19 - 25 December 2011
12 - 18 December 2011
5 - 11 December 2011
28 November - 4 December 2011
21 - 27 November 2011
14 - 20 November 2011
31 October - 6 November 2011
They don't do Halloween here. At least that is what Mary and her friends were told at the first door they knocked on and sang their 'Süßes oder Saures' (trick or treat) song. On All Hallows Day they go to church to remember all the martyrs and saints, that's a lot of people, it takes a while. But when they really have their work cut out is the following day, All Souls Day. The faithful on earth remember the faithful departed who are sitting in purgatory and relying on the faithful on earth to pray hard enough to atone for their minor misdemeanors before they can finally pop up to heaven. Perhaps that is why some prefer to have an early night on Halloween. Despite that Mary and her friends managed to collect sweets to last until next year.
24 - 30 October 2011
According to the Bauernkalendar and local wisdom, the first snow always comes 100 days after the first frost. The first frost came this week so we can expect snow at the end of January! According to websites promoting Christmas skiing breaks in Maria Alm it's snowing already!
17 - 23 October 2011
The Peberdy family were one of two families that took part in a very enjoyable village family walk on Sunday - the second being a family of marmotts that we serendipitiously chanced across when our guide led us on an accidental diversion up the wrong mountain on what should have been a little stroll between the Filzensattel and the Erich Hütte.
10 - 16 October 2011
We are enjoying an Indian Summer just as England is. Referring to a mild spell after the first frosts, the Indian summer is so called because raiding parties of native American Indians had a stay of leave before the snow came and their tracks betrayed their settlements. This warm spell is known here as an 'Altweibersommer' (old ladies' summer). Raiding parties of old ladies can be seen all over the countryside.
3 - 9 October 2011
For the occasion of Hans and Erika's wedding which took place on Saturday, Simon composed a mass and directed the choir for it's first performance. At the evening reception everyone was very complimentary about the music so Simon was reassured that the fact that the bride started crying and Mary had to leave the service to be sick, was not as a direct result of his music.
26 September - 2 October 2011
Simon is rehabilitating. To an onlooker, such as the one left alone with the children for three weeks, Simon is living the life of a millionaire playboy. His daily programme at the sanitorium in Saalfelden includes massage, physio, swimming, water gymnastics, arnica baths, group back exercises, parafango, gym sessions, relaxation classes, electro therapy, art and craft and good food. This week he strolled into town in between therapies and won a prize draw for an aeroplane flight, so he flew over the mountains between Zell am See and Maria Alm before heading back for a little snooze.
19 - 25 September 2011
We do not have a terribly busy social life but hornets are regular evening visitors to our apartment. This one, as you can see, is as big as the building next door, but most are about this big ______________________________________________ (cross my heart a million times no exaggeration). Since no one else seems to be plagued by them, Justine is convinced that they are coming for her, which makes them frightening and sinister. Her colleague at the Waldhaus helpfully told her that three stings from a hornet can kill a man. Yesterday it snowed and snowed and last night the hornets didn't come. Hopefully they are all frozen and the month of terror is over.
12 - 18 September 2011
This week Caspar started school at the Gymnasium (grammar school) in Saalfelden. The bus leaves at 6.45am, his bag weighs 8 kilos and the graffiti on his classroom wall, that should have been removed before the new term, reads "du bist sheisse", but despite all that he thinks it's fab. Justine's German skills enabled her to translate the graffiti but not the heading of the important information that he was sent home with on the first day, which was titled with the following 30 letter word; Einziehungsermächtigungsauftrages.
5 - 11 September 2011
Following the partial destruction of Simon's beloved bike came Divine Retribution and Justine's beloved bike was stolen the next day. This week divine Simon found Justine's bike abandoned in Saalfelden. Justine is very happy.
29 August - 4 September 2011
Two weeks until the end of the holidays and we are trying to squeeze everything in. This week we climbed the Breithorn (2400m), (apart from Elizabeth who remained playing with friends at a comfortable 800m). Caspar and Mary took part in the Saalfelden Trimotion event (Elizabeth watched in comfort from the sidelines). And we visited the world's largest ice caves at Werfen which were spectacular. This was an endurance test for all three children since it was 30 degrees outside the caves, for which we dressed appropriately, and 0 degrees in the caves for the hour long tour and Justine had left the children's winter jackets in the car at the bottom of the mountain. Thank goodness she hadn't forgotton hers and Simons!
22 - 28 August 2011
15 - 21 August 2011
8 - 14 August 2011
1 - 7 August 2011
25 - 31 July 2011
After a 13 year hiatus from Dartington, Justine returned to the Summer School this week to do a one week stint as office manager. Absence has made her heart fonder, and her brain too, but in the original sense of the word, and it was given a bit of a workout keeping track of which harpsichords were in which rooms and at what pitch. Much has changed but beloved constants remain and just to make Justine feel right at home, a trog crashed the car on the first day!
