Happy Birthday to Meeeee!!

On the road for the last time

On a 'walk'

We left Poland in shorts and thongs in 34 degrees heat to arrive at our overnight stopover in a little town called Pfeimd in Germany, north of Munich, freezing to bits in 14 degrees!!  We hadn’t thought to check the weather at our destination as we’d been sweltering away in Poland for over a week and had forgotten about cold weather!

Driving into Austria the next day took us back to those first weeks away, which seem so long ago now, exactly 3 months since we left Perth.  Sunny skies and spectacular scenery, greenery, smooth roads and that refreshing scent of freshly sprayed manure!!  (No kidding, Austria smells like cow poo, you get used to after a while!)

Water park

It felt good being back those first few days.  Nice to think we only had one more move left which would be into a permanent house or apartment for the next 6 months.  This apartment is good except for the extraordinarily small kitchen without an oven, microwave, kettle or toaster or draining board, which will make culinary delights pretty hard to achieve over the next fortnight.  Not that I’m any good at it any way!  And after 3 months of eating very basic meals or eating out I’ve almost forgotten how to cook.

We have free entry into the local swimming pools with indoor and outdoor facilities, heated pools, jacuzzi’s, water slides and a playground so we’ve been there a couple of times, where Maciek and I took turns doing laps to trim off some of that holiday chub and where I had a menacing fight with a wasp!  It was self-defence, it was attacking me from all sides, and it deserved what it got.  It wasn’t the first and it won’t be the last to meet its fate at the hands of my stealth slipper and thong wacking action! 

How sweet!

Maciek has played tennis again, and we’ve been on a hike (don’t tell Amelia, to her it’s just a ‘walk’!  She says “ Are you sure this is only a walk, because it feels like a hike and my legs are aching already!”)  We ended our ‘walk’ at a glamorous 5 star resort with Mercedes and Porsches parked outside and old people milling around in white bath robes and lying on sun beds reading books.  Reminded me of a scene from Little Britain.  But next to the state of the art underground tennis courts was a great little playground overlooking an enormous field where Amelia came out with another pearler, “Wow this looks like the whole WORLD!  I could do cartwheels ALL OVER THE PLACE!!”

mmmm cake!

The past couple of days have been more stressful and we’re becoming anxious about finding a place to live for the winter.  It’s difficult with the language barrier and not being able to enquire about the most basic things, and I am awaiting a reply from the one English speaking person I know here.  But after speaking to friends and family from home today we feel better and are sure that within the next  few days things will start moving in the right direction.  Fingers crossed anyway.  I spent my birthday doing nothing, something I haven’t done for 3 months!  Maciek looked after the kids and I slept in until 10, then I slouched around in trackies all day and ate cake!  Hip Hip – Hooorraayyyy!!