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Thursday, November 22, 2012

And today's duck is?


Today’s duck is one I have never seen before. I spotted it in Stadtpark a few days ago.

I described it to Merisi and she said it sounded like a Mandarin duck - but I have checked my bird book and it does not seem to have the right features.

The best I can come up with is a Pochard – but any help would be appreciated.

So the reason I posted ‘spot the badger’ was that I have (finally) started to get together the family history.

This is a project that was started by my ancient and venerable brothers some years ago and in which I was sort of involved. They have done a lot of work but we do not yet have a central site which is accessible to everyone.

So I have decided to finally bring it to a conclusion and have acquired the appropriate software and membership of ‘ancestry.com’.

Give the nature of our fractured family – and the paucity of cameras at the time – we have very few pictures from our early years and I was rustling through the few that we do have and found the one of the Badger in 1953 that was in fact acquired only recently.

The three brothers did a tour of the NSW Riverina district - where we were all raised and spent our early years.

The school in Deniliquin was having an open day so we popped in and they were able to produce that photo.

I am glad that I do not these days look like I do in that photo.


Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Christmas is coming



The Graben
A new Merkur has recently opened in Hoher Markt and Merisi took me to see it today.

It is just fabulous – with a vast array of foodstuffs, vegetables and spices that put my ghastly little Spar to shame.

I found lots of things I have never seen before in Vienna - and just can’t wait to go shopping there. It is a 10 minute bike ride from our apartment – or I can get the U-Bahn.

In the meantime they are yet again digging up Beatrixgasse – which is our back street – and below our windows.

The Graben with Christmas lights
They have been digging all over it for months. Perhaps they are looking for something.

I really do hope they finish before winter really arrives.

The Christmas lights are going up in Kärntnerstrasse and the Graben. It won’t be long before it really feels like Christmas here.