Letter from Prague | All stories

Lately we've had some lovely weather, although this last week there has been a distinct chill in the air and I've had to turn the heating up a bit. One thing I'll give the Czechs is they know how to heat their homes, unlike the Irish and the British who are used to shivering away the winter months.

The unusual number of serious health violations at Czech supermarkets and hypermarkets that the food inspection authority has uncovered in the last few weeks has angered the nation. I dare say, a number of grossed-out Czechs have actually started changing their diet.

The Czech Republic, some critics have noted, will never be quite the same following the arrival of reality TV. For a month or so now millions of mostly young viewers have more or less glued themselves to their TVs to watch people living in fish bowls. For now, the Czech edition of a newer format, known as Vyvoleni - the Chosen Ones - has bloodied the nose of the more famous Big Brother. But, in essence, both programmes rely on similar formulas to attract audiences: shrewdly edited - as well as live - moments capturing conflict as well as agreement,

Quite often it happens that people ask me if I have Czech roots. It seems quite logical. I speak Czech, I've spent nearly half my life here, my children consider themselves Czech and I seem to be settled here for good. But I have no family links with the Czech Republic - or at least that is what I thought until recently.

I always find myself walking down the streets daydreaming. A few days ago while walking home, I woke up from my dream. There in Kampa Park in Prague's Lesser Quarter - just in front of me - were some bizarrely awkward statues looking like human benches.

Forget the weather - the hot topic in Prague this summer is the price of petrol. For a nation of country cottage enthusiasts for whom a weekly trip to their country cottage is a must the price of petrol is a big deal. And it has been climbing steadily all summer. Nowadays you'll see many drivers slowing down as they go past a petrol station with an eye out on where you can get the lowest price.

I was looking up 'gold mine' on the Net to see - in these days of Prague's hotel over-capacity - who was still saying this today of the city's tourism when I found it... a real gold mine just 30 kilometres south of the city at Jilove u Prahy, now a museum, open on summer weekends. Somehow a gold mine has a certain ring to it. There's a medieval silver mine open at Kutna Hora, but gold... now that's the real thing!

The summer holidays officially ended this past Thursday, the first day of school for most pupils in the Czech Republic. For my small but growing family, it was a momentous occasion: certainly for my son Oskar, who is a few months shy of the minimum age of three, but was admitted to materska skola, or nursery school, on his charm and good looks. That and with the understanding that he drink his juice not from a bottle, but a proper cup (no problem there) and is able to nap without nappies (we shall see).

The State Institute for Monument Preservation was recently proudly publicising the first stage of its restoration of the interiors of Lednice Castle in Moravia. Lednice was the country palace of the Leichtensteins - and like its Schwarzenberg rival, Hluboka, is a huge neo-gothic affair, built to be Imperial Austrian versions of Windsor Castle. Despite efforts to keep them intact as museums, both castles suffered under Communism. Since 1989 the work on Lednice has been impressive. Now listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the park, with its many

During my recent holiday, I made a few day trips to castles and interesting places around Bohemia. Passing through towns and villages, I was pleased to see that slowly but surely they are losing the greyness they acquired during the communist era, buildings are being renovated and houses are getting new fresh coats of paint.