Going downhill #3?

Happy New Year (yes I know it's nearly spring, don't start!).

It seems somehow fitting that the first post I post after my previous incredulous age post should be a post about the age of my blog post-blogiversary (how many times can you get a way with writing "post" in a single sentence?).

It came as a bit of a shock last weekend, with sinuses bunged up with mucous and phlegm that I should realise that it was exactly twelve months since we went to Vienna, and this little adventure began.

I'm really sorry it has been so dull since my return! I will endeavour to try harder in the future, even if that only means posting posts about nice pictures and odd songs that happen across my path.

Going downhill #2

Forty bloody one!

how did that happen?

I did have a very nice birthday though :)

Going downhill #1

On the bus on the way to work the other day, I was sat in front of a couple of young professionals (yp).

Not that I was ear-wigging or anything... but, they were graduates recently moved here who were musing about acceptable areas to live in.

YP #1 was saying: "Apparently, Jesmond used to be really quite a smart area. You can understand why the people who have bought houses here are irritated by the increase in student accommodation"

YP #2 agreed "Yes, I think if I was looking to buy somewhere I certainly wouldn't want to live in Jesmond".

In the bleak mid-winter

We have had gloriously cold winter weather here for the last few days. Air frost has descended on air frost until frozen surfaces look like they've been hidden in the back set of the lion the witch and the wardrobe.

This kind of cold weather, for me, is almost as satisfying as a hot summer day (it's winter, it's cold and frosty).

Yesterday we ventured down the frosty, wintery hill to the allotment with the bags of vegetable matter that have accumulated in the yard over the past couple of weeks, and guess what? our new tools are still there!

Oh how my faith in humankind is restored.

Things that are no more #2 - #10

After the theft of the greenhouse frame, the solar powered oxygenator for my pond, the (aforementioned) water lily, the garden fork, the spade, the hoe, the rake and a plant support, the thieving b*stards nicked my sea holly too!

I can't post a photo of it but I can post a photo of the hole it used to live in (though, just to be pedantic, it wasn't a hole when it was still there)!

the Zen of decorating

When we had the double glazing fitted in August on or return from Vienna, the surveyor revealed that our rather shoddy windows were rather more jerry built than we had at first thought. All the windows upstairs on the front of the house had been boxed in around the window recess with bits of plank and skirting board and would need restructuring once the windows were put in.

I decided that in the spirit of not increasing the amount of dust harbouring curves and nooks and crannies that architrave presents, that we would keep it simple and do what they do "on the continent" and have the recess plastered and papered rather than boxed in.

This has meant that over that last few weeks that the offending bare walls have had to be sized, re-papered and painted (I'm not complaining by the way, I actually enjoy decorating). I painted the walls without much ado and then cast my eye over the rather grubby yellow ceiling. I decided that I would paint the ceiling the same colour as the walls on the landing. This was mainly fuelled by the spirit of purging and clearing out which has afflicted us both since our return, as there was still some paint left in a big tin in the cupboard at the top of the stairs.

I was unsure how far the paint would go as there was only what looked like a teensy amount left, but I set to. I was amazed that by the time I had scraped the bottom of the tin for the last vestiges of pigment that only this small patch was left unpainted (though with no notion of scale in the picture below, that patch could as easily be feet or inches wide*). I couldn'r decide whether it was irritating to run out of paint at this point or gratifying that the small amount had gone so far in the first place.

Still an excuse for another trip to John Lewis isn't a bad thing is it?

*it was actually about 1sq yard

Things that are no more #1

My waterlily in my pond on the allotment, stolen (sob) earlier in the summer.

This frog now has no pad to call its own :(

I just don't know what to do with myself

Ok, ok!

It's not dead, only resting!

I have been back since the beginning of August and I have only posted one lousy blog entry. I could say that nothing report worthy had happened, but that would be a big fib. I have actually been rather busy.

Since our return I have:

• supervised our double glazing installation
• visited Eigg
• been to Wales
• started a new job
• bought a new vacuum cleaner (not a hoover)
• had a burglary (on the allotment)
• planted some garlic and onions
• had another burglary (on the allotment)
• embraced the new council supplied big blue recycling bin
• took my first half day holiday from my new job to do some decorating at home
• grown a beard
• been to Manchester to help with some of my mum's decorating
• bought a beard trimmer
• bought some Purple Vienna Kohl Rabi seeds
• done some more decorating at home
• had a bonfire
  

I just don't know where to start! Perhaps I should do a(nother) lazy blog entry and post some pictures instead...

Oh it's all gone quiet over there...

Well, strictly speaking, it's all gone quiet over here, as, over there (in Austria), I was rather chatty!

This was quite unintentional as just before we left Vienna at the end of July I had intended to post my own travel guide, complete with links, to some of our favourite places there and about. Unfortunately for me, the landlady decided to kill the internet connection a day early, so I couldn't, and now, I can't find my file to make up for my lackadaisical attitude. I will try to find it later. Since I got back, although lots has happened, I have found it quite difficult to get back into the swing of blogging.

