WARNING: THIS BLOG ENTRY CONTAINS COARSE LANGUAGE AND ADULT CONTENT

Misty mornings

 Hello, Maciek here with another riveting blog entry.  Not much has really been happening while we are waiting for the snow so I thought I’d write a blog about the dangers of mixing German and English together. A work mate told me this story after the apprentice at work didn’t know the word for ‘edge’ so he used the German instead.

Right here we go, (kids do not read on).  The German word for edge is ‘kant’ and is pronounced exactly like the worst word in the English language. You know the one that starts with a ‘C’ and rhymes with hunt.

So the story goes:  A more senior ski instructor who had taught himself English over the years had a group of students,  with one particular nervous lady, who got left behind on top of a ski run and was too scared to go down. The ski instructor wanted to yell out some encouraging words to help her down this particularly steep slope.  He didn’t know the word for edges so he thought he’d improvise by using the German word.

‘Go down slowly on your ‘Kant’’ he yelled. The woman stood there stunned, I would imagine. The instructor thought she couldn’t hear him. “ Use your ‘kant’” he yelled again over the entire slope. There was still no movement.  “Just slide down on your ‘kant’”.

The woman eventually got down the mountain, I don’t know what on, but anyway nothing was said to the instructor and the lesson went on to finish. At the end of the day the instructors were having a few beers after work and this senior ski instructor, not wanting to have the same problem again, asked the boys what the English word for ‘kant’(edge) was and they asked ‘why’, so he told them that he wanted to tell this lady student today to use her edges but didn’t know the English word. They asked again ‘so what did you say?’

‘ Well, I told her to use her ‘kant’”.

After a few minutes of rolling around on the floor with laughter they finally told him what ‘kant’ meant in English and he said ‘ so that’s why her husband looked like he wanted to punch me out for the rest of the day’.

Coincidently, there is a town about 2 hours drive from us called F#CKING ( this is true), which apparently has a pretty amazing playground for the kids. We were thinking about taking a drive there but have since found out that the F#CKING mayor has closed the F#CKING playground along with all the other F#CKING attractions due to insufficient tourist numbers in the off season. The F#CKING residents are now concerned that the crime rate will double because all the F#CKING children will get bored… (this is not true)… the crime rate in Austria is very very low……

Picnic in the woods

Moving Day

View from the balcony



 Our official move-in date was 1^st November, but we didn’t move in until the 5^th, spending a week collecting bits and pieces and poor Maciek spending his evenings after a long day at work putting together flat packed furniture.  I managed a few bits and pieces but not so easy with the kids ‘helping’ and trying to eat screws!  We collected a couch on the Friday afternoon, and somehow managed to get it up the flights of stairs and around the corners into the apartment, just us two, and the next day my forearms felt like I’d done a good session at the gym (a chance would be a fine thing L)!  Next morning was the day to leave the old place, and what I thought would take a couple of hours to clean it took about five.  Luckily a friend lent me her vacuum cleaner, so I didn’t have to battle through with that ancient one!  Maciek picked up a washing machine at our local ‘almost Bunnings’ store and once again the two of us battled with it up the stairs.  Then it was a ‘quick’ trip to Worgl, where all the big department and electrical stores are, which actually took us an hour thanks to roadworks and a diversion, which left us only an hour before closing time to get pots and pans, plates and stuff and an essential television!  We split up, with one kiddy wink each, and managed to get everything we needed, despite discovering in the process that our Australian debit/visa card had been blocked!  (Luckily we scraped by with what we had, and have since sorted the problem out.)  Some folk may be scratching their heads and wondering why on earth we are putting ourselves through this and buying furniture and household goods which sit in perfectly good condition in the garages and spare rooms of our families back home.  We are some folk!  We have no answers to your questions!  But for now this is what we are doing.  Going with it and we’ll see what happens.  It’s all character building.  That’s what we tell ourselves anyway!



Cosy sleeping nook



So here we are.  It’s really nice to finally have our own place.  Amelia and Noah love their little sleeping ‘nook’ complete with bunk bed, which leaves them a whole room as a playroom to keep all their toys (and themselves!) out of sight!  We are still waiting on our wardrobe to arrive in the store.  And we need to get a freezer as the one on the fridge is only big enough for a pizza box and a loaf of bread, at a squeeze.  And we also need a vacuum cleaner, which I’m hoping to come by pretty quickly as the accumulation of crumbs around the dinner table is growing!  But at least now we can look forward to Christmas, knowing where we’ll be.  And there’s a fantastic view from the balcony, great place to sit (or stand until we get some furniture to go out there!) with a beer or a glass of wine.  Today we even saw the farmer in the distance, driving about his fields in his green tractor, towing along that dreaded poo sprayer machine switched on full pelt.  Which was nice.

