Dear Readers - I had no intention of interfering in the flow of Jane's adventures, but have broken my vow of silence to extol the virtues of this - http://www.shakespeare-in-styria.eu/ - which I went to see last night. I really wasn't expecting much - living close to the RSC spoils you - but can only say I was astounded and delighted by the quality of these productions (Midsummer Night's Dream & King Lear in a double bill) and very impressed by the professionalism and enthusiasm of the production team and their myriad helpers. The whole thing was even more amazing given that most of the cast were young, inexperienced non-English native speakers and that they had come together for rehearsals only 10 days previously!

Although there was barely a weak performance amongst them, some special mentions must be made. In 'Dream' - seen first to allow the German friends accompanying me to their first live Shakespearian experience to get the feel of the language and style - we were especially impressed by Josephine Mayer (DE) playing Helena & Katharina Paul (DE) as Hermia who gave us what was the best 'girl fight' we have ever seen staged! Nikola Nastoki as Puck was superb and the Macedonian accent added to, rather than distracted from, the characterisation. But the star of the show was undoubtedly Fred Stewart (UK) as Bottom - versatile, funny and

absolutely the best expression of stunned bewilderment I have ever seen. A star in the making I feel!

Lear is obviously a very difficult kettle of fish - both to stage and to watch - especially for a mainly German-speaking audience. It was to the company's great credit, therefore, that they held us all spellbound throughout. Certainly the setting helped - Schloss Murau is beautiful and the director had used the available environment to great effect - but again some wonderful performances made the play. In particular Anna Thierney (A) as Regan, Hanna Taylor Gordon (UK) as Goneril (do not cross these ladies!) and Damien Molony(IR) as a beautifully evil Edmund. John Harwood (UK) put all his obvious experience into Lear. But the star of the show was undoubtedly Diana Kashlan (CZ) playing the dual roles of Cordelia and the Fool and managing also to do the required introductory explanation for the largely Austrian audience in flawless German. We were more than impressed! Finally we should mention here the musicians and their technicians who did a wonderful job and almost had us reaching for our umbrellas during the storm scene, despite the actual 28 degrees!

All in all a perfect afternoon/evening's entertainment - you have converted my friends to Shakespeare and given me a truly great experience and we all thank you. We will be back next year - with friends and guests in tow, we promise!

Chapter 2 – Back to Basics and Moving On

OK, well the website will give you details like numbers of rooms etc but more basic information is always good. Rooms are excellent, doubles are singles put together and mattresses are excellent, as is the bed-making (Pauline is Queen of The Bedchambers and does fantastic hospital corners on the (crisp cotton) sheets. Not sure how she gets those on the inside angles of the mattresses which are pushed together……but I am going to follow her round and get tips). En suites have excellent (I use the word a lot, but that is because it’s the best word to use) showers – don’t you just hate a dribbly shower?!

The Gasthof proper is one side of the road and is owned by Ros and John. Besides the 22 bedrooms on 3 floors, it has a cellar space running the length of the building with a large garage space for bikes (cycles for guests’ use are hung there as well) which leads to a guest lounge with TV, then into a laundry area with all mod cons and a separate drying area which in turn leads into space which John and Ros use to hibernate in during the winter months. This place is BIG.

The whole thing is set on a plot of land with parking space for about 8 cars or lots of bikes at the front and a grassed garden area with patio/terrace area and a washing line off to one side.

Ros and John almost didn’t view this place because the agent’s description said something along the lines of “Gasthof with possible use of kitchen over the road” and, as zou do, they had visions of crossing the road and asking a little old woman if they could make a cup of tea on her stove. Fortunately they were passing anyway so stopped off for a look.

Unsurprisingly, they not only liked it but made such a hit with the owner (Adolf) that he offered to rent them the “kitchen”. This turned out to be the whole of the ground floor of the building immediately opposite and has a large reception area with big dining/bar area and residents’ snug (for those old enough to remember such a thing or to have seen early Coronation Street with Ena, Martha and Minnie – Google it the rest of zou!) big kitchen, prep room with store room off, further prep room, freezer/storage room and two walk-in cold rooms. And a terrace along the front for those idle moments at the beginning and end of the day when you are planning the day or recovering from it.

And did I mention the stunning scenerz?!

There are two small shops in the village/hamlet and a bank with a magic money machine (ATM to younger readers). If you want to do a bit more shopping than that, Gmund is about 5 minutes by motorised transport or a 15 minute czcle ride. It’s an old medieval town (small!) with bits of the old wall leading to the local castle which looks incredibly shabby on the outside but apparently has a stunning wedding venue – there is a heart-shaped flower bed outside the castle wall and the names of the lucky couples are displayed on a large banner at the top of that on The Day. Gmünd has a chemist, doctor, couple of tourist-type shops, clothes shop, 4 small supermarkets (apparently their size throughout Austria is standardised – not come across a big one yet), a jewellery shop, couple of clothes shops and bars where you can sit out and watch the world go by. Worth a stroll around the back streets just for the buildings.

And there is no such thing as a cycle lock because no-one takes your bike if you park it up and leave it for hours. Not sure how the Austrians achieve this because, as far as I know, they don’t subscribe to chopping hands off for theft. But if they could bottle whatever it is, they would make a fortune!