11 - 17 July 2011
The obscenely rich Catholic church is after our money. The church tax in Austria, 1.1% of annual income, is compulsary for all Catholics. Since Simon directs the church choir and Caspar and Mary are regularly robed up and in attendance to the priest, then one could be mistaken for thinking that we were catholic, and a letter welcoming us to the church and demanding money was received when we registered our new address. If a catholic chooses not to pay, perhaps, for example, because they consider the catholic church to be utterly corrupt, then the pope, Christ's vicar on earth, will excommunicate them. Since we are not Catholic, we do not have to pay for our salvation.
13 - 19 June 2011
When Caspar's class boarded the bus for a three day stay in Salzburg, some of his 10 year old classmates (boys and girls) sobbed at the thought of being separated from their mothers, for many it would be the first night away from home. In some respects children stay children longer here; in others they are given a level of freedom rarely enjoyed by children in England such as walking to school on their own, and skiing or swimming without supervision; and sometimes they are perversely encouraged to ape adult behaviour - available at the post office are sweet cigarettes 'with magic smoke effect'. We are not aware of adult sexual imagery becoming 'the wallpaper of children's lives' as is the current concern in England, but perhaps we just can't see it through the fog of cigarette smoke, real or effect.
6 - 12 June 2011
A living pet would be preferable but needs must and Caspar found a dead thing to care for at home. Only when he had lovingly and painstakingly rebuilt it, having boiled and bleached the bones, did he realise it had no head. That is probably hanging on someone's trophy wall. A living thing would have smelt better and the dead thing has been banished back to the woods.
30 May - 5 June 2011
Elizabeth and her classmates have learnt to read and write. They have a postbox in their classroom and their teacher encourages them to write letters to each other with the following suggested format: Dear ..., I like you because ..., Love ... When Justine and Simon asked to whom she had written a letter, Elizabeth said that she had written to Katharina because her teacher had told her she wasn't allowed to write a letter to herself.
23 - 29 May 2011
Simple Justine's very simple needs were more than adequately met on her birthday with fish and chips, (Tom and Kate supplied portable deep fat fryer and culinary skills), and a game of Scrabble, which she won, also requisite to a perfect day.
16 - 22 May 2011
White dress, bouquet, church, presents, friends and family. First communion is like a wedding day for an 8 year old girl, naturally overwhelming, particularly for Mary who sang a solo in front of the 500 strong congregation. Counterpart rites of passage, with similar emphasis on a child's purity, in other religions include the first haircut. For Hindus the hair represents undersirable traits from past lives and it is ritually shaved. For little girls and their mums in Maria Alm the hair had represented the only possibility for self-expression on this special day since it was decreed that the girls' dresses, which had become ever more immoderate, should be hidden under a simple white cassock, a uniform look to ensure that every child appears as pure and angelic as the next, with the result that the zealousness that had previously focussed upon the dress was redirected to the hair and complex combinations of ringlets, jewels, ribbons and flowers. So the uniform decree this year was extended to include the hair and each girl was given a simple floral crown to wear. Justine missed the ringlets and jewels and is sure that Elizabeth will oblige by demanding them when her turn comes next year.
9 - 15 May 2011
Much of Mary's freetime is spent in the company of Moonface, Silky, Amelia-Jane, the Naughtiest Girl in the School and Milly-Molly Mandy. Contemporary English children's literature being not readily available here, she devours a stack of books inherited from her godmother Marisa. Consequently she thinks that Fanny is a sweet name for a little girl and when something unusual happens one should exclaim, 'how curious!'.
2 - 8 May 2011
Simon has a new lease of life with the 'not quite geriatric but feeling one's age' persons' equivalent of the mobility scooter. He has been lent an electric bike and with that and some marvellous medicine he appears to have quite forgotton that, as his physiotherapist told him, he currently has the mobility of a centenarian and should adjust his lifestyle accordingly.
25 April - 1 May 2011
We didn't get a bank holiday like our fellow countrymen on 29th April. Didn't matter though since we are currently enjoying being 'between jobs'. We created an exclusive little ghetto with other englishmen of leisure, to paint union flags on our faces and feel very proud, quite homesick, even a little tearful, and indulge in overeating and being nostalgic.
18 - 24 April 2011
Simon was released from hospital on account of the fact that he was going a little bit crazy in hospital and needed distracting.The children obliged by being most distracting. On Easter day they ate chocolate and bounced around him like bunnies as he lay on the floor. At bedtime when asked if they had had a nice Easter day Elizabeth spontaneously combusted into tears lamenting that the Easter bunny had delivered a present to every child in Maria Alm with three exceptions, chocolate eggs were not sufficient, she had been hoping for a Hello Kitty t-shirt.
11 - 17 April 2011
Simon, suffering badly from another two prolapsed discs, explained to the children that he was going to hospital so they should say goodbye before they went to school. Elizabeth kissed him and cheerily asked if that meant she was never going to see him again. After he had been gone a couple of days Justine suggested they all visit, which really confused her because she hadn't yet noticed that he wasn't at home.