Nothing like a man in lycra doing the dishes!

P.S  I’ve included a pic of the tiny kitchen that we are leaving behind.  Not sure if it is actually a pic of the kitchen, or more of a pic to showcase Maciek in his new second hand lycras which look like he’s wearing a nappy in desperate need of a change!

So long, old tapestry!



Fare the well, ancient vacuum cleaner.  You suck!!

  



Oh, the tree binding i mentioned last post

Four Winter Tyres, Two Trips to Ikea and One New Apartment

Jam packed peugeot

too small for that roller coaster Noah



Scary giant swings in the back and scary Aunty Sue in the front!



 The last three weeks have been very up and down for us.  I was unofficially offered a position at the school, so we looked for an apartment, then there were a few problems with the job, but we found an apartment anyway, and said we’d take it, then I was told they couldn’t offer me the original position but could give me only 10 hours!  So we let the apartment go as it was all too uncertain, and then I got a phone call to say I did have the job and received an official offer in writing! Thankfully the landlady had held the apartment for us and we’re glad she did.  It’s a lovely place, with a huge balcony overlooking fields and the mountains, plenty of space, top floor under the roof so wooden beams and slanting ceilings just as we like it!  The only thing wrong is it’s unfurnished.  So it’s been a mad rush scouting around for furniture and a spur of the moment trip to IKEA in Germany for Maciek, on a public holiday here in Austria, just so we would have the minimum requirement of beds to sleep in! It was just over an hour drive to get there, and he returned just before tea time with a car full of flat packed furniture, and if he hadn’t have done it we’d never have had time to get all the things we needed before moving in.  It was only a rush because our move in date coincided with a planned trip back to Soest to collect our winter tyres which have been stored in Sue and Frank’s cellar since we bought the car, and have to be on the car by the 1^st November by law. It was a long and stressful day of driving to get there, lots of traffic on the roads due to the public holidays and we arrived at 10pm, two hours later than expected.   It was lovely seeing Sue and Frank and Curly again, at our ‘home in Europe’!  It brought us back to that first week away when it was all so knew and exciting.  We were spoiled again with lovely food and wine and comfortable lodgings!  We collected a few household items as it’s cheaper in Germany,  and finally some snow suits for the kids, and then enjoyed a relaxing day on Sunday with coffee and massive amounts of cake in the afternoon!  Unfortunately we couldn’t stay for the Soest Fair which has been running annually for 700 years!  Maciek had to get back for work.  Perhaps next year.  It’s amazing how they can fit all those rides and stalls into such small medieval streets and squares. 

So close to the church

We left Soest on Monday morning at 9.30am with another planned stop at IKEA in Munich (for 3 hours – unplanned - it was mentally busy!!) to collect some more essentials and finally arrived home at 8pm!  Driving the last hour on pitch black country roads with a great big flat pack box reaching from the boot, between the kids and coming to rest just before the gear stick was pretty crazy and left us laughing, shaking our heads and asking ourselves for the hundredth time ‘what the heck are we doing???’



Do you feel lucky, punk?



The job at the school starts in December, and the title of the position is ‘Kindergarten assistant/Native speaker’.  Sounds a bit tribal.  Not sure if they’re expecting me to turn up topless with 20 gold rings around my neck and ear lobes that swing against my shoulders!!  I’ll let you know, but not sure I’ll be posting any pics on that one!



Herbst

Frosty mornings

Schwarzsee

Throwing up leaves

The colours of Autumn have taken over and we’ve had some lovely walks where Amelia and Noah have had great fun crunching through the fallen leaves and throwing them up in the air.  Browns, reds, oranges and yellows are everywhere.  It’s not something we experience in Perth and it takes us back to our childhoods in England and Poland, it’s really beautiful. 

Along the river

People have seasonal decorations on their front windows and all types of pumpkins in every shade of orange adorning their steps.  The kids are coming home with conkers and pine cones and hedgehog art that they’ve collected and done at kindy.  And people are binding up their trees in the garden in preparation for winter snow, so that the trees don’t get crushed by the snow we presume! 

Where's Wally?

