25/8 ERIN’S 12th BIRTHDAY! Happy day darling girl!
‘The Theft’ has us leave Vienna about 1-2 days earlier than we would’ve liked. Wil was hoping to ‘hang’ in one of the many old, enormously grand coffee houses where scientists, professors of literature, philosophers and musicians have gathered and continue to gather for centuries. They are usually in the most ornate and beautiful buildings yet have such velvety, cosy, lamp lit & polished wood corners - he’ll have to come back, and he can bring his parents!! The other next time is a summer classical concert performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra on the lawns of Schonbrunn Palace beneath the triumphant Gloriette where, together with a fine champagne, we can drink in imperial views across the lit palace gardens and Vienna…..
So,10BX (4 rounds!!!) in the playground of the campsite, school and usual departing preparations.
Our most important goal was to find a police station to report the theft, thus enabling us a possible insurance claim but they were all closed on Saturdays.
After extensive family discussions, we’d decided to buy another “OK” bike whose purpose is primarily transport and secondarily, for exercise - no more offroading. A stop at Intersport found the perfect replacement at only E240 this time (rather than E395). Jeff walked out shaking his head in amusement as it was the first time in his life that he bought an inferior product for the same money as a much better one, just because it looked much cheaper/uglier. But the inconvenience of attracting another theft underlay this decision. Additionally, we bought two enormously heavy chains and U-bolt locks as they reckon Italy has much more crime. Whom ever tries to cut these will have to have bloody enormous pockets for the bolt cutters required.
A quick shop at Lidl (3 large yoghurts, 4 boxes of b/fast cereal, deodorant, body wash, detergent, berries, large punnet’o’pears, 2 bunches bananas...and some, all for E20!!) and then off slowly to Judenburg, an ‘old jewel’ historic Austrian. Whilst Graz looks incredible, our highway pass is almost expired and we’ve yet to see the Wörthersee lake area before leaving Austria.
The drive was relaxing as we left behind a big, albeit charming, city to see the peaks increase in height and density, the air crisp up and the fields sprawl out green with crops with only the sweet farm house roof tops & church spires peaking over the top.
A POLIZEI sign along the way in a small town called Leoben was manned and the two officers really kindly made out a report, at 5pm on a Saturday! Now it’s up to our insurance in Oz….
We’d sourced a stellplatz behind Judenburg where, together with only one other van, we were surrounded by fur-tree covered hills and quiet.
Jeff and Wil tinkered about outside setting up the new bike and Kel & I cooked up a yummy vegetarian stir-fry on cous-cous.
To bed, to bed.
26/8
Lazy wake up at 0900 (having rolled back over ½ a dozen times with the rain on the roof - too dangerous to cycle was the excuse). It was so quiet. So we all crawled out of bed & prepared breakfast together for a change. After school, it was raining heavily and so we drove rather than rode through the pretty town on the River Mur, stopped for fresh bread and kept going to Wörthersee near Klagenfurt. The clouds were low making for really beautiful, moody photographs.
Finally we found a marillen streetside stall where we bought a punnet of the prettiest apricots. Sadly they were a bit soft & more fermented tasting than those we love at home. Good but different.
Only an hour further and we arrived at another spectacular blue/green mountain lake. The water’s meant to be 21 degrees however as a hot spring feeds into it. Gustav Mahler spent many creative hours here by the lake composing in the summer.
The campsite is beautiful and organized sitting at one end of the lake. We put on raincoats (haven’t worn them for a while) and against a welcome fresh breeze, rode around the lake for a bit before the heavens opened. Back home, we simply ate, played, had an Italian lesson, watched a movie and went to bed.
27/8
A lot cooler but fine at 0700 so Jeff & I took off for his new bike’s first ride on a ‘castles route.’ We got horribly lost and so 1:40 later got home to two happy kids composing a song for Snuggie. We got down to business after breakfast, schooling, interneting and putting on a load of washing (primarily bedding - ahh, my most disliked chore ‘cos crawling around the beds to re-make them sees me hit my head innumerable times & I end up sweating profusely).
Jeff took the kids to the lake beach to explore the enormous slide whilst I watched the washing, rode to the shops for bread and tidied the ‘house.’
