I arrive at the main station in Prague at 9.30AM, after an 11 hour night train journey from Cologne, to be met by a little slip of a girl (Jitka) from the language school, who can just about manage my tote bag of bits and pieces, while I lug the backpack and suitcase through two metro journeys, one bus ride, and a 5 minute uphill walk from the bus stop to ‘the TEFL house’. At least my room is on the ground floor.

The accommodation is a large but not exceptional residential house built on the hill. The front door is lower than the road, so although my room is on the right of the door, the view through the window is of people’s feet on the pavement. As well as two floors above mine, there are steps down to a basement which holds another bedroom and a large kitchen-dining room with patio doors at the back opening out onto an unkempt garden and paved area with barbecues.

So far I’ve met four of my fellow-trainees, all American, all quite a lot younger than me, one couple and two other young men. There are four or five more to come.

After I’ve showered and changed, I go out walking. There doesn’t seem to be much to see around the house, so I take the bus down to the shopping mall near the Metro station and set off exploring from there. The sun’s bright, but with a surprisingly chilly wind, and I don’t trust the sky. I start by getting lost – I make it a policy to get lost on my first day in a new place, so I can get my bearings. But I have a travel pass for public transport, a map, and details of the buses

I stop in a quiet square and sit on a bench with the intention of checking the map, but at that moment the sun comes out, so I sit and let it warm my face, watching the trams, the people, and the birds, and thinking what a joy it is to be in a place where it’s normal for people to sit out in public reading books rather than glaring at their phones.

The weather gets hotter, or at least relatively so by comparison with Cologne, Brussels (where I was on Tuesday) and home. I haven’t a clue where I’m walking, but in a city of hills with a river passing through the middle it’s not hard to work out that going downhill should eventually take you towards the main artery. I soon find myself leaning on a concrete wall over-looking the River Vltava, watching the constant traffic of boats, counting bridges, and trying to work out which way is most likely to lead towards the Old Town – or more importantly, a cafe. With the twin towers of the cathedral at the top of the bank opposite, instinct tells me to head left, past the first bridge (a concrete construction covered with traffic) and beyond that to the statue-and-tourist encrusted Charles Bridge. I find a place to sit on the river bank with an iced coffee and marvel at the fact that I’m here, and who knows when I’ll be leaving?

In the shopping mall near the Metro station there’s a large Tesco where I shop for essentials, and then catch the bus back to the house. I’ve unpacked and distributed stuff round my little room – I’ll be staying here for a whole month, after all.

Friday 17 May 2013 To the Castle – (or not)

I’m breakfasting in the communal basement kitchen on grapefruit juice, yogurt, bread and jam and black tea (no milk – I forgot to buy any). Jacob, one of the American boys, has just come in through the patio doors from eating his breakfast outside to announce that ‘it’s hot’. Already.

Jitka said it’s possible to walk to the Castle, so that’s my mission for today. I struggle a bit with the incline, but console myself that at least it will be downhill on the way back. I seem to be just trudging through more residential areas, all houses and a noticeable dearth of tempting cafes and worse still, tram routes. I tell myself the views will be amazing when I get there (wherever ‘there’ is), but right now I can’t see past the houses.

I come to a crumbling closed down sports stadium, and a path in front of a wooded area behind a chain-link fence. There’s a way in between the trees, to a park with paths, streams, a fish pond with a fountain in the shape of a seal, and views over rooftops and distant river-bridges. It has to be Petrin Park, where I walked on a Sunday in June last year.

Sitting on a bench, on the top of the park, on top of the world. Below me, white walls, red roofs, copper-green domes and spires, bells ringing, trees and trees and trees, in light, dark, bursting, glorious leaf. Is there any other city which is built inside a forest, as this one seems to be? I wonder what it’s like in autumn? I’ll find out. I can see the castle at last, although I can’t work out how to get there. That’s for another day.

Further along, I find the rose garden, where the buds are just starting to open, and feel the excitement bubble up as I realise that I am here and can come as many times as I want over the summer to see these beautiful places. There’s no rush.