Speaking of snow, there’s no sign of it.  It’s been gloriously sunny the last few weeks.  Once the morning is over that is.  Maciek has been riding to work in -4 degrees and working outside in freezing temperatures one day, and basking in 27 degrees tiling away with a view of the Wilder Kaiser the next!  And before Maciek splashed out on a proper ice scraper, I’ve been hacking away at the frozen windscreen with a wooden spatula before driving the kids to school!

Just to explain one of the pics, on a walk along the river one a

Rusty Halo?

fternoon, we found a halo of autumn leaves that someone had made and kindly left on a bench for me to model!

And last but not least, but nothing at all to do with Autumn,  I’ve included a picture of two packets of tea I bought recently, and wanted to ask my Dad if this is one of the new businesses he is dabbling in???

Hot Chocolate in the cubby

stroll around the lake

Perkins, anyone?

Foul Play

Pew!!  It was YOU!!

I think it was a Sunday evening when the kids were outside playing to run off some energy just before bed.  Luckily we had just eaten.  You’ll know why I say luckily in a moment.  Maciek and I were enjoying some rare adult-conversation-without-constant-interruption time, when an unpleasant smell wafted into our presence.  My first reaction was to throw Maciek a disgusted look when it very quickly became apparent that this smell did not come from a human being, or just one at least, even though we are talking about my husband!  It descended on us in a matter of seconds, this choke worthy stench that had us coughing and gagging and covering our noses and mouths with our jumpers, and after running into the bathroom to check the plumbing, we realized it was coming from outside.  So my second reaction was to run out and get the kids in.  They’d gone around the back, which meant I had to hold my breath, as it was impossible to breathe without feeling suffocated, but unfortunately I had to take a breath in to call to them.  God only knows how they were playing tag, laughing and shouting, oblivious to the magnificent smell of tonnes of cow poo hanging in the air.  Even after closing all the doors and windows it still stunk inside the house.  I text my friend who lives a couple of houses down “What’s that terrible stench?!!  We can’t breathe!!”.  “Nothing to do with us,” she replied, “It’s the farmers spraying their fields before the rain tomorrow!”.  This I had heard of, so it all gets soaked into the ground good and proper!  And I’ve also been told about the smell.  And of course we’ve had the pleasure of screwing our noses up and saying “Phew” to each other every now and then, but nothing in the world could have prepared us for this.  It was as if a whole herd of cows had saved up all their poo for a week, meandered into our living room and let it all go!  It stunk in the house for hours.  Gratefully by bed time, it had disappeared.  Or perhaps we just got used to it!

On a totally different note, I came to realize that none of the cleaning products, including bleach, or medicines, come with child proof caps.  I discovered this when I left a bottle of fabric softener on the floor whilst putting away the shopping, and then caught Noah just before he took a sip!

And I’ve not experienced it, but apparently when the doctor prescribes paracetamol for your child it comes to you in the form of a suppository.  And heaven help you if you need your temperature checked, they use the same line of enquiry.  Now that’s foul!

The Dalai Lama and Dora the Explorer

I Bin a Princess

I left a question dangling at the end of the last post.  And now I have the answer:



What the....?



Yes. Unless you have loads of money.  Because then when your children need snow gear and warm clothes you can just go and buy it.  And you wouldn’t have to ride to work getting soaked to the bone because you probably wouldn’t need to go to work, or else you’d buy a second car!  And you wouldn’t care about paying over the average for a comfortable apartment that actually had a freezer in the kitchen and not next door in the shed!

Anyway, before we left Australia a good friend of mine sent us a card, which I’m carrying with me, that said:  “Life is like a box of chocolates….”  No it didn’t.  It said:  Life’s journey is not to arrive safely at the grave in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting ‘holy crap, what a ride!’

And while we’re sharing inspirational quotes, another friend recently emailed this to me:  When the Dalai Lama was asked what surprised him most about humanity, he replied “Man sacrifices his health in order to make money, then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.  Then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present.  The result being he does not live in the present or the future, he lives as if he is never going to die, and then he dies never having really lived.”

Tap 3 times Dorothy!

I got Dora on!!

And on a lighter note.  I recently saw a picture of my gorgeous nephew wearing high heeled shoes with Aunty Jo asking ‘Should I be worried?’ Well here are some of our own ‘Should we be worried?’ pics!  In his defence, he doesn’t have many toys, and the ones available to him seem to all be pink and frilly!! 

It should be noted that we don't dress him up in these outfits for a laugh, he actually picks them out and dresses himself with Amelia's help.  He then proundly strutts out of the bedroom with a big smile on his face!  He insisted on wearing this Dora vest, over the top of his clothes, out in public, for about 5 days in a row.  Before i managed to sneak it away and finally put it in the wash!

