I can see clearly now ...

Phew! What a week. It's been crazy-busy for me this week. Monday was a public holiday so Paul and I went with S&M to a gorgeous country pub for lunch. The weather has been beautiful so we got to sit outside in the beer garden eating our meals, watching kids play and bumble bees fly.

On Tues I was in Edinburgh and Wed and Thur in Copenhagen. Whirlwind tours.

Today I spent the morning in the office and then in the afternoon got my Lasik Eye Surgery done. The surgery was at 2:30pm and it's now almost just midnight and I can see just fine. The surgery itself didn't hurt, it was just very wierd. The clamp on my eyes was extremely uncomfortable and it was a little disconcerting having a suction thingy put on my eye, but other than that, it was just fine.

I went straight to sleep after getting home (with these gorgeous eye goggles on so I don't bump my eyes during the sleep and dislodge me unhealed, unattached cornea) and now I have drops that I need to put in for the next 7 days. But waa laa! That's it. All done.

It's too early to tell but so far ... I recommend it.

M & A's Awesome Austrian Adventure

Pics live here.

Enjoy.

The pitter patter of tiny feet

And before you get too excited (mum!) it's not exactly what you think.

We have issues. Serious serious issues in our little house in Southfields. Paul and I are reasonably house-proud individuals, me more so than him and at the moment we're feeling kinda yucky about living here.

As you know, we live on the first floor and in the loft of a converted Victorian house and up until recently we've really loved living here. It's not the coolest place on the block - think blue carpet, yellow walls, daggy rust-red couch and green tiles in the kitchen - but it's clean and homely and big enough for us to hang out in all day without bumping into each other (important!).

But lately things haven't been so nice. Paul found a mushroom growing in our entrance way and it turns out we've got dry rot under the floor boards on the ground level. This is going to be fixed by someone coming in, pulling up all the floorboards in the entry and getting a humidifier in to dry up underneath. This could take weeks and meanwhile we will have an area at the entrance to our house that is completely exposed to the ground underneath - not ideal.

Well, it gets worse. I was in the kitchen last Sunday afternoon making a cup of tea when I noticed that the floor looked kinda swollen and when you stepped on it, it was squishy. I called Paul in (interrupted him playing his music - not happy) to confirm my fears and he proceeded to pull the dishwasher and washing machine out from underneath the bench top to see what was leaking - we found a bit of water but to our absolute horror also found MOUSE POO!

Eeooow!

So we spent the best part of last Sunday evening setting poison, plugging up holes with steel wool, bleaching everything we could possibly think of that may have come into contact with ungodly rodents and dry-heaving!

The landlord came to visit on Friday to investigate and the flooring under our lino in the kitchen is saturated (I don't think they connected the dishwasher properly) so the lino has been ripped up and we are attempting to dry out the floor. Our kitchen now looks like this ... The plastic bags around the dishwasher and washing machine are Paul's attempt at trying to ensure that mousey-mousey doesn't venture into our territory (he heard something squeaking last night so said poison clearly hasn't kicked in yet).

There goes my cooking mojo.

Things I learnt along the way

... from Vienna to Zurich.

VIENNA

• That two Australians living in the UK + an Israeli and a Norwegian, both studying pre-med in Budapest + dodgy karaoke in a bar outside of Vienna makes for one hell of a fun evening;
• That I really need to take singing lessons and that corona does not make for better vocal chords;
• That when Annemarie, my partner-in-travelling-crime drinks wine and corona in one evening she resorts to doing ballet and serenading Austrian boys;
• That there must be really big chickens in Vienna as the schnitzels were all the size of dinner plates;
• That there are no kangaroos in Austria;
• If a Viennese violinist plays Mozart too hard on his violin the strings on his bow snap;
• Citybikes are the coolest way to get around;
• Bratwursts taste better when eaten with mustard and Austrian beer;
• That I actually like the taste of beer, but only when drinking it in German speaking countries;
• If you leave your boyfriend's camera hanging behind the toilet door of a museum it WILL get stolen;
• That when your boyfriend tells you that you should have deleted the clip of him and you dancing to 'Soulja Boy' from the memory card prior to taking his camera to Austria you should listen to him. M&P on YouTube dancing to Soulja Boy does not make for good resume material;
• Viennese women have a thing for dying their hair fanta-orange. Why, oh why?
• That there are the bones of dead people piled up high underneath the square outside St Stephens church and if you pay €4.00 you can actually go underground and see them. Way cool;
• Vienna has a lottalotta palaces and museums.