4 - 10 April 2011
Elizabeth wanted to spend some of her birthday money at the annual basaar in Maria Alm. She takes great care over purchasing decisions and after a very long time she finally decided upon the little green bike that Caspar, Mary and Elizabeth had learnt to ride on and that we had finally got round to taking down to the basaar to sell.
28 March - 3 April 2011
Easter occurs on the first Sunday following the first full moon that occurs on or after the day of the vernal equinox. There were clearly no skiers in the committee who decided upon this formula back in the third century. This week, the start of the Easter holidays, the English arrived in their droves to find no ski school, no teaching area and easy rope lift to learn on, not a single restaurant open on the mountain that a beginner skiier can get to, no pistes open down to the valley, no ski show and, crucially, almost no snow.
21 - 27 March 2011
The current Women's Slalom World Champion, Marlies Schild was in Maria Alm on Saturday for the last race of the season. She only lives five minutes down the road so she didn't have too far to come. Caspar came first in his age group, benefitting hugely from the fact that the rest of his age group have already put away their skis and got out their bikes and roller skates. First out of one, and another hideous trophy to add to our growing collection.
14 - 20 March 2011
The tourist office reports good conditions on the pistes with depths of 90cm on upper slopes and 50cm on lower slopes. With the omission of the word 'snow' here this report could be entirely accurate. Conditions are good for muck spreading, and the water comes almost over your ski boots on the lower slopes.
7 - 13 March 2011
When we are not making the most of the woods and fields and mountains on our doorstep, then we have limited outdoor area attached to our apartment. Our balcony is 12.5m2 but if we want to take maximum advantage of the space then we have 37.5m3 which is just enough for Simon to build a high ropes course.
28 February - 6 March 2011
Schadenfreude best describes what Justine, the children, and visitors Jo, Hamish and Noah felt this week as we enjoyed skiing together while Simon stayed at home and nurtured his bad back and his new enthusiasm for baking and cooking. Noah and Hamish learnt to ski beautifully in only three days.
21 - 27 February 2011
According to the latest of very many suggestions from innumerable home doctors about the cause of Simon's back trouble and the best remedy, his problems stem from career worries, financial insecurity, a feeling of powerlessness and denial of his sexuality. Well, of course, a ski instructor who can't ski would be concerned about his career which inevitably leads to financial insecurity and a feeling of powerlessness. Simon takes it all with a pinch of salt and flounces back to the kitchen to bake more biscuits.
14 - 20 February 2011
Justine has had the best ski instructing week of her entire 4 season career thanks to Simon who has done his back in. He is off work which means that Justine can work full days. Finally out of the snow plough position, she took a school group from beginner to black in five days. Simon stepped in to teach Justine's recorder and flute lessons while she was on the piste and has baked copious amounts of biscuits.
7 - 13 February 2011
An eerie mist swirled around the churchyard on Monday night, as we passed on our way out to dinner with visitors Rebecca, Jonathan, Kate, Paul and Mick. Venturing closer, the eerie mist became more of a thick impenetrable fog, dense enough to hide a fair few zombies, exuding from a large crypt. Against our better judgement we walked into the fog for an even closer inspection and discovered a huge sandwich toaster heating and softening the frozen ground of a family grave into which the next relative was to be welcomed the following day. How considerate to deceased family members and gravediggers!
31 January - 6 February 2011
Justine still has some difficulties with her German. This morning she confused the reflexive verb sich umziehen (to get changed), with the verb umziehen and told Elizabeth to tidy her room and then move out.
24 - 30 January 2011
Simon has been given a pair of hundred year old wooden skis, a big stick and Lederhosen, and the role of the nostalgia skier in the Maria Alm ski show extravaganza. All of us have plenty more to do in the new look ski show, which appears to us ski instructors to be purely designed to keep us away from the unlimited free beer and Glühwein that we used to enjoy every Tuesday night in return for one torch-lit descent.
17 - 23 January 2011
Mary celebrated her 8th birthday this week. She managed to find time to celebrate with friends despite her busy training schedule as a new recruit to the Maria Alm ski team. With race training 2 or 3 times a week, and almost every day in the holidays, it is taken seriously even at such a tender age. In her first race she came 8th overall and was the fastest in her year group out of the Maria Alm team.
10 - 16 January 2011
3 - 9 January 2010
We had always thought that this; 20 - CMB - 11, chalked above the doors at Epiphany by the three kings, stood for the year and the initials of Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. It actually represents the Latin words Christus Mansionem Benedicat, and is a blessing upon the house. Caspar did the rounds with two other kings and a star, singing a blessing song and chalking this sign above the door of each house. They raised money for charity and came back with a huge bag of treats. For authenticity Balthasar was blacked up for the part. Caspar played Caspar which caused no end of confusion when the house owners wanted to know the names of the children who had sung so sweetly.
27 December - 2 January 2011
The firework code was well respected at New Year. The firework code being 'if you want to throw a whole box of fireworks in the little bonfire around which people are warming themselves, in -15c temperatures, then be sure to warn them first.'
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