale and at some points, I could not walk foreward even though my leg was raised, just waiting to come down in front of me and my weight was leant forward - it somehow reminded me of brother bear on the cliff riding the wind. A & S had a really rough time of it with the weather with howls coming from them everytime the wind blew in their face. It was also very cold and the chill seemed to find us through our jackets and in the gaps.

Weather aside, it was definitely one of the better castle experiences I have had since being in Europe.

On leaving Andelska Hora, Colin's faithful GPS started to guide us to the next destination (only a minor glitch at the start where we had the wrong location pinned in), but when we started heading NE instead of SW, I questioned the GPS loudly enough for Colin to relook at the route and put in the new location. We also had some very interesting moments where the GPS got totally confused on itself with new roads popping up very inconsiderately and then others being blocked off just to confuse us all, so the poor GPS thought that we were riding across the fields on a number of occasions.

Our next destination was Loket on the other side of Karlovy Vary. This time, an older castle than Andelska Hora (from 1170) and one that is infact completely in tact and still in use.

The wind had turned into rain, so we visited the local restaurant for lunch within the castle walls before heading to the castle fortress.

The most grissly part of the tour is the torture chamber with all manor of exhibits of the methods and instruments of torture - dummies, sound effects, the works! Needless to say, Colin and I took turns to view the chamber with the girls playing outside.

On the route back home to Plzen, I set the way-points for the furthest out of the way towns and villages that I could find to get home (and added a cool hour onto the journey which only doubled the time to get home :)). We went through the smallest villages, that if there hadn't been a village starting and village ending sign, I am sure that we would not have known it was there. It also took us through some beautiful forrests on some rather more dodgy roads. It felt very good to be able to let whim and fancy steer our course home.

Trip to Karlovy Vary

This past weekend was to prove a real cocktail of experiences - not all bad ;)

Starting at the beginning... Karlovy Vary is a town built on and about a whole stack of hot springs. These springs have been acclaimed for the healing power of their waters, which are apparently frequently prescribed as medicine for an array of maladies. Despite the... shall we say "curious" taste of the water, there still seem to be hundreds of people quaffing it down zealously.
We planned the trip there during the previous week and were to go by car (enter cocktail ingredient one from the right side of the road). Which, was to be our first efforts behind the wheel of any kind of vehicle since January and then with the obvious excitement factor of having to dodge so many cars persisting on driving on the wrong side of the road... I kid, and we had all of 2 experiences in this new and strange system.
Hayley collected the car with the kids on Friday and came through to the flat to collect the baggage and the husband. She couldn't jimmy the kids out of the car for all the sweets in the country though, they were thrilled to be sitting in a car again - this means that they don't have to walk anywhere!
Bugz proceeded to drive us there, and with the minor infraction of almost driving down the wrong way of the main road just outside our house, all went well and we arrived, precisely as my TomTom directed us, in front of our little B&B.
The drive down saw Hayley smiling from ear to ear as has been her expression many times since our arrival at the pure joy of doing all this cool travel and stuff - driving for the first time and being alive at that one hour into the trip.

If I ever get to submit a suggestion to TomTom it's going to have to be "add a scenic route option to the navigation choices" this for people who want to get places via as many others as possible...
The house where we stayed is owned and run by a German tannie with an unusual grasp of English, which made a welcome change. We had 2 comfy rooms, so had an amount of space for us and the girls, a view of the town from up on the hill, (and believe me, this town is very very pretty to look at), a kitchenette, and our own bathroom etc. Very nice. Apart from the very squeaky beds the place was perfect, expensive for what you get, but still cheap compared to other options in the town.
We decided to take a little drive around town before din dins on Friday nite just to get our bearings and see the place before the next day. It was late in the afternoon, but light enough with clear skies to see the very pretty little town so packed with colour below us as we drove down the windy roads to the centre.
Enter the next cocktail ingredient wearing a police officers uniform! :0
We were casually minding our business, Hayley driving us through the town when without any prompting 2 uniformed officers in the road ahead of us waved us down.
I think our collective blood temperature dropped a few degrees as we saw them motion for us to pull over as suddenly we simultaneously remembered all the horror stories we've heard about the foreign police, the fact that all our identification, passports, drivers licenses etc. are all back at the B&B, our kids were not strapped into the legally-required car chairs... and oh, lordy who will look after our children while we rot, forgotten in some Romanian jail???
The cops offered us a choice of German or Russian to converse in, which we were thrilled at... at least they gave us a choice.
Asking for passports we kinda had to admit that as a result of our delirious joy at being in their most magnificent town we had clean forgotten to bring them with and how terribly sorry we were for having been so forgetful.
On hearing this stream of English, the 2 cops grew visible question marks on their faces and wondered how we missed the "German or Russian" choice! repeating the question a few times and getting no intelligible answers, the one cop leant into the window and insisted... "Sprechen ze Deutch?" to which I boldly replied "Kleine... kleine" satisfied that I could manage a single word he proceeded slowly... "Die strasse" pointing emphatically to the road beneath his feet "is einmal strasse!"
I don't really know if I have the spelling of any of this right, but we figured out very quickly that the direction we were pointing in was not the one permitted by the two very obvious road signs at the beginning of the boulevard!
We burst into a chorus of deep apologies and, as a single person they wheeled on their heels and walked away! Sheepishly we "U-Turned" and waving to our fans on the roadside made our way directly back to where we had come from and got out of the car.