I have also toyed with what to call the blog, since now I am now longer in Vienna, and any greeting will be more likely to come from the UK than not, but I think I will live with Gruss aus Wien for a little while longer, out of badness as much as anything else!

This little piggy went to market...

But these little piggies stayed at home and were so hot they couldn't be bothered to do anything except loll about in the mud!

Wir fahren fahren fahren auf der Autobahn...

Last weekend found us on a wine-tasting trip to Styria (Steiermark) in south east Austria.

We had a great couple of days with our friends Gerhard and Lotte who took us around and showed us the sights, smells and tastes of "the heart of Austria".

Here are some of them:

We visited woodland pigs (more of them later), a bear sanctuary on the Slovenian border (their penchant for carrots was remarkable) and a deer farm in near Graz.

During our trip we visited several Weingüter (vineyard) including

• Weingut Tement
  
• Weingut Birnstingl
• Weingut Erich & Walter Polz
  

We even found some wine varieties which neither of our jaded palettes had ever tasted! Imagine that if you can!

Morillon - which is a variety of Chardonnay and very tasty

Schilcher - very pink and VERY sharp (apparently, in murder cases in times gone by, it was taken into consideration when sentencing whether the defendant was intoxicated on Schilcher!)

Sämling - normally served colder than other white wines, and referred to by Gerhard as a "für die Frauen". We quite like it!

Otherness

People often comment that the shopping areas of Vienna (including the rather smart Mariahilferstrasse and even the Kärntner Strasse) look somewhat old-fashioned.

Not having succumbed to 1970s brutish city centre redevelopment as is the case of most British cities, Vienna remains largely untouched. Its smart shop fronts gleam as brightly as the things on sale inside (be they expensive artifacts or glorious bits of golden plasticy tat).

One thing I have noticed since we arrived in February is how few global retail outlets are present here. The ubiquity of some of these shops make any city somehow interchangeable with any other. Not that I have been searching for something "essential" to Vienna since we have been here (I could look in the direction of the Fiaker rides around the city centre or the Spanish Riding School displays for that), it was rather just something that struck me immediately as "different" or even "foreign" about Vienna which took me a long time to work out why.

Some of the usual (and other, not so usual) suspects are present here, including:

• Body Shop
• Crabtree & Evelyn
• Esprit
• Foot Locker
• H&M
• KFC
• Macdonalds
• Starbucks
  
• Zara

The presence of multiple Starbucks shops in the alleged coffee capital of Europe, seems particularly provocative. They seem ever popular though.

To-ing and fro-ing (or "Is a change as good as a rest?")

Our move back to the UK is imminent too (a week tomorrow in fact!) and in preparation for the big move, two weeks ago, I took a full bag of clothes, papers, books, grocery items back with me during my recent return to Newcastle. I figured this would be really clever thing to do; to leave here with a full bag and return to Vienna with an empty bag thereby cutting our eventual final cargo by 19.5kg.

We've had wall to wall visitors since I returned from the UK (this is perhaps the main excuse for not having written anything here for a while, and I'm sticking to it!) and we have trekked and wandered and eaten and drunk our way around this little central European nub until I have worn holes in the bottom my shoes. The weather had been so hot that I felt like I had "done good", assigning those unworn jumpers and jackets back to the drear summer the north east of england is experiencing at the moment.

I have to admit to feeling slightly smug, but, as all you good folk know, pride comes before a fall.

This week, the weather has taken a distinct turn for the worse! The rain has poured for the last couple of days and the temperature continues to drop. No matter how pretty/nice/quaint/interesting places are, they do lose some of their appeal to visitors and guides alike in the drear sublit gloom of miserable rainy summer afternoon/evening.

Thank goodness for good company and idle chit chat.

Sounds of summer

I have been really busy and a tad distracted recently and the hot weather has been sapping the energy from my weary body to the point where posting a blog entry has almost made me swoon at the thought of the expended energy (that's my excuse for my laziness anyway).

Today I have been sat working by the noisy open window (possibly more of that later) of our lounge with the swallows wheeling and darting above the rooves outside. They shrieked as they fly by like excited children and reminded me of the (pleasant) din created by the kids in the street where I live in the UK as they run and squeal and laugh and run some more up and down and up and down. It made me feel a little homesick.

I noticed there was a lot of fast feathered activity around one particular area across the street and realised the there must be a nest under the flashing of one of the buildings immediately opposite. I decided to see if I could capture any of the aerial aerobatic antics with my camera.

Needless to say, I think I took about thirty photos and this is the only one that captured anything other than brick, slate, tin and sky.

I fear the people who live opposite may now think I am a peeping tom!

Futball

It has been brought to my attention, that there is some football thing or other going on here at the moment.

I did know really, just kidding. Y viva España!

A tune too far #13

Though I had decided to be slightly less dogmatic since my return about my relationship with the Austrian broadcasting media, I do feel it necessary to inform you that I have just had to turn the radio off as they were trying to make me listen to Mariah Carey butcher the tragic classic that is Without You.

To be honest, I never really like this song in the first place, but Ms Carey's vocal gymnastics are always a good enough excuse for imposed silence in my opinion!