I head downhill to the river, cross the bridge and turn right. There are steps leading down to the lower embankment, where there’s an outdoor cafe, wooden tables by the river, a bar and barbecue and a sign saying: ‘Live music every day 15.00 – 22.00’. I settle myself on a bench right by the water’s edge. There is a middle-aged white guy with grey dreadlocks trailing down his back, playing the guitar and singing ‘Black Magic Woman’. A waiter comes over and I order a hot dog from the barbecue and a pint of Staropramen. The wind whips up a spray from the river, but the sun is warm as I sip my beer and watch the swallows dipping to catch insects from the surface. A swan lumbers up into the air with a mighty flapping of wings, then flops down again a few metres upriver. I watch a tourist boat passing, and trams crossing the bridge, smiling to myself every time the guitarist starts another song that comes back to me from the past, and I silently mouth the words to myself and love the fate that has brought me here.

In the evening – after another trip to Tesco on my way back – I spend some time chatting online to my daughter, and then typing up some notes about my impressions so far. About an hour ago I realised I hadn’t had any dinner, so went to the kitchen and got myself a cheese sandwich and a glass of Moravian red. The Czechs are really better known for their beer, but I’m determined to give it a chance.

Linda Rushby, The Long Way Back (WIP)

Walking through a shower of blossom.
Sitting on planks over the river drinking a coffee.
Sunday morning market along the Murrazzi.
Two sparrows squabbling, making enough noise for an army.
White lion guarding the base of Garibaldi’s statue.
Light glinting off the river.
Car horns on the bridge, boats on the river.
Ducks swimming and a bloom of brown blossom petals on the surface.
A couple slow dancing under the arches of a bridge, the woman softly crooning.
A black crow perches on a white log in the river, pecking at something invisible.
Everything is good. Sun on my face. The river, purposeful yet calm, unhurried.

I cross the river, and catch the bus to Sassi, then the old rack railway up the mountain. On the train from Florence, before we reached the city, I noticed this white Baroque church, perched on the top of a mountain, with no apparent reason for being there. When the train reaches the top of the hill, I can do nothing but marvel and point my camera. Round central tower in yellow stucco, surrounded by classical white pillars and porticoes, topped with a grey dome housing the bell. However high I am, I’m always driven to go higher, so in the yellow church I climb the steps up to the top of the tower and look down on the terracotta roof of the nave. The white peaks of the mountains surround and mesmerise me.

Notes from a mountain – Monday 23 April 2012

Ilze’s back at work today.

‘Why not take the train into the mountains? she suggests. ‘It takes 29 minutes to get to Avigliana and 1 hour 22 minutes to Bandonecchia’.

I get out at Avigliana and walk around the town. There doesn’t seem much to see and I’m not sure what I’m looking for. I walk towards a church, past some pretty old buildings, along a road out of the town and up a hill. Along a path through woods to a spot by a small stone tower with a view out over the valley and towards the bigger mountains. I’ve brought a picnic of bits and pieces, a salad of cherry tomatoes and mozzarella left over from last night’s dinner, a packet of Tuc biscuits bought from the trolley-man on a train somewhere (Rome to Florence, I think, or Florence to Turin), a Bounty, an apple and a Ritter sport with nuts. A feast. This seems like a good place to eat it.

Sometimes I find myself in a place, and I don’t really know why I’m there or what I should be doing or where I am exactly. Most often, it’s in a city. Today it’s on the side of a mountain. Not a big, glamorous mountain, I don’t know its name, maybe it doesn’t have one. It’s just part of the great chain of mountains, I guess, a fractal part of something bigger, where does it end and where does the something else begin?

In the valley below me is a house with a balcony and steps up to a terrace above part of the ground floor. Earlier I saw a person moving and then an animal, I think a cat, though it could have been a dog (hard to judge size from here) walking across the terrace. On the walk up here from the station I was thinking about the similarity of the Latin words for the cat family, Felis, and for happiness or good fortune, felicitas. And it seems appropriate, so I wonder if it’s coincidence or if there is some deep connection in the roots of language.