Dinner that night was et at a small local pub / restaurant thingy where the food was good, the beer was better and a great evening was had by us all.
Just before we left, Sarah declared that she needed to wee-wee and so off the troop of girls set to the loo, the door to which was not 20M from our table... after all the necessary doings were done the hand washing got under way... my girls are not particularly quiet on a good day so I could hear some kind of commotion behind the door.
Wondering what was going on, Sarah blew through the door calling to me loudly that they couldn't close the tap... "great" I thought "now we have to explain how we broke the tap!". Entering the girls loo i see Hayley and Amber twisting with all their might on the poor handle of the cold tap, Hayley has taken a position against the wall for maximum leverage and is really doing her best to screw that handle in.
Stubbornly the tap still has a decent steady stream of water running out. Walking up to the basin I gently take hold of the hot tap and twist it softly clockwise... unbelievably the flow ceases and I know my wife has had one too many beers!
The next morning we woke up to a significant drop in temperature which has been with us all week. From unseasonal and comfy teens to very low single degrees and great overcast skies - rain forecast, the whole tooty...
Bravely we ventured forth all dressed for the occasion and proceeded to have a great time in the city. Needless to say we took the bus into the centre, walked the place flat the whole day and walked home in the evening.
KV is pretty! It is by far and away the most colourful town I've ever seen. Despite the overcast skies, the colours of the buildings and surrounds was still striking.

KV spring water as I mentioned is a renowned elixir and there were hundreds of people filling containers and special drinking cups (that are sold everywhere - below Hayley choosing cups for the babies)

and merrily drinking their ills away.
The water is hot - some of the springs have temperatures in the neighbourhood of 80 degrees C, others are a little cooler. The taste varies from horrid to disgusting and every sip sits like a hot rock in your stomach, well mine at least.
The babies didn't seem to mind though...




This is obviously just one aspect of the spring town - there is a massive industry around the baths and beauty treatments to be found here. This is one thing we didn't try... that's for next time :)

Like there is a wine route in the Cape - in KV there is a water route with springs popping out of the pavement all over the place. They are all sort of institutionalised, with their statistics like mineral content, temp and so on placed on plaques over them, and they are all housed in more or less grand colonnades...







KV is not as small as one might think, or certainly as one sees the spring centre. Built on hilly ground the town centre is in a valley and built up all around are suburbs and business districts looking down on it. A striking feature is that one finds the most run-down and abandoned buildings right next to flourishing hotels - very odd, esp as some of them have very good locations.
We spent quite some time on the upper level of the town looking down.


There are a few "lookouts" built around the town, two named after Charles and Diana, we took a trip up the Diana lookout in a custom tram (funicular?) that had to climb a hill so steep that the cars are built like stairs and pulled up by a cable.
The lookout is built on the top of a hill in the middle of a forest - very pretty. But up there where there is nothing keeping the wind at bay it was a veritable gale and we didn't stay up too long.

We found a nice little out-of-the-way pub for dinner and headed home for an early nite.

Sunday morning was even colder than Saturday. The day was planned to be spent in the car doing some of the nearby sights and then going directly home in the evening afterwards.
Before we left the B&B Hayley suggested that we walk in the forest at the end of the street - literally one house away from our B&B.
The girls had an absolute blast - take a look...

This is the fabled "Pink Ninja" - mythical guardian of the Karlovy Vary forests. Death is a drawn out and gruesome certainty.


The girls wanted to build a nest for a birdie, so they set about gathering the small branches that had been broken off by the strong winds and assembling a large, but rough nest. Clearing a small patch in the centre they declared that even an eagle birdie could be happy here...


On to Andělská Hora and Loket Castle ...

Karlovy Vary

This is where we will be this week-end. Will tell you all about it when we get back!
(See the town's home page)

Skating at Skoda Park

Welcome to life in the slow lane! Well actually, they were doing mach III, but welcome to a Sunday afternoon in Plzen.

I guess there is not much to watch on the telly, but on a week-end, the parks are packed and the Skoda sports park was bustling. In the centre of the skating circle, are a few beach volleyball courts, skate-hockey court, mini tennis courts, ramps and tricks for bikes / skateboards.

After only having their skates for less than a week, I am truly amazed at how quickly Amber & Sarah have got the basics of skating. What really helped was when I bought my skates on Saturday morning and they were able to watch what I do with my feet as we skated on our street in the afternoon. When we got to the skating park today, it was only a couple of laps of holding hands before Amber bravely ventured off on her own. A bit precariously, but without incident.

Sarah is a natural born skater. She was already doing the skating motion before Amber, but doesn't want anyone to know that she's brilliant. It is much easier to be towed by Mom than to have to skate :) but every now and then she forgets to fake it and she skates along brilliantly.

