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!