There seems to be someone on the balcony, leaning on the rail, but they haven’t moved for a while, so maybe it’s not a person at all. Or maybe they’re looking and thinking: ‘there’s a person up there, sitting on a rock up on the side of the mountain’.

Now there’s a car, or a white van, moving away from the house. I can hear birds all around, and distant traffic, an intermittent sound that could be humming if it was more regular, maybe someone chopping logs. A plane. Sounds that could be thunder in the mountains but hopefully is just more planes.

Into the soundscape comes a train. I wonder if it’s going towards Bardonecchia or back to Turin. Whichever, I’ve missed it now.

from Single to Sirkeci, by Linda Rushby

When I first envisaged turning my blog posts into a book about my travels, I massively underestimated the amount of work and time it would take. By about a year and a half after I got back from the original journey, I’d finished my third editing pass through, and began the process of laying it out as a book. That was when I realised that I still had almost 200,000 words – twice what was reasonable for a book of this type.

Around that time, I had a conversation with my artist friend Douglas Jeal about knowing when a piece of creative work is ‘finished’, and the danger of continuing to ‘tweak’ it, a topic which also came up at a meeting of writers which I went to a few days ago. To me it seems there is a difference between a painting or sculpture and a book, which needs a satisfying narrative conclusion, as well as a recognition of that ‘sweet spot’ where nothing more needs to be done.

I couldn’t help thinking that my book didn’t score well on either of those. I had just said a sad farewell to Prague, and moved back in with my ex-husband in the hope that I could nudge him into finally putting the house on the market (which was still not resolved two years after the divorce was granted), so that we could finally draw a line under our marriage, and go our separate ways for good.

While I continued to hack away at the text, I was acutely aware that life was continuing to happen to me, and that a ‘happy ending’ – or even a vaguely positive and upbeat one – still seemed out of my reach…

…to be continued (perhaps)

Blue skies and bright sunshine
lure me into the paths
of bitter darts of cold,
flung into my face
and sapping my body of motion.

Broken blossoms scatter and skitter
along winter-cracked pavements,
crushed like yesterday’s promises.
At least the autumn leaves
can be satisfied in knowing
that they’ve had their time.

Brief patches of shelter
bring moments of balmy reflection
on better times to come,
until the onslaught recommences,
and I recall that springtime
can be the cruellest time –
as someone almost said.

Linda Rushby Saturday 23 March 2024

There’s something raucous going on further down the platform, maybe the French version of a hen party, people in brightly coloured curly wigs making loud screechy noises. Outside the station, entrance roads are cordoned off, lots of police standing around, and police cars. Then I see a banner with the word ‘Carnaval’ on it, and today’s date.
I dodge out of the way of the reversing police van, and realise I’m standing at the taxi rank – exactly what I want. After the farce in Sète I’m not taking any more chances with buses.
A taxi pulls up and I show the driver my notebook with the address, neatly written in block capitals. He frowns and shakes his head. Pulls out a map and starts opening it, folding it, unfolding it, studying it. Takes my notebook and stares hard at it, then throws it down on the passenger seat, shaking his head some more. Turns the map upside down and looks at it again. Speaks into his radio mic, then puts it back.
‘They’ll call me in 5 minutes.’
‘You’re a taxi driver, for goodness sake!’ I want to shout at him. ‘Don’t
you know your own city?’
He picks up the notebook again and holds it against the map, then takes the mic and speaks into it some more. At last he nods, smiles, hangs up, passes me back my notebook.
‘It’s okay! It’s okay! We go!’
On the radio someone is talking in excited tones, it sounds like a sports commentary, and I hear the word ‘Angleterre’, then voices singing the Marseillaise. Can’t help humming along – wait a minute, maybe it’s a rugby match, England versus France. Mid-March, time for the Six Nations. From the singing, it doesn’t sound too good for our lads.