It was a stunning day today with blue skies streaked with jet trails. The view over the village roofs was very picturesque. The girls also had just as much fun playing in the giant sandpit (volleyball courts) as they did skating.

Maybe we can persuade Colin that the skating thing is "cool" in time for us to skate together next week-end ;)

Amber's School Party

It was the day long awaited, the one where there would be some friends!

Amber was so thrilled to be able to share the occasion and felt very special. Teacher Hanka, the girls private teacher made the day quite special and Amber enjoyed it.
This is the second of the heart cakes, made for the day and this one has an angel as the decoration. The angels face is a cute face we found on a sucker and stuck onto the cake... "how to improvise" by the Woods

Huff and puff and I blow out all the candles after requesting assistance on what to wish for :)
Teacher Hanka is the one helping Amber cut the cake - this one had all the required ingredients and so didn't need a lumber jack to get it into pieces.
The classmates all settle down to tuck in... the cake didn't last long - I was lucky to be able to bring home a small slice for Hayley to taste!
*Sigh* don't they grow up so fast?
The guy on the right is Matthew, the first male pre-school teacher I've ever heard of. He's American, don't think he can speak a word of Czech and is the assistant teacher for the class. Still, from what I've seen he's very good with the kids.

Hanka set up a game of "Pin the tail on the donkey" - Amber got to go first, we had to sensor where she pinned the tail tho, so unfortunately you are going to have to settle for the idea that she was close...
Sarah's turn... did you know that if you lift your head high enough you can see the donkey through the tiny slit at the bottom of the blindfold? Saz had it worked out in a second and won a prize for the closest tail (tie)

Although the day went well and all the kids had loads of fun, this was a very different birthday for our oldest princess - there is just no comparison with the stuff we used to experience back home. In a way I feel sorry for her because its not so grand, and at this age grand for birthdays is very important. But maybe something a little more simple is not so bad and is grand in a different way.

Anyway, time will tell all of these things and I shall be eagerly watching to see what it says.

5 Years Old Today!!

Well, 5 years old and one day to be precise!
I'm continuously amazed at how time waits for no one. I shall be pushing up daisies soon, better get on with living then ne?
Nevertheless!
Our not-so-little Amma turned 5 yesterday, the birthday, as always was counted down and eagerly anticipated. The day, unlike its predecessors was different, radically so in a number of ways, but the same in a few very important ones...

As excited as she was about the day, opening her presents, getting her cake and so on, she missed her friends and asked both Hayley and me where they were, why they were not here to share the day, and when she would see them. This was a tough one! We did tell her the truth, and I can't say it surprised her, but I think the dissapointment was there.
Anyway, she will be having a celebration with the new friends at school on Firday and hopefully we can make a bit of a splash out of that.

Another significant difference is that she got 2 gifts. This is lean in comparison to the dozens that she and Sarah are accustomed to, not to mention the absolute shower of presents from the accomanying parties and special days with jumping castles, Snowscape or whatever and all the friends around making merry.
The important things however remain - she knows that she is about as precious as any one person can be to another, and that she regularly extends even that. She loves her gifts and can't wait to play with them when they get home in the afternoons. I don't think she really noticed that there wasn't a mountain of presents...

The last difference is that the cake was the simplest one ever, a chocolate cake in the shape of a heart, made in the Wood tradition at midnight on birthday eve.
I baked it, and forgot one of the ingredients, oil, so although it turned out looking great, its predictably a bit on the dry side. Never mind, not so fattening, although, having said that there is a quarter pound of butter in the icing... fat schmat.

Below is the cake in question, decorated with a hundreds and thousands "A" and a white icing sugar butterfly and adorned with a wonderful candle 5 that we didn't have a match or lighter to light!!!!! Aaargh. For this auspicious occasion I had to buy all the baking kit, mixer, pan, spatulas and so on, being the now lean-woods we didn't even have anything to attempt this kind of thing before the occasion insisted upon it...

Matches are on my list!


We got them both a pair of roller blades, Ambers have a set of ice blades so that you can swap with the wheels when you want to go off road on the ice - very nice. Sarah's don't, but thats only because I couldn't get her size in the brand that carries the option. Anyway, when it is time to go to the rink, I suspect we will be somewhat competent on wheels and by then if not hiring skates, we can buy her a pair.



As coincidence would have it Mishcat Sykyped in and, just in time was able to watch the cake cutting ceremony on video and sing happy birthday to the birthday girl. Wonderful!
Michael was quite animated at the idea that he and Amber are the same age.

Mishcat and kittens watch the cake cutting ceremony using the miracle of the Internet and webcams...

Since they got their skates the kids have been glued to them. As soon as they get home they are in them and we battle to get them out of their skates for bathtime. This afternoon we took them outside to skate a bit on the paving and tarmac below us. We're in a culdesac and there is a nice broad price of road thats really low in traffic - perfect for skating babies. I must say they both seem quite able, I was expecting a lot more bum thumping, but they are quite adept. Albeit holding our hands, they are able to skate from chair to door in the house and only fall occasionally.