11^th – 25^th July 2019

As part of our relocation plans to Sri Lanka, I decided to take the kids to Czech Republic for a short holiday and to say our goodbye to our friends and family, but mainly to my lovely mummy. Steve stayed behind in the UK and carried with packing our house into boxes.

I was lucky to get annual leave from both jobs, Misa finished year 7 on Friday 5th July and said farewell to Sibford school with a sleepover party at his best friend’s house with 4 other boys and Emilka’s last day was the day of our travel with a small leaving party eating crispy doughnuts with her tutor group bought by her lovely tutor Kelly and giving her a specially framed picture with nice messages of good luck for Sri Lanka.

Our dear friend Vanessa took us to Birmingham airport as Steve was away with business. It was an evening flight and we had to stay overnight with my Slovakian friend Sona and her family, when she took us to the Bratislava train station the next day on her way to work. Kids travel very well now they are bigger as done it so many times and know the drill of carrying bags or waiting in the queue (I was priority with extra bag and they were in non-priority queue!!!)

Last minute, Steve managed to organise a hire car for us which we picked up from Ostrava Airport, giving us 2 hours in Ostrava train station meeting my friend Pavlinka from university, who lives there to catch up over a coffee. Misa was most disappointed getting a Skoda Rapid instead of Volkswagen Golf!

I don’t have Czech maps on my mbl phone navigation, so I did my internet search on the journey from the airport to my mum’s home and printed the instructions with Misa sitting in passenger’s seat and navigating. I didn’t want to go to Ostrava city and planned to go through small villages, which should have been 63 km. It takes time to get use to another car, I kept driving around in our small dolphin grey Skoda rapid unable to get out of the airport village as signs were non existent, I even stopped and asked at a petrol station for a map to look at (no maps to be able to buy in the petrol station any more), but by the time we reached Ostrava (following signs) I was comfortable with the car and did get to home address eventually, clocking a whooping 110 km! Good job I drive gently and economically.

Mum was over the moon to see us and have us back home. We just chilled, talked, ate and relaxed with kids “vegetating” on their gadgets. Eating pizza, schnitzels, cakes, noodle soup (nearly every day!) and of course rohliky with ham or salami goes hand in hand with Czech!

Seeing my family again after a year was nice, but it always feel like going back in time for some reason.

We managed to see lots of my/our friends, we drove to Havirov to see my midwifery friend Mirecka for the day, we drove to Jeseniky mountains to see my three university friends Radka, Radka and Pavlinka and their children and again – talked and talked and talked. We drove to South of Moravia to see another midwifery friend Jana and her family and stayed the night with them, again talking and talking and talking and catching up with news.

We managed to visit our dear family friend Pani Plunrakova, who lives in Olomouc whom I stayed with in my second year at university as I didn’t get accommodation for some reason. She was in Cambodia with my dad’s sister in the eighties with Red Cross and humanitarian aid. She has been unwell for over a year, but now is better to receive visitors and again we talked for 4 hours solid, reminiscing and remembering. On our way home looking for McDonald in Olomouc, I managed to “kiss the curb” and puncture both tyres – how unlucky! We waited for 2 hours for replacement hire car and told the kids to enjoy the most expensive dinner ever! Mum travelled with us for all this trips and Misa said: “Grandma, this is your first time you have ever been in a car when two tyres were punctured! What would my lovely dad say to that! Mum brother teased me that he heard I am opening a Kwik Fit!

Emilka was happy spending time with her second cousins Nikolka and Nelinka having sleepover at my mummy. Seeing my brother’s family and we caught glimpse of their two big boys (Kuba 17  years old and Jirka 24 years old) on several occasions was nice celebrating summer in their amazing outside porch with BBQ and family and friends, playing with Maya – 12 weeks old boxer puppy, eating pizza “across the street” and swimming in their pool creating “wild river” with our bodies is the highlight of the holiday.

Meeting 12 weeks old baby Adam of our lovely family friend Nikolka and Martin was priceless, having so many cuddles and kisses. I haven’t seen a smiley, content and happy baby like him for ages. Mummy Nikolka and daddy Martin look good too and having a family suits them nicely with his 7 years old son Kuba from previous relationship completing it.

We did manage to go to our favourite Aquapark for 2 hours solid swimming time and have pizza afterwards! Heaven for kids of course! Meeting my friend from primary school Alenka for couple of hours talking and talking again like we haven’t seen each other for a month, not couple of years. Katka’s family in Bruntal invited us for BBQ in their allotment and kids ate the most meat I have ever seen them eating!

There was one thing overshadowing our stay in Krnov and that was my mum’s constant pain.  She is having some investigations to see what the problem is and I hope the doctors will sort it out, because we would like her to come to Sri Lanka for a month or so to soak up the warmth and experience Asian culture.

The time in Czech has been an emotional roller-coaster for me as you can imagine with mum’s health and saying goodbye to people knowing we are moving so far away from them for 16 months is not easy.

I hate saying goodbyes! I imagine summer 2021, when I will be walking through the front door of my house I grew up and will be hugging my mum again.

Journey back to the UK was easy: we left house at 7.30 driving to Ostrava Airport to return the hire car, took a train to Bratislava with 3 changes – kids know what to do as they have been trained from 8 months of age – we make a good team. Raynaire is crafty and even though we didn’t pay extra for seats to sit next to each other, after take-off kids managed to negotiate with people next to them and we did end up sitting together.

Steve picked us up from Birmingham airport happy he has got us back home to help him carry on preparation to move to Sri Lanka on 8^th August.

Kids were full of memories from Czech, however pleased to be home in their own room and bed. We have got some pictures to look back on and plenty of stories to tell, especially the adventure with the puncture.

Rennie