March 2018

Journalist Heinz Bayer, in an article in the Salzburger Nachrichten, has brought to everyone's attention a surreptitious change in Maria Alm - a preponderance of Anglicisms to the possible detriment of the local Pinzgau dialect. In our search for our Austrian home we conducted a simple test - if we went into a shop, spoke German with our English accents and the reply came in English, then it was not the place for us. We wanted the best environment in which to learn German and that was, perhaps, unlikely to be a place where the locals were keen to practice their English. Maria Alm, which passed our test 11 years ago with flying colours, can't get enough of dear old Blighty now. The Schischule is now the Ski School, the ski instructors live in the Team Lodge and local boy Sepp is building a new hotel emblazoned with the promise that 'it's gonna be exSEPPtional' when it opens in 'SEPPtember'.

February 2018

'Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast', is engraved on the stone steps outside Saxons Hall, the home that Justine's dad built. This year is the 20th anniversary of his death, and a year to raise anchor and sail away, taking inspiration from his sense of adventure. Houses can anchor families for generations into this valley, enclosed by the unchanging skyline of these mountains with no distant horizons. A long unbroken tradition of a family home or trade passed down through the ages can be both a blessing and a curse. 500 years of history was lost last week when the old farmhouse at Rohrmoos was irreparably damaged by fire, but the heart of the home was found thriving in the community that rallied around those left homeless (including 78 cows, 25 sheep and 4 goats) and not in the bricks and mortar (or stone and wood). 'For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night.'(Kahlil Gibran)

January 2018

Apparently the first step in crafting the life you want, is to get rid of everything you don't. In a bid to declutter before the move in July, Justine has made a New Years resolution to find new homes for three things a day. Ideally they go to someone who wants our junk, sometimes the bin gets them. Yesterday it was a laser-printer, a guitar (we still have 5), and a small pot of caviar that has been in the fridge for two years. Today, a bed, a small crocodile, and a pair of salopettes that almost reach Elizabeth's knees. Difficulties arise when we cannot agree on what we don't want, but once agreement is reached, Justine finds it very liberating, particularly when it is someone else's stuff.