Reality Bites

Our house for now

Every morning I wake up with a sick feeling.  So does Maciek, but he talks himself out of it better than I do.  The butterflies are always there (not talking about the abundance of pretty ones fluttering about that have Milly convinced they are fairies because they are so colourful!  Or the kind that would have my friend in a fit of hysterics – you know who you are!!). 

It’s still a mad rush to get to school, never enough time for a cup of tea or proper breakfast for me.  We have to be out by 7.45 latest, it takes us five minutes to walk to and get into the car, and that’s without the snow and frost.  Even worse is the layers of clothing needed, and worse still when I have Noah all dressed boots and all, and then he decides to do a poo. (It’s okay, he says, I’ve got Winnie on (Winnie the Pooh patterned nappies)).

Around the village

The quality of meat here is not great, weird considering the number of cows, you can’t get a decent steak.  I still haven’t plucked up the courage to order from the deli counter as even though I can rehearse my question, the babble that comes back to me from the butcher leaves me completely stumped, and with a queue of people waiting to order, I’m just too embarrassed.  I know this is silly, but I’m using my avoidance strategy to cope with this one!

The house still needs cleaning, but all I’ve got is an ancient vacuum cleaner that doesn’t pick up and a broom from the shed that looks like it’s been lived in by a number of different residents over the years.  I’m without my Eco spray n wipe, good bathroom cleaners, and steam mop.  Trying to cook good meals with a very-stick frying pan, and without the most basic kitchen utensils is a challenge, and I want to make Babcia’s soup for the kids but where do we get good chicken pieces from?  It takes two hours to do food shopping as we do it at two different supermarkets for the best prices and selection.  And you’re doomed if you forget your 50cents for the trolley or your shopping bags!

When Milly was sick last week with a 40 degree temperature and a cough like her lungs were collapsing I had no idea where the doctor was.  Thankfully my friend’s Austrian father-in-law agreed to see her and she met me in town to take me to his practice.  Being a friend of his DIL he wasn’t concerned with insurance or payment from me (as we hadn’t received Maciek’s insurance from his employer yet) and I was very grateful for that.  She was fine after a couple of days, but it’s always a worry, also not knowing if the doctors will be able to speak English.

We attended our first 5^th birthday party yesterday, a friend’s little boy.  I managed to find him a present but do you think I could find him a card?  It seems they don’t do cards here, so don’t expect any Christmas ones!  I will have to work out how to send e-cards.  My friend says she buys hers from England and sends them back from here!   Milly enjoyed the party until she suddenly threw up, and threw up again on the way home in the car, which went everywhere, and with the lack of cleaning stuff we might be in for an unpleasant scent accompanying our drive to school!  Plus the dryer decided not to work.  So I washed all her clothes, and they’ll probably take days to dry.

The weather turned on Friday.  After a glorious few weeks of mid 20’s, the temperature dropped to 9, and it was pelting with rain all night and most of the day.  Maciek has been riding to work, and without rainproof pants he arrived at work with a soaking wet bum, and had to work like that for hours, thankfully finishing at midday! 

Batty the Snowman

Yesterday there was snow on the mountains.  This morning I woke with the kids at 6.30am to an eerie silence, strange after the pelting of yesterday.  I had an inkling, so we checked through the curtains and were blinded by the white!  Beautiful, until I realized that Amelia still doesn’t have a snow jacket, the kids have no thermals or proper hats, her warmest jacket is still wet after being thrown up on in the car, I have no warm jacket or jumpers whatsoever, or a hat.  And our winter tyres are at Aunty Sue’s house in Germany.

I’ve heard that to feel secure and content we need an equal balance of certainty and uncertainty in our lives.  For us at the moment the only things that are certain are that we have a roof over our heads until 22^nd December, and the kids have school to go to every day at 8am.  Everything else is completely up in the air.  I also know that things could be much worse.  I’m grateful that we do have a comfortable place to stay even if it’s temporary, food on the table, some new friends, and most importantly our health (most of the time!).  But it still doesn’t stop the worry about the future.

The Rockclimber

Sometimes I wish we were happy to just look at our dreams up there in our imaginations from a secure and comfortable place, without feeling the desire to actually reach them.  Things would be much easier, if our dreams remained dreams.  And now that we’re trying to reach ours, I’m wondering if it’s true that if you’re lucky enough for your dreams to become reality, that that’s all they turn out to be?