Today has been mostly pleasant. In the morning, we did some last minute spiffying of the house in preparation for a visit from Hubby's best friend. That friend lives near where we used to live in NJ, but he's also a Czech and visits Czech Republic often for business. He was sort of our first official guest, if you exclude my sister-in-law, the two worker friends who did painting and other tasks for us, and our land lady and her husband.

The three of us went for a long walk, in light snow, around where we live. I think my husband's friend was quite impressed with the beauty of the area, literally 20 minutes from the downtown of the second largest city in the country.The immediate area has rolling hills, orchards, village homes, a horse ranch, pubs (though not currently open due to covid) and hiking trails. Other people were walking, some with kids. We all had a layer of snow on our hoods and coats. Two little boys walked by with giant snowballs, obviously happy with themselves. They, and some other little boy, had rosy cheeks from being outside in the snow, and big smiles on their faces. Little Czech kids are required to say "Good day!" (Dobry den!) to adults, which is different than in the US, where many kids are taught to walk away saying nothing to strangers. Near the horse ranch there were about six people riding horses, some seemingly for the first time. As we walked up a hill with an arboretum, horses stood there staring at us, like we were amusements.