Within 10 minutes we’ve reached the mediaeval city walls. There’s a barrier across the road, the sort that lifts up to let the traffic through. We stop.
‘It’s in there’ he gestures through the gate. ‘Place de Saint-Jean.‘
‘What?’ That’s as far as he’s taking me?
He points up the cobbled street, then at the meter.
I walk past the barrier, through the crowds of tourists around the gate. What if it’s like Mont Saint-Michel, all those steps? My heart sinks.
I pass a one-man band, in cod-mediaeval costume and with his nose painted red, sitting in an alcove. Narrow cobbled streets, the Wardrobe bumping and grumbling behind me. Alleys lead off in all directions, no signposts, I just keep going, with no idea where to. Past cafés and tourist-tat shops, a set of stocks with a dummy in a shabby wig, a well, a haunted house. Looking for Le Logis des Remperts, 3, rue du Moulin D’Avar.

At the Place de Saint-Jean, I can’t see any signs. I double back on myself, and in the next street, outside the Haunted House, there’s a map. The Rue du Moulin is in the opposite corner of the square, a narrow alleyway, and on the left, a sign reading ‘Le Logis des Remperts’. A gate leads into a small courtyard, with loungers, plant pots, table and chairs, and a door in the wall. I knock, but there’s no response.
I get the laptop out of the bag and set it up on the table, looking for the details. No luck. I must not have saved it. And I can’t get online to recheck the email. But there’s a phone number.

‘There should be somebody there but maybe they didn’t hear you.’ The nice lady gives me the security code for the key pad. ‘I think you’re in room 1.’
I tap in the code, and open the door. Inside, Room 1 is to my left, on the ground floor mercifully, and the key is in the lock. I open the door and let myself in.
Bare stone walls, a double bed, sofa, table, microwave, fridge and sink in the corner. Tea, coffee and instant hot chocolate. Milk, butter and orange juice in the fridge.
Outside, I take a few steps down the street, turn left and find myself out on the city walls. A chilly wind blows over my face in the drizzly afternoon, up here on the hillside. Past the cream stone blocks and crenellations, I look down on the red-roofed white apartment blocks and churches of the modern town, dotted with bare winter trees and dark evergreens, the river snaking through its valley, and in the distance the white-speckled pyramids of the mountains, under low grey clouds.

Wandering around the old town, it’s hard to keep my bearings – too many little winding streets, full of cafes, restaurants, crêperies, shops selling jewellery, wine, local delicacies, post cards, arts and crafts, toys, books and so on and on. That looks like a good café, must pop back later for a hot chocolate. Which way now? What’s round this corner? Oh – I’m pretty sure I saw that shop window with the twee fairy figurines half an hour ago – how did I get back here? And where’s that café?

I’m back at the Rue du Moulin again. Might as well pop in and see if someone’s turned up.
They didn’t say I was supposed to wait for them, did they? I used my credit card to book the room online, I guess that’s good enough.
There’s a leaflet of events on the hall table, with a list of amazing acts performing in the Carnaval. Never mind the mediaeval city, I really must have fallen into a time-warp: Johnny Halliday (is he really still alive? Or is it some kind of character franchise, like Dr Who or James Bond?); The Alan Parsons Project; Duran Duran.

The crowds are thinning out now, but I’m still walking. Back at the drawbridge the one-man-band is still in his niche. There’s something particularly tuneless and irritating about his efforts, but he seems happy enough.
I follow the sound of much more tuneful and interesting music. A group in mediaeval costumes are performing, dancing, juggling, all very festive, but no sign of Johnny Halliday.
The crêperies and shops are starting to close, outside displays being taken in, shutters closing over windows. I get my chocolat chaud, but almost have the table cleared away under me.

I walk onto the ramparts and watch the changing colours of the clouds, from grey to pink, purple and red. As the sun sinks the world turns chilly, but somewhere a blackbird is singing. My phone has run out of battery, but after all, no camera can really capture that feeling of watching a beautiful sunset.

From ‘Single to Sirkeci‘, Linda Rushby

Le Logis des Remperts – my home for two nights, under cloud and sunshine.

This FB page used to have a link to my Solent Green blog, but since I changed my hosting last autumn, those posts have moved and the link doesn’t work (there again, this one wasn’t on Solent Green, it was on Southsea Storytellers – maybe I should have shared it from there to the SS FB page instead).

But I was thinking about this poem a few days ago and thought it would be appropriate to share today.