SALZBURG

• Someone has a lot of time on their hands to persevere with hand blowing and painting all of these eggs;
• That there really are boys named Chip from America who are in the marines and fly aeroplanes as inspired by Top Gun;
• That when they filmed the Sound of Music, they shot the last scenes first and the first scenes last, so the kids look older at the beginning of the movie than they do at the end;
• Mozart's balls taste like chocolate truffle and nuts;
• Playing limited edition Sesame Street Uno in a beer hall drinking beer made by monks is an awesome way to spend an evening;
• Hostels aren't necessarily a bad place to stay;
• Austrian special breakfast = scrambled eggs, bacon, herbs, onions and tomatoes and is the breakfast of champions;
• That Edelweiss is a very elusive flower;

INNSBRUCK

• The Golden Roof is just that, a building with a golden roof on it;
• If you climb to the top of a mountain in the snow whilst not wearing waterproof clothing you get very very wet;
• Women look weird smoking pipes;
• That if we had of pre-booked all of our train travel it could have saved us an absolute fortune;
• There's a really nice woman in one of the Schnapps shops whose one goal is to have you taste every single schnapps flavour regardless of the consequences;
• Supermarkets in Austria sell the BEST food;
• Bert and Ernie also conquered the mountain;
• If you look hard enough you will find that elusive edelweiss pin (alas, not the flower);
• Notting Hill and the Mornington Penninsula are not the only places that paint their buildings in bright colours;

ZURICH

• That everyone is stylish to boot (except the teenagers);
• That the train from Innsbruck to Zurich snakes through the most gorgeous countryside I have ever seen;
• That if you wait just one extra day you'd have a whole shop of Edelweiss pins to choose from;
• That teenagers dress really badly and stand around in the main train station drinking alco-pops making eyes at each other;
• That all toddlers should have a wooden bicycle without pedals - beats training wheels any day;
• That eating Malaysian food after a week of Austrian food is pure heaven;
• That there are some good looking men in Switzerland;
• That everyone who lives in Zurich should feel blessed that they are living in a gorgeous, cosmopolitan, stylish, modern city with stunning mountains in their backyard and a gorgeous lake in their front yard;
• That little Japanese girls snore louder than me;
• That not everyone who works on reception in hostels is cool

And;

That partner-in-travelling-crime-Annemarie is the best travelling buddy!

Catch up

Just on stuff.

Paul's been working in Frankfurt this week. He emailed me on Tuesday to say that his hotel was in the red-light district.

I've had a middle ear infection all week so have been dizzier than my usual self the past couple of days.

Paul went out on a big night with his friend MD last night which he hasn't done in a while. He came home feeling a little worse for wear with lamb kebab in hand! Lamb kebab at 1am in the morning apparently = good night!

I had a consultation for Lasik eye surgery yesterday. I've booked in to get my eyes lasered on 9 May. I've committed to £2000! Crikey!

Lazy bloody Saturday today. Liking it though. Started the day with bacon, eggs, french toast and spaghetti, followed by reading The Times. Now I'm glued to the Mac and Paul's glued to his keyboard.

Speaking of Paul being glued to his keyboard. Let me just fill you in on the tunes that are blasting out of his headphones. John Farnham! Followed by some AC/DC. Who is this man I'm sharing my life with? John Farnham for Pete's sake. That's embarrassing.

Paul's currently on the phone to MB in Aus. And I can only hear his side of the conversation and I'm hearing ... "Only as old as the woman you feel policy?" I'm not even going to ask about that one. ; )

Oh, and speaking of Paul. Despite his lack of posting recently; he swears he still loves you. Honest. He's just a lazy git. Oops. Did I just say that? Sorry PP.

Only 6 days to go before I'm off to Austria for a holiday with my dear Annemarie. We're in Vienna for four nights and will be going to Mozart's Orchestra, followed by three nights in Salzburg and the Sound of Music Tour, one night in lovely Innsbruck and then one night in Zurich. It's going to be fantastic!

Then four weeks after that Paul, MD, SG, MS and TH and I are all off to Malta for a long weekend.

Sunday lunch tomorrow afternoon at the Alma with MS and the lovely Laura from New York.

Gave some lub to the Kelvinator via text today as she was feeling a little sad. Lub to Kell via text = "Kellee is like a stained glass window. She sparkles and shines when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in her true beauty is revealed because she has light from within." Can't claim that as my own unfortunately. But it's sweet huh?

That's about it at the moment. Not much else to report.