The art of breakfasting

Last week we had a first impression of hot life will be once the two flats next to ours are being occupied as a film crew used both apartments as location for shooting a series of TV advertisements for telekom austria. Knowing the empty rooms and flats it will be very interesting to see how they look like readily prepared for the shooting. Unfortunately for the crew the weather turned cold and rainy, so they even had to organise a crane from which “sunlight” was provided.

During the course of Wednesday the clouds cleared up and temperatures rose slightly which was perfect timing as we have planned a late “Mother’s Day” barbecue on our roof terrace. Surrounded by a hungry and tired film crew we kick-started our Weber-Q200 and prepared fish, pork, turkey and vegetables alongside fresh salads for Markus’ mom, Ines and Stefan & Viki followed by yummy Banana Split. The evening was very nice and went by very fast – the only one missing was Markus’s dad who unfortunately could not come to Vienna for that occasion.

The weather improved even further towards the weekend and by Saturday we had summer weather back again which meant that we spent lots of time on our roof terrace in the sun again. Sunday morning Kerstin’s god-child Rosemarie and Sandra came by for breakfast and we spent hours eating, playing and painting. Kerstin and Rosemarie produced a beautiful picture of a dinosaur which we are planning to place somewhere in our little one’s room.

The painter and her piece of art

The very good news for this week is that the weather is supposed to be getting even better and a holiday on Thursday makes the week a short one and provided the perfect setting for Heidi’s visit to Vienna, arriving in Wednesday night.

Kerstin & Markus

Adam's apple bounces far

Even though Kerstin stopped working last week, taking two weeks holiday before entering maternity leave, the nice early summer weather stayed. We put the odds for a weather change quite high, but this year seems really different as over the past weeks the nice weather also remained for the weekends. Meeting up with friends, a few doctor appointments and some other bureaucratic issues to be sorted out were as well on the programme as relaxing on the terrace in the sun, doing yoga or just hanging out.

Markus and Peter came up with a good idea – a classical win-win-situation for everyone – for Sunday – Mother’s Day: a day in the beautiful area of Ramsau/Adamstal. The two boys went early morning for a round of golf at GC Adamstal, one of the most beautiful and challenging golf courses in Austria and the two moms-to-be arrived afterwards, accompanied by Mimi, Bruno as well as Max & Leo for lunch and a walk through the nice nature around there. The boy’s golf on the course of former rally champion and Austrian golf league president Franz Wittmann can be characterised with “mixed emotions”, we both lost quite a lot of balls on this very hilly course but very much enjoyed the round as the course was pretty empty and there was neither pressure from behind nor were we held up by slow players in front of us.

Perfect fairways and greens with great panoramic view

After very good lunch at the clubhouse – where staff was similarly friendly as all other staff on the course (including the Marshal!) – the 8 of us ventured out for a walk into the valley alongside the 9-hole course. Not only Max had lots of fun running through the woods and playing at a little water wheel but also the big boys were happy as they managed to bring their net-golf ball balance almost into positive territory as they picked up a lot of lost balls in the streambed and the woods. The day was – also thanks to the nice weather – so relaxing and beautiful that we might repeat it next year again. Let’s see if we will remember that in 12 months time and we marked the start of a tradition.

Kerstin & Markus

Old friends' reunion

Last weekend provided a very good opportunity to properly relax as the May Day bank holiday prolonged the weekend from Friday to Sunday. Instead of joining into the Maiaufmarsch on the town hall-square in Vienna we spent the time with finishing off the preparations in our baby-room and with relaxing on Friday.

Saturday was the official golf season opener for Markus with an early morning round together with Peter in Spillern which turned out to be more joyful and far less frustrating than expected. After little Sophie’s birthday party in Kritzendorf in the afternoon we drove to Oberwart as Markus had another round of golf arranged with Klaus early Sunday morning in Bad Tatzmannsdorf - again the round was pretty decent - followed by lunch with Michaela, Klaus and Nikolaus and a rather frustrating Game 4 of the ABL Semifinal between the Oberwart Gunners and WBC Kraftwerk Wels which the Gunners lost after 2 overtimes and giving away a 3 point lead 10 seconds before the end of regulation. As a result the decisive Game 5 will take place on Wednesday in Wels.

The fun factor was back

Monday afternoon Markus boarded the last Austrian flight to London for a two day business trip on which he also met up for dinner with some former colleagues – Sarah, Berti and Florian – as well as Helen and Fritz on Tuesday night. Not having met for 4 years provides a lot of topics for small talk even though it felt like we have been working together all the time. It was just like in the old days – lots of fun and laughter, lots of booze and only a few hours of sleep.

Kerstin & Markus