You're the one for me fatty!

When I was here in the cold, cold, coldness on February and March, I would punctuate each day with a bowl of home made soup for my lunch.

As I work from home, I felt it was important to move away from my desk for slightly longer than it took to make a sandwich each lunchtime to prevent me going a bit cross-eyed and so standing in the kitchen, peeling and chopping, onions, celeriac, carrots, tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers (... you get the idea) seemed preferable to wandering outside in the windy chill of the Obkirchergasse.

This slightly ritualistic, or obsessive behaviour, depending on how kind your worldview is, resulted in me losing quite a lot of weight. Quite a feat in the land of dumplings, believe me!

Now, when I returned, I was eager to give the soup regime another go (cheaper than Champney's anyway) to shed the pounds I had regained upon returning to the land of the pasty. But alas, it is too hot to even contemplate boiling the kettle during the day because of the extra degrees it adds to the ambient temperature!

I have been further thwarted by the discovery of Ruccola Frischkase and Rote Ruben Frischkase at Radatz, the deli round the corner. This is basically cream cheese (probably 100% fat judging by its general deliciousness) mixed with rocket and beetroot respectively (the latter having the marvellous addition of horseradish too and being the most glorious colour of pink as to make you question all the declarations of the lady behind the counter insisting that it is "100% bio" (German for organic)) and it has become a regular occurrence at breakfast (and other indulgent snacky) times, replacing light cottage cheese and curd cheese as the breakfast bread spread of choice. Yum yum!

My trousers certainly don't feel quite as loose as they did when I arrived but I think I am retaining water in the heat.

A pain in the neck

I mentioned earlier that i had pulled my shoulder attempting to rid the room of flies. Well, last night, it was quite painful and I didn't get a particularly good night's sleep.

Tim went out to the chemist down the road this morning while foraging for bread rolls for breakfast, looking for some potent unguent to apply that would remove the pain without frying my skin in the already searing temperatures.

What he came back with was Dolorex Spray which you spary on and leave to be absorbed. There aren't many ingredients but the only ones I recognise (the main one is Diathylaminsalicylat, which I have no idea what it is or does when it's at home, or abroad!) are menthol, camphor, glycerine and water.This stuff is fantastic though, it was cooling and a little numbing on the skin and the only slightly disconcerting side effect was that it made me smell of mothballs and old wardrobes. After a couple of applications during the day my shoulder feel almost normal again. I need some of this in my bathroom cabinet at home!!! Although after doing a quick "google" on it, it appears to only be available in the UK as an animal medicine!

Not a word!

A walk by the river

It was so hot yesterday that we were barely capable of doing anything!

We had intended to go for a swim again but as I have been suffering a little from a pulled shoulder after trying vigorously to swat flies which were pestering me, plus the imminence of the pool closing, we decided to go for a walk along the Danube.

W got the train to Friedensbrucke and walked into town as far as Schwedenplatz and then turned around and walked back on the other side, this time as far as Spitelau and the Hundertwasser Fernwärme (power station/heating works designed by Austrian artist and bonkers architect, Freidensreich Hundertwasser).

The walls by the river walk are filled with graffiti, some of it banal, some of it really interesting. Have a look and see what you think:



Even Amy Winehouse made an appearance!
This is the Fernwärme I mentioned:

A refreshing plunge

Well, I think summer has finally arrived. As the days have passed this week, the weather has got progressively hotter and yesterday, we decided to go swimming.

When we were here earlier in the year I had purchased an 18 Euro Monatskarte (monthly pass) for unlimited use in any of the swimming baths in Vienna. The closest pool to where we live is the Döbliger Bad which boasts both indoor and outdoor pools and yesterday was teeming with people in the pools and on the lush grassy banks or in the shade of the trees. We decided to walk there rather than take public transport as it was so gloriously warm and probably just as quick, oddly.

It seems to be far more socially orientated than a visit to the pool is in the UK and families and groups seemed set up for the whole day rather than a quick plunge and then a toddle round the shops. There is a cafe and a terrace, set up with real food and real drink (even beer) and no vending machines in sight, a variety of "fun" pools with slides and water plumes and fountains and spurts for youthful cavorting and teenage frolics, there was even a "normal" one too with lanes (taken up by over-excited kids, bombing and belly-flopping from the little diving board).

The water was sparklingly clear and the chill was a blessing after the searing heat of the sun on my body after the brief walk from the main building through to the pool at the bottom of the park. My body is generally so pale that i often think that during sunny weather i actually reflect the sunlight to the benefit of others around me (it hasn't actually been seen outside since 1997 on a day trip to Sitges during a trip to Barcelona with friends). Naturally, we weren't as well set up as the rest of the visitors with their creams and lotions and cold drinks flasks and insulated picnic baskets (we had intended just the quick refreshing plunge and then a toddle around the shops!) so it was only after a very short period that we retired to the (rather warmer and quieter) indoor poor in fear of over exposure of our overly pinky pale skin.

It was too warm for hot chocolate afterwards though and we couldn't even find a vending machine to buy crisps from.