At the lake the slide was closed, the trampolines cost E5 extra and by the time we had the cash out of the wall they closed too, but the diving platform/board and the clear blue lake were to die for, the warmest water we’ve swum in since Fortuna (Spain). The kids leapt and climbed themselves silly, and met William, great 11 yo chap from Manchester.
Back to Ed and mumma for lunch and to help putting the washing away, which has dried so quickly given that the temp has risen 10-15 deg + since our cycle. Yummy sandwiches, Jen savouring the German bread which we will soon bid farewell, then a big bath for Snug (about time mate) and back to the Lake for some afternoon fun. Hey!! The slide is open and William + Austrian mate Lukey are still here so the kids disappear for a few hours as we track them with the camera, in/out repeatedly ourselves, in between times lie on the grass reading, chatting and people watching.
 |
| Wörthersee horizon |
The scene is special - such a beautiful turquoise lake, the sun setting over the folds of mountains in the distance, the yachts sliding slowly about, the waterfront infrastructure for such a brief summer - slide, diving apparatus, 6 lane 50m pool, 4 long quays for baking bodies on, playgrounds galore, endless lawn and vendors selling beverages and fine food and ice cream. What must it look like in February?
Big dilemma is do we move on to Slovenia as planned tomorrow or do we stay and slide? We'll leave it to the weather.
Luxurious warm showers, a light yoghurt dinner (we don’t tire of it) and then we spent ½ an hour scanning thru some pics from Spain, quizzing each other on topics like:
“what is this place called?”
“what did we do here?”
“who had a tanty here?”
“how cold was it here?”
“what are those mountains called?”
“what’s the Spanish word for……”
“what sort of architecture is this?”
“who painted this?”
“what continent is that on the horizon?”
“what wall did dad crash into on the segway?”
Good to keep the memories alive, they fade so easily.
28/8 ALEX’S 12th BIRTHDAY! Ooo!
Jeff & I woke with discipline to our exercise/resistance/aerobic 10BX set by the canal and joined the kids for their wake up routine. We drilled school with a deadline to skype Alex for her birthday.
Thereafter the day was very cruisey with roller-blading, a large cooked mince curry lunch (con bad Austrian vino rosso!?!) followed by hours at the Wörthersee. The kids ran themselves ragged with friends, William & Luke and each other and the olds paddled when hot between chapters of their books!
Wil’s favourite part: going down the slide with ‘squid’ holding her feet
Kel’s favourite part: playing on the slide with WilWil
THE DAY FROM A KIDS POINT OF VIEW
Wil speaking.
Kel and I woke up when Mum and Dad were out doing their exercise, so we just lay in bed reading and thinking about how good life really is. Snuggy (Kel’s biggest beanie kid [soft toy] but don’t ever say he’s not alive. Squid has a wonderful imagination.) woke up too and was pestering me to play with him (it’s precious). When Mum and Dad got home from their exercise, we woke up and ran through our morning routine. Kel and I slammed school so we could skype cousin Alex for her birthday (and all sing a very out of tune, rowdy rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’). After school was finished and we had talked to all our relatives, Kel and I put on our skates and did some practice. This was broken by lunch (of mince curry) and then we went back for 10 more minutes of skating. After that, we whipped off our skates and headed over the road to ‘Strandbad,’ the beach. Kel and I did some diving boards and a couple of slides before heading off to find our mates William and Luki. We mucked about doing spastic dives into the warm water and playing football, before Kel went off to do more slides, leaving William, Luki and I to do boy stuff. That was more mucking about, more spastic dives, and eating chips. My life is good.
Then, Luki and William had to go, so I said bye (sniff) and went to find Kel. Kel and I did some more slides and some more diving boards. Diving boards are great, because I get Kel to go first, then when her head pops up, I take the three-metre plunge and land right next to her, scaring her out of her skin. That’s fun. Kel asked me to do over & over. Then, I did the world’s biggest bomb dive into the lake before trudging home after a well-spent day. After dinner we did a bit more Spain reminiscing.
 |
| Arrividerci Wöthersee |
No comments:
Post a Comment