But yesterday saw the culmination of my five year quest to grow hollyhocks in my garden, which happened as follows:

2018: I bought a tray of six small hollyhock plants from B&Q, and planted them along the sunny fence in my garden. None of them grew to more than a few inches high.

2019: In the spring, I searched along the fence for any signs of my hollyhock plants. They had all survived the winter, and I hoped that at least one would grow, but by the autumn, the only one which was still showing any sign of (rather stunted) life was the one nearest the house. I bought some hollyhock seeds.

2020: In the spring, I sought out the last surviving plant, the one nearest the house, and tended, watered and fed it, determined that I would coax it into growth at last. I guess that might have worked, if the snails hadn’t got to it (which in retrospect I concluded might have been what happened to the others). I also sowed the seeds I’d bought, but the measly few seedlings that grew big enough to be put outside in pots were also snipped off by my mollusc friends. In the autumn, on a day out in Chichester, I collected some seed pods from a 7 foot high hollyhock growing on a grass verge.

2021: In the spring, I tried to find that one plant that had been there the previous year, but with no success. I planted half the seeds I’d collected, but when they were starting to appear, I went away to visit my family, and when I came back, all the seedlings had shrivelled up. I planted some more, and managed to coax them into living long enough to make a nice tasty salad for the marauding molluscs. I still had some seeds left, and picked a few more pods on a late summer return visit to Chichester.

2022: In the spring, I planted seeds again and grew them in pots in the kitchen. When the time came to put them outside, I researched anti-mollusc methods and discovered that slugs and snails are attracted by alcohol and can be trapped by leaving out beer in shallow containers, which they fall into and drown – in fact, it’s not so much the beer as the yeast/fermentation smell that lures them, so I started putting out a concoction of yeast, sugar and water in plastic takeaway boxes around the garden, and it did the trick, to some extent.

I also bought a fairly well grown (about two feet) plant from a local garden centre – the first time I’d seen a semi-mature plant on sale. It even had flower buds, but sadly when I got off the bus I found that the tallest stem had broken, and it never did flower (last year). But it was still alive, and quite tough-looking and sturdy, so I came up with a scheme to protect it.

In my garden I have a stack of decorative border edging ceramic tiles, left behind by the previous owner. I dug out a small patch of grass by the shady fence, a square the size of one tile on each edge, put some rotted compost and plant food in the bottom, planted the hollyhock, and packed it round with coffee grounds (which are supposed to deter slugs and snails). I’m not sure why I thought the tiny walls would keep them out, given that they happily climb up the fence behind, but it made me feel better. I made another mini-wall next to the first, and two more against the sunny fence on the other side of the garden, and planted the three toughest-looking of my hollyhock seedlings, one in each. I kept them topped up with coffee grounds and watered during last summer’s drought – and the last month.

2023: Yesterday I was rewarded by my first hollyhock flowers – not from the plant I bought, but from one of the seedlings I grew myself. The spot on the sunny fence seems to suit it better than the shady side. I had no idea what colour the flowers would be until a couple of days ago, but I’m very happy with this lovely pink. The other three also have flower buds – even the two growing in the shade, so maybe there’ll be other colours too.

I don’t often write rhyming verse, but I do like to use alliteraton and slant rhymes.

The Shadow

You cannot see me,
I am an empty space,
a void, a vacuum,
a black hole,
beyond the bounds
of visibility.

A nullity, a negative,
a nothingness,
I slip beneath your notice,
and past the perimeter
of your perceptions.

Linda Rushby 16 April 2023

Bronze plaque on a wooden bench
commemorates a life.

A woman,
born two years after me,
died a quarter century ago.

‘Loving wife and mother,
who loved this place.’

Some of us are blessed with joy,
and some with time.

Linda Rushby 5 April 2023

Bare branches inked
against a pale sky.

Hawk hovers,
then passes over me.

Under the trees,
sounds of birdsong,
earth-smells of leafmould;
rotting remains of
last year’s life
nurturing new generations.

White chalk crumbles
over smooth grey flint,
prized by our ancesters.

Everything is held
in potential.

Linda Rushby 5 April 2023