Grouchy grandpa’s

Please note that grouchy grandpa does not offer accomodation. He only rents out the studio and barn to you, just like, for example, a rental apartment in town. Since it is a rental, don’t expect service like in a hotel or guesthouse. Of course you can ask for a couple of eggs from grandpa’s chickens for breakfast, the studio and barn will be swept, mopped and vacuumed (grandpa loves the Kärcher steam vacuum cleaner, it vacuums and mops at the same time, plus with hygienic steam, wow! Grandpa is stuck in the steam century: sometime in the first grade of elementary school he even invented a steam engine, only to be told at home that he was second, same with the air-jet engine…). You’ll get clean sheets, Grandpa doesn’t like to swaddle, and the towels will be laundered. And hopefully you will clean up after yourself at least basically. And also keep in mind: a man, Grandpa, an old macho and lifelong mess maker, is cleaning here. So maybe sometimes it’s not quite perfect, an overlooked cobweb in the corner, a speck under the bed.

Plus, you’re in the countryside, where a spider likes to peek at the tourist and a mouse sneaks a peek into the kitchen. Occasionally the smell of manure wafts in, and before the rain the village septic tanks stink (we don’t have a municipal sewage system). In the meadow you can step barefoot in cow poop, horse doughnuts, sheep or llama poop (if not any other poop), the bee, in self-defence can sting you (allergy sufferers are helped by Zyrtec, if that doesn’t help, then there is Air Ambulance). In the winter you get stuck with the car, you have to put on chains… it’s a bother, it gets stuck, it doesn’t work, you get dirty, then you break them right away, you go back to the oilpump (Jablonec nad Jizerou, Belda petrol station and car service, don’t do business elsewhere!) to buy new ones, and then you repeat the experiment with the same result. The locals can’t get through because you are blocking the only narrow local road. Don’t despair, grandpa will pull you out with a tractor (just tell him, phone or send a messenger to the house – grandfather switches off his phone in the evening, permanently loses it, forgets, is deaf and there is no signal) and he will look extremely annoyed so that you will enjoy it. Then you can’t go to one of the parking lots, you have to carry your bags 20 to 30 meters, then you can’t find your car because it’s covered in snow and you have to shovel. Finally, you get stuck in the parking lot when you leave (the snow softens or freezes, it rains again in the summer and the parking lot gets muddy, the grass slides). Well, count on the fact that if you temporarily rent a place in the mountains from grandpa, you are not going to a hotel and you will share our everyday life for a few days. This includes everything listed above, the vagaries of the weather and many other pitfalls. Of course, when there is a cow waiting for you outside the door in the morning, know that a mistake has been made somewhere. But even that mistake sometimes slips in, and it doesn’t have to be just Grandpa’s cow, there are herds of cows and cattle from other breeders in the neighborhood running around as well.

This is just a quick warning so you won’t be disappointed: despite his best efforts, Grandpa will not become the perfect maid, spiders will continue to bite the threads, mice will run around (outside, unless you let them slip in), cats will be therebringing smothered mice to your doorstep, all sorts of wild animals roaming at night, eating your unsecured food (our mini-breed pig was able to chew through and suck out a carton of cans of beer in a night). But it is beautiful and cheerful here!