Ben was left behind my his mum!

3 out 6 for the Oscars. Not very good really but it didn’t occur to me that they would give the best actor award to the best actor – which Sean Penn certainly is.

This rarely happens.

And no one would pick Penelope Cruz and I should have known better with the Slumdog Millionaire juggernaut.

When there are outpourings of hysteria like there have been about that movie one should know better than to bet against it.

Somehow I rather doubt that it is going to improve the lives of the many millions of Indians living in poverty – but a few people will get very rich indeed. (Hint - it won't be the Indian actors)

Massimo is back on stream and serving coffee. I broke a rule and had some cake just to make sure it was stale – it was. I think he must buy it stale as he had only been open two days and it can’t go stale that quickly.

But I may have made my last visit as, while there is a non smoking area, it is adjacent to where Mr. M and his assistant stand – and they both smoke. A bit pointless really.

Ben is very unhappy because Cate went to Zambia without him – this is the first trip ever where she hasn’t taken Ben – and of course (as you can see) he is devastated.

Cate had a fake tan before she left for Zambia and looked quite – well – native. She was about the same colour as Ben, but without the red nose.

At night all I could see in the dark were her teeth. She scrubbed quite a bit off before she left so that she now no longer looks like Whoopi Goldberg – but is very dark for someone in Wien in winter and stood out quite markedly against the snow - especially the orange iridescent bits.

She rang from this morning from next to the Zambezi river to tell me that she had taken lots of photos of elephants and Hippopotami but that the camera was no longer working. Did I know what was wrong with it?

Not really - have you tried the other battery?

This is apparently my fault as I should have let her take the big camera. I can get into trouble even when I am many thousands of miles away.

Muffin went to the vet today for a checkup (she is well, thanks for asking) but we have had some blood tests just to make sure. Muffin is 17 this year ( I haven’t bothered to explain to her that the average life span for cats is 15 years as she already has a somewhat flaky disposition).

The cost of the checkup was €170!

It would be much cheaper in Vienna to club your pets to death when they have a problem and get new ones but I guess there are rules against this – and anyway – we are quite fond of Muffin even though she quite often becomes unhinged in the middle of the night.

It has been snowing for days and we love it. We went to Ellas in Judenplatz on Friday night and walked back through Stadtpark, crunching though the snow. The snow was falling and under the lamps in the park this and snow on the ground created a magic scene – and of course the ducks looked gorgeous covered in white speckles of snow.

They are building scaffolding around Spar. It is Karnaval so I think they may be going to hang some Auslanders who put coloured glass in the white glass bin. (Well – there are rules).

This should draw quite a crowd – I will go down later and check it out.