Do we eat Grasshoppers in Australia?

I have been hot on the trail of Rozalin’s suggestion that the squeak was probably the water heater. On the basis that there is only one moving part on this monstrous beast - which sits menacingly in the corner - I have let some water out of the valve thingy – which is probably called the overflow valve in English but in German may, or may not be, a Wasserkocher Ventil.

Logic and the German language do not seem to be willing participants so it could be anything at all.

This seems to have quietened it down a bit. It is still squeaking – but with less enthusiasm and less frequency.

I have probably saved us from a major catastrophe by doing this. The squeak may have been a warning that it was going to blow up and level Landstrasse – although you would think it would do something more useful than squeaking every 10 minutes or so.

How about a siren or a shouted warning Achtung! Vorsicht! Ich werde explodieren!

In Bangkok Cate has a hotel room the size of an apartment with its own lounge room, dressing room and spare bathroom. Of course the Internet doesn’t work – but that is usually the case everywhere she goes. But still – it’s at no extra charge.

Today she will charge out into the steaming heat to do whatever it is she does on these trips.

She tried to explain it to Muffin and I once but we both nodded off before she got to the good bits (if there are any – which I doubt).

When Burne and Jan come in October we (and Melissa) are going to spend a week visiting the World War 1 battlefields in Belgium and France. This will be a trip of epic proportions and careful planning is required.

Unfortunately I have been put in charge of this process but will do my best. As we will be driving I cannot mess up any train or plane trips – but there will certainly be hotel bookings that could be buggered beyond all recognition.

I may get Melissa to check these for me.

I know that you will all be fascinated by the plans so will keep you informed.

Miss Snow Mountain is going to Brazil next week to look for an apartment and will move there permanently at the end of June. This means that Muffin and I will have to break in another German teacher and we are not happy about it.

Fortunately we don’t have to do this until we get back from Australia at the end of July – at which time of course we will have the new additions to our family and Muffin will have some new friends.

Incidentally – not that anyone at all will care about this at all – but this was the first time since I have been following the Tour de France (about 20 years) that I would have been able to watch it in daylight hours.

Of course we are going to Australia the day before it starts so once again if I want to watch it I will have to stay up to the wee hours down under.

One year I would like to go to Paris to watch the finish on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées but don’t imagine there will be much support for this from Cate.

Crossfields Australian Pub in the city advertises that:

‘we serve exotic titbits such as tender ostrich and kangaroo steaks or fried grasshoppers’.

Grasshoppers? – has any Australian ever voluntarily eaten a Grasshopper in Australia – is there something I should know?

Incidentally I checked the site meter and note with some relief that the number of readers of the Blog has dropped away significantly and – based on current trends – will soon drop into single digits.

This has been part of a very deliberate and successful ploy to make my life sound as unexciting as it really is (although not to me – I Love it!)

Now – if you would ALL stop reading I could stop writing and can get on my cycling, learning German, watching naked ladies with hoops and talking to Muffin.

I am counting on your support – don’t let me down!

Can you sneeze yourself to death?

Rozalin has told me that they are Ash trees.

They certainly go overboard in trying to propagate. Each tree produces about 60 tonnes of whatever which they then proceed to spread over the entire land causing untold misery.

Last night I endeavoured to prove the hypothesis that you can sneeze yourself to death – and I damn near succeeded. By 9:30 I was sneezing non stop and my eyes were streaming.

I was incapable of rational action so collapsed onto the bed whereupon I took sneezing, snuffling, wheezing, watering and dripping to new heights.

It go so bad that Muffin got off the bed and went into the lounge room. It has to be really bad for Muffy to do that.

I slept really badly and had to punctuate my night with a bowl of Corn Flakes at 3:30 AM and a short watch of a naked lady playing with a Hula Hoop on German TV. She was very clever indeed – the things she could do with that hoop! I am going to buy one for Cate.

I eventually staggered almost lifeless from bed at about 9:30.

