Living through a veil

Austria or Wales?

No, I’m not talking about being a Muslim! It’s a revelation that’s come to me since settling here in Wales. It is just such an utter relief to be able to freely communicate, chat away. It took a few weeks for the sense of having to prepare my sentences before I spoke to leave. I do get occasionally caught out when someone says, ‘Half Four’ meaning 4.30, in German that’s 3.30.

I worked, I had friends, I chatted away. But there was always a sense that I wasn’t being me as I would in English, some of my humour I couldn’t communicate. If I lost the context of a conversation in dialect, I was dumb. That I couldn’t be as eloquent or clear as I would in English, no matter how I tried. I often wonder how my German sounded to people, like English Geordie, but in German???

There was this invisible barrier around me all the time. And it’s only know that I can acknowledge and perceive it. Dave and I watched out local evening news from the Lungau recently, and I was relieved that I could still get most of it, I wouldn’t want to lose the ability to speak the language.

And all around me, the scenery, houses, blew me away; that sense never left. But not because it was home and I could take it for granted, I was a constant visitor, marveling at this new land, which never became as familiar and as comforting as an English village or town. Now I’m home and there’s no possibility of misunderstandings, if I don’t understand, I can take on the people around me and their wonderful sense of humour.

A complete and utter relief.

Back at last!

After two months to the day when we left Austria, we finally moved into our new home! I have kept a diary of the whole process, which I will continue until Christmas when I publish it as a memoir!

This blog will naturally take a new direction, but I guess the title will be no less apt. I will remain in touch with my Austrian friends, and no doubt to some comparisons with the old and new lives.

I fully expect to have snow here in Wales, everyone we talk to says it comes on the tops. But just so long as it stays there, and doesn’t linger icily underfoot all winter, I will be happy.

An afterthought… Having said all that and having been here a while now, I think maybe, the blog might need to be called, ‘So where’s the rain?’

Durlston country park, Swanage

Wareham Forest

Scenes at Farnham Rural life Museum

Ice, ice, baby!

On a quiet, cold walk by the Mur in Tamsweg, we suddenly noticed the river filling with ice and the level rising. We guessed a dam of ice had burst upstream, it was spectacular. The photos don’t really do justice to the nose and flow. I rushed home to see what it was all like by the bend in the river by our house. It must have broken up by then as it wasn’t anything like. Any of you got some ice photos?