I am here. Life has moved on as if the holiday had never been or was last year. I am very grateful to have four readers but also wondered how Jo, in contrast, could have 6,000 people visiting. Perhaps I should broaden the subject matter of my posts.

Austria was like an strange version of Narnia where it is always Winter but also, oddly, ALWAYS Christmas. There were still Christmas decorations up everywhere, including large Father Christmases (?), fairy lights, reindeer and snowmen. There was already about four feet of snow and then it snowed more almost every day so you were walking around romantically amongst light, drifting flakes. The centre of the town was traffic-free apart from the local 'taxis' which were horse drawn sledges covered in little bells. Large numbers of people were dressed in green felt and jaunty hats with feathers were totally de rigeur as were leiderhosen, (even worn by a six month old baby). Sadly the area was goat-free and old memories of 'Heidi' recalled that they are not good with four feet of snow and spend the winter hanging about in the basements of chalets letting their 'warmth' drift to the floors above.

We were in a vast but central and authentic hotel which had four large restaurants, a disco and a rooftop outdoor whirlpool thing (not used by us). Luckily as residents we ate each evening in the only dining room without the fun accompaniment of Rudi, Franz or Heinz, (truly), singing German songs at the keyboards. The Austrians are very charming and the whole place had a slightly old fashioned look with the chambermaids (mostly in their 60's) wearing national-costume puff sleeves and lace aprons unselfconciously. Sometimes in the evenings as we wandered down endless corridors passing laughing groups of Germans on their way to dinner we felt like English prisoners trying to pass as civilians in some 1940's drama. Every evening there was a five course dinner of Austrian specialities, (not the heart and lung casserole, oddly), which did include many dumplings and on the last night, daringly, ostrich. Surely they have not become indigenous - leaping gracefully from peak to peak?

I had lessons on three days and it was not THAT difficult to learn to ski badly. Then a blizzard set in and I would have had to move on to the high lifts so I luckily developed a mild ear infection. My son behaved like an angel and actually got up every morning at 8.00 and staggered off into the storm carrying heavy skis. I think he was secretly pretending that he was on an army training course and we had a tough Austrian teacher called Manfred which enhanced the illusion. By the end he could ski like a normal person, doing swooping parallel turns down scary slopes. Cool.
I was able to wander round the town which had ICE BARS set up in the streets with pretty girls offering all sorts of schnapps set in cups of snow. It was all so attractive and unlike dreary old English winter. I also found a large supermarket and was able to buy stupid stuff for our lunch every day. I never tire of foreign groceries with idiotic names. Which I now can't remember. What they DID have amongst the colas etc. was Swiss sibannaC Refresher, 'For that Fantastic Natural Feeling'. Is this normal? It certainly isn't in England. My son said it smelt 'right' but had no noticable effect, natural or otherwise. Speaking of which - I am ashamed to say that we did not have a single drink of hot chocolate OR gluwhein. They just didn't seem to be about at the right time. The ski instructors huts sold coke or TEA! How crap is that?

On arriving back we found letters from two universities asking my son to come for an interview. We had, as with the girls, specifically and only applied to universities which never, ever choose their students by interview. So leaving my brilliant CV creativity free reign. Which it had. We had no memory of what I had written - my son could not even remember reading it. Horrors. It was worse than I thought. Why, why did I put that he was fascinated by Japanese art and was taking lessons in basic Japanese in preparation for a summer trip? Why did I put that he admired the work of two hellish and quite obscure modern artists who he has in fact never seen? Why did I put that he had worked in a gallery specialising in 18th.C caricatures and so must know at least something of their intricacies? And that he was about to do a short drawing course in Paris combined with work experience with an art dealer? There is more, much more .............. AAAaaaargh!!!!

Well - I put all that so that he would sound interesting and they would offer him a place. The girls were offered places at every single college they applied to. They did their courses successfully and graduated with good degrees. So...... so what I bent the truth?

This is why the holiday has vanished into memory. The interviews are in ONE WEEK. I have made him a strict time table for each day and we are doing damage limitation. He is running from art gallery to exhibition to book shop to internet. And Japanese phrase- book. For f@cks sake - how does Life ALWAYS manage to do what you don't expect - its like it has a gift.
- posted by Iris @ 2/19/2004 08:23:00 PM comment