Merry Christmas and have a cup of Civet Poo!

I am showing you some pictures from the Internet of our apartment in St. Petersburg. I am showing you these so that when I come back covered in rat bites and bat guano you will know that it was not all my fault and that I was misled once again by Mr. Photoshop.

I don’t know who the guy in the photos is but apparently he comes with the apartment – because he is in a number of the shots – he may live there - but it’s three bedrooms so should be OK – as long as he doesn’t drink too much of our Horseradish Vodka.

I should warn you that the apartment is advertised as having ‘High Speed Internet’. I imagine that ’High Speed’ in Russia does not necessarily mean “High Speed’ as we know it. I have been there before in places much more accessible than St. Petersburg so it is entirely possible that my Blog will vanish without trace for a week.

Indeed if we are accosted by the “rotten policeman” we may also vanish. However I am taking with me the statement I received from my superannuation fund on Wednesday. This will demonstrate to them that there may be a number of reasons to kidnap me – but money isn’t one of them.

They didn’t lose as much money this year as they did last year, or indeed the year before that – but they did lose money.

It won’t be long before I get a letter saying “ we have lost all the money you have sent us so far – would you like to send us some more so we can try again?” The answer to which will be “not really - I have decided to manage my own funds by throwing €500 off the Terrace every morning as soon as I wake up - this will be more cost effective that having you invest it.”

I am contemplating getting them a subscription to the Economist so that they can keep in touch with what’s happening in the world of finance – and may send them a copy of the book “How to Make Money on the Stock Market”

And incidentally – I forgot to turn off ‘Data Roaming’ on my iPhone while we were in Turkey and it cost me €200 for 5 days – and that’s without making any calls or using the Internet. I was also caught last time we were in Turkey – that one cost me more than €200. I don’t really know what Data Roaming does - but Holy Snapping Turtles it is expensive. This is a real trap so I have turned it off permanently.

As this is my last Blog before Christmas I would just like to let those of you who did not send cards know that I will not forget you. I am thinking up suitable punishment for all of you and it may include public humiliation.

This is a picture of a Civet. People collect the beans from the Poo of the Civet and roast them. It is the most expensive coffee in the world. I mean this is not the most attractive animal I have ever seen - and I am not really sure I would want to eat things that it defecates.

A conversation along the following lines will take place in our kitchen on Christmas Day.

“Where’s the Desiccated Bok Choy?
What?
The Desiccated Bok Choy – where is it?
I have no idea what you’re talking about
Don’t tell me you didn’t get any Desiccated Bok Choy!
Why would I get Desiccated Bok Choy – I don’t even know what it is.
But it’s in the recipe – we must have it
No it’s not (pointing) no mention of Desiccated Bok Choy there
No it’s not in THAT recipe - but it’s something I always put in this dish
You’ve never cooked this dish before
No – but I’ve thought about it and just knew that Desiccated Bok Choy would make it perfect
Well there is no Desiccated Bok Choy so you will have to muddle along
Well it just won’t taste the same
The same as what – you’ve never cooked it before
I know – do we still have the Toasted Macaque Monkey Rubbings from 1995
No but we have the Grilled Curlewis Forearms from 2001
Perfect!"

Merry Christmas - or whatever you do - and I will talk to you from St Petersburg (maybe).

Banana flavoured Cinnamon Chips Mmmm!

Wienfluss Stadtpark

I think the Snow Kitty Litter people are using some smaller, grittier stuff this year and it clogs up my boots. I am not really complaining because it does stop me from falling over and killing myself but it is really gritty and crunchy and is making a terrible mess of the entrance foyer.

We are actually leaving our boots outside our front door this year because they are in such a state when we get home. Frau Helgersnizten our building lady has been out sweeping and mopping the elevator and the stairs. There is a particularly gritty path between the door and Japan Studio where men go to compose Haiku with young ladies.

Tuesday was the first day of ‘Mad Screaming Panic Christmas Food Shopping Time’ .