It rained overnight and is a bit cooler. I have dosed myself with antihistamines and so far today have not been to bad.

It was unfortunate that this happened last night because I was gearing up to watch 20 episodes of Desperate Housewives. 20 Episodes? I hear you say. Well…it’s like this….

Cate’s existence is so harrowing that she sometimes has to escape into another world and Gruner Veltliner doesn’t always do it. For a while it was ‘House’ where she watched all four series over a period of a couple of months.

Now it is Desperate Housewives. I would like to watch this with her but she has a head start and is up to episode 20 in series 1. The only way I can catch up is to watch the first 20 episodes before she gets back.

(BTW today I think she is in Thailand).

This is a real challenge and I just cannot afford to have a night like last night.

Rozalin thinks the squeak is the water heater (no David I am sure it is not rats and mice playing backgammon – why? - because I would hear the dice rattling in the cup).

She is probably right and I will have to sit in there for a while to find out for sure.

Mind you – I have no idea what to do about it when I find out. I am quite sure that if the landlord is prepared to let us die of heat exhaustion he is not going to be bothered about a rogue squeak.

There is a squeak in the laundry

Early in Spring the trees around here started collecting white fluffy things which they are now dumping on Wien in great fluffy clouds.

It looks like snow but it gives me Hay Fever to a very alarming degree and I spend an inordinate amount of time sneezing. Someone will tell me what these trees are called – not that it matters much. (See pic above).

Cate’s hotel in Jakarta is up to the usual high standard and she had a private check-in on level 14 where she sat in a leather lounge chair and was given a glass of chilled white wine while she signed up. She also has her laundry done for her every day. I bet she has a chocolate on her pillow every night too!

Although…….I just made some bookings for two weeks hence for Krakow and on the hotel website they have promised us chocolates! We shall see.

Tomorrow she is going to Bangkok for two days.

There was something call the Genuss Festival in Stadtpark at the weekend. I am not sure what Genuss Festival means in this context but someone will explain it to me.

Anyway it is a display of the food and wine from all over Austria and I tried some different things and bought many different things including many different salad oils and different types of Schnapps. I must say the food and wine of Austria is sensational.

I didn’t take any photos but Merisi will have and they will appear on her website in due course I am sure.

What I did see was baby ducks so there will be pics of these soon.

I am back on the bike after recovering from my flu (or whatever it was) and have been for two very long rides. Probably about 40 kilometers each day. I plan on doing this five days each week.
I went to Alt Wien on Thursday and they had run out of Caruso Blend AGAIN! The man was very sorry and promised it would be in and roasted by Monday – and it was – which was just as well because I was down to the last cup.

I am not going to let this happen again as it is too traumatic. In future there will always be a kilo in the emergency reserves.

I told you I got a BIPA card – well I was issued with a temporary paper card when I signed up. I never did get a proper plastic card so Rozalin kindly followed this up for me.

It seems my card went to Gretl Almhupfer. Not only did Gretl get my card, she has also received the points from all my purchases for the last few months. I am going to contact her and suggest she has us a round for dinner.

With the Financial Times we often get a magazine that is called ‘Stuff For the Stupidly Rich’. The latest issue has an advertising supplement about the new Motorola AURA which has the world’s first circular display in a mobile phone.

What can I say?

Anyway – Motorola has signed up David Beckham to promote their phone and they have some eloquent quotes from him in the supplement.

Now you know that I never have an unkind word to say about anyone but I have seen David Beckham interviewed and – apart from the fact that he sounds like a Mongoose with its testicles caught in a mousetrap – he can barely string two words together.

However, if you want to watch the video (I haven’t but I am sure DB will not be allowed to speak) – it’s at: http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/GB-EN/Home

There is something that makes a weird squeaking noise every 15 minutes our so in our laundry. It sounds like the noise you would make if you trod on a child’s squeaky bear. (no it’s not David Beckham).

I just can’t figure out what it is. It has been going on for days. It's driving me Maaaaaaaaaaaad!