This lasts for 3.5 days, commencing at dawn on Tuesday and finishing at midday on Thursday – Christmas Eve – when workmen go through Austria nailing all the shop doors shut and shooting any shoppers left on the streets.

During this period there are many critical tasks I need to perform. These include Goose collection (update Rozalin has done this – there is no stopping that girl!), grocery and vegetable buying and assorted tasks which have not been thought of yet and will not be until just before midday on Thursday. I will have to run the gauntlet and hope I don’t get picked off.

As I am the cook during the year - Cate is cooking Christmas Dinner and is doing what she did last year – Goose. Last year was the first time we had eaten Goose and it was wonderful. There are no Geese in Stadtpark so we don’t feel so guilty.

The menu includes Date and Red Wine Sauce, Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta, Rosemary Spiked Cabbage and Calvados Glazed Apples.

The Goose recipes is one of Gordon Ramsay’s. You know him – he is the world’s most unpleasant chef. I tried to watch his TV show once but I had to grit my ears so tightly I couldn’t hear anything.

Cate’s recipes always include at least one impossible ingredient (which is always critical). This will be something like ‘Ethiopian Honey Glazed Lemon Pips’. These will be almost impossible to find and – when found – will be eye-poppingly expensive.

They will be so expensive because Selassie’s Honey Glazed Lemon Pips are ‘hand selected and rolled (by virgins) in the finest Ethiopian Honey. They are then sun dried for 5 years, being turned daily with eyebrow tweezers, before being individually wrapped in silver paper bearing the motif of the former Emperor. The bees used for the Honey are descendants of the former Emperor’s Bee Hives’.

When I finally find these damn things I will take them home and in the final recipe Cate will use 6 out of a jar of 600. The rest will then linger forever in the back of the kitchen cupboard which is full of things like ‘Grilled Curlewis Forearms’ and ‘Toasted Macaque Monkey Rubbings’ – the sorts of things that have been essential because some chef had a tub of these things under the stove and threw some into some bizarre concoction he was inventing.

I know how these things work. To make a living celebrity chefs have to invent new recipes for their books and TV shows. Well – there are not really any new recipes and haven’t been for some time so they have to be really creative. (foam was created for this purpose).

So after coming up with something like ‘Chocolate Coated Pork Crackling with Fricasseed Bat Ears and Duck Feet Foam’ the chef will decide that he needs something to give him an edge.

Ratting around in his kitchen cupboard he will find the ‘Banana flavoured Cinnamon chips’ which he bought (while drunk) in the spice market in Istanbul in 1996 – and has never used. He will throw a handful of these in and cause complete panic when the recipe is published in another excruciating Christmas recipe book and given to people all over the world.

Meanwhile in Istanbul, Mehmet Mustafa, the entrepreneur who invented this concoction, who has hitherto sold only two jars of Banana flavoured Cinnamon chips per annum – usually to his mother – will sell the remaining jars in an instant and will be inundated with orders.

Thinking his ship has come in he will immediately buy the entire Cinnamon crop in Turkey and make 100,000 jars – 99,600 of which he will have left 25 years later when he dies bankrupt – leaving these as his only useful possession. His children – unable to cope with the sight of these damn jars in his bedroom - will bury them with him.

Luckily one of his daughters will marry a wealthy Cinnamon farmer and will be able to support the family.

I have made a list – actually a spreadsheet – so that I at least try to get everything that is needed.

This has everything we need together with the precise amount required. I am working through it and ticking things off as we go. I am confident that the only errors and omissions will be minor ones and can be solved with things that I can scrounge from the back of the kitchen cupboard.

I am going to St. Petersburg. Rozalin managed to extract the Visa from the Russian Embassy and it is liftoff for Saturday morning (at – I regret to say 5:00 AM).

The Ducks gave Cate the cold shoulder

You will be delighted to learn that I got my new scarves on Saturday – three of them in fact. We wandered into Steffl in Kärntnerstrasse and saw a whole bunch of them – and they were on sale. I don’t understand that because hasn’t winter just started? But there is a lot of Christmassy stuff on sale as well – and the crowds seem to be down on last year.

Anyway I selected two delicious scarves and proudly showed them to Cate. She patted me on the arm, said ‘they’re lovely darling’, put them back on the pile and then chose some others which she thought would be better – and she would know – I wear only jeans and black T-Shirts so am no judge of anything useful.

For many years now I have not been allowed to go clothes shopping unaccompanied as I will most certainly buy something entirely unsuitable. On the very rare occasions I do buy something solo I always keep the receipt and tell the sales assistant that I will be back the next day for a refund after my wife has seen it – at which they laugh loudly at the time – but not so loudly when I appear again.

Anyway – Cate was so delighted with her two choices that she bought another. Two are very long and woolly and one is a bit less woolly – but I am well pleased with them all.

One of them is by Hugo Boss (I just don’t know where he gets the time) so I could wear it with my underpants – not that I wear my Hugo Boss underpants – what man is going to wear underpants that cost €29 – I mean – what if something happened to them – I would never forgive myself.

I don’t quite know what the future does hold for my Hugo Boss underpants – I could have them bronzed – or framed like they do these days with football jerseys.

On Saturday night we walked down to the Christkindlmarkt at the Rathaus to show Margaret how we live in Europe while she is sweltering in Australia, fighting bushfires, beating off poisonous snakes and sinking cold beers.

Margaret had to walk very gingerly as she does not have any walking boots and instead has a pair of Australian RM Williams boots which look terrific and are good for walking around in paddocks - but are absolutely useless for walking in snow. So she walked like she had an Igel in her knickers and it took us ages to get there - but was well worth the trip.

As I was wrapped up in one of my new scarves – and was kitted out with proper walking boots – I was entirely and deliciously comfortable and fairly oblivious to anything around me.

Margaret had an Erdbeer Punsch and was not as enthusiastic about as we had hoped she would be – but it is an acquired taste so we did not expect too much.

Afterwards we walked to Café Central and Cate ate a Duck. I reminded her of this as we walked back through Stadtpark and the Ducks fell silent as we approached.

They can tell you know. On the occasions I have eaten Duck before walking through Stadtpark I have definitely been given the cold shoulder (or whatever it is that Ducks have where their shoulders would be if they had them).

We discovered that the Restaurant next door to us in Am Heumarkt, the StadtPark Bräu takes Sodexho vouchers. These are the vouchers that Cate gets each day to buy her lunch but as she lives on coffee, mineral water and Balistos she gets to save most of her vouchers and we have to find restaurants that take them.

Balistos are good because while that have no nutritional value they send a shot of sugar straight to where it is needed most. An unfortunate side effect is that each Balisto contains about a million calories.

In StadtPark Bräu we had quite the largest Wiener Schnitzels we had ever seen and Cate and I argued about whether pork or veal is used for the ‘traditional’ Wiener Schnitzel. She said Pork and I am sure she is right because they are very fond of Schweinfleisch here – although I do prefer Kalb.

Sissi just loves the snow and as soon as the Terrace door is opened she is out there like a shot burrowing into the mounds of snow that have been collected into large piles (drifts?) by the wind. She would stay there for a hours so we have to use various subterfuges to entice her back into the apartment before we all freeze to death.

I decided that as I am getting close to being able to edit moving pictures I would take some video of Sissi playing in the snow. So I set up the camera and then opened the door to the small Terrace – where there were quite large snow piles. She dived into these and was having a wonderful time when she realised that this was the Terrace without the net. By an amazing feat of athleticism I managed to prevent an escape onto the snow roofs of Wien. Last time she did that she ended up in the Tierschutzhaus – but at least now she is tagged and collared.

And we have found a pair of boots for Margaret and she is now as sure-footed as a Mountain Goat and is leaping and bounding all over Vienna.