If you want more shopping than Gmünd provides, then Spittal is about 30 minutes away by motorised transport and I have no intention of trying to cycle it, so no idea how long that would take. The route is very bendy and scenic and Ros says that the café outside the hotel by the central park in Spittal does some of the best cakes in Austria. Now signed off for driving there, so will investigate, purely in a spirit of scientific research, and let you know.

And moving on………didn’t tell you about the end of last week because not quite sure how it was all going to pan out. But now that I have nowt but good news to report……Mark, one of the two lads from Northern Ireland came off his bike on Friday and first news was that he had broken some vertebrae and done some ligament damage to one of his ankles. Airlifted out to the hospital at Klagenfurt and awaiting tests.

His friend Andy was, as you can imagine, a bit upset by all this but Ros and John were brilliant when he came back from the police station that afternoon. Andy was all for biking to the hospital to see Mark, but it was made very clear to him that he was going to do no such thing. Ros drove him there, sorted things out using her impeccable German, brought him back and all but tucked him into bed.

Mark was a bit out of it on morphine and flat on his back but not much in the way of prognosis at that point, although the consensus was that the ankle might be more of a problem to heal than the back. Fortunately, his parents were in Germany for a Moto GP event and were able to fly here quite easily.

Keith, our Lone Ranger, went to hospital with Andy the next day and Mark was considerably better – off the morphine and bored with staring at the ceiling, although apparently well-able to appreciate the various nursing staff’s attributes. Monday’s visit by a consultant resulted in him being allowed up, with a brace and his foot in a plaster caste.

Keith, bless his cotton socks, took Andy under his wing and they set off for the UK together – Andy having got here simply by following his best mate Mark who had the satnav, maps and knowhow! I hope Adele liked her present, Keith, and, if you are reading this, I found thimbles in Gmünd so next year you can get one of those for her, if she doesn’t come and choose her own. And if Andy’s parents are reading this, your son is a credit to you – a lovely young man, who kept his head and dealt with a tough situation with great presence of mind. I did ask him to tell you that, but I doubt if he has!

Mark and his parents arrived here yesterday to wait for Mark’s next check-up tomorrow. Mark is motoring around well on his crutches and is looking forward to getting back on his bike which Ros and John collected on their low-loader. So all’s well that ends well and Mark is one very lucky lad – and another credit to his parents.

Mike and Ali have gone off to Italy for a few days (I hope the canals are not too smelly guys!) we have been joined by Phil and Wayne and are now a small select band until the next influx.

Oh yes, and Ros had a lovely email from the Gang of Four to say they had got home safely, thanking us for a fantastic week and that brilliant though the roads and scenery in Austria were, it took a super team like ours to make a good holiday great. We love you too guys! It reminded Ros and myself so much of appreciative Warwickshire is of its employees. And Steve, just for the record, the facebook message Ros sent you was not as I worded it – she missed out “typing” – not deliberatelz I am sure.

Enough already for today. For those of you into War & Peace as a way of passing time, there will be more of this in the dazs that follow. In the meantime you will all be pleased to know that the sun is still shining like a good ‘un, the beer has not run out, John’s cooking is still in a class of its own, and all is well in this world.



PS: Almost forgot the local village fete on Sunday! Brass bands, beer tents, strong-men contests involving saws and logs, stalls selling local products, including some fabulous soaps in lovely shapes made with essential oils, home-made schnapps in beautifully packaged bottles and large flat doughnuts dusted with icing sugar and with jam spooned into the middle – made to order while you watched. Tried two just to make sure the first one was not a fluke (it wasn’t!). Then by way of working off some of that, attempted the climbing wall. Ros has a picture of that. I am saying no more except that I loathe heights and I blame it all on the samples of schnapps which were pressed upon us earlier in the proceedings.

The Misadventures of Jane - Chapter One!

Hi all. It will not have escaped your notice that our blogging has not been very efficient lately - this having been rather a busy time for us plus lots of stuff now going onto our Facebook page - what do you mean what Facebook page??? Who of you out there has not yet signed up?? Good news though - we have a willing(?) volunteer! Our friend Jane - here for a working holiday - has agreed somewhat daringly to write about her adventures in weekly chunks and here comes Part 1. We have made no editorial changes (which hopefully we won't come to regret!) but will try and add some appropriate photos as we go along.

The blog is entitled 'The Misadventures of Jane' - it somehow seemed appropriate but to those of you who are old enough to recognise the reference, tell the younger ones you heard it from your grandparents, and if you are to young to understand - just don't ask us!

THE MISADVENTURES OF JANE
Chapter 1 – Work But Not As You Know It

Ros suggested I keep a blog of mz work experience – which is going to include relearning to touch type using a German keyboard – the z and y keys are reversed which, for a touch-tzpist like wot I woy before I came here, is extraordinarily difficult. The eagle-eyed amongst you will spot that I am working on that, rather than cheating and changing the keyboard settings before I start (but thank zou for the suggestion Chris!).

Arrived last Saturday afternoon, Ros collected me from the airport at Klagenfurt and explained that I would not be starting work until Monday – just settle in and nose around finding out where things were on Sunday. Yeah, right. Got to Malta about 1800 and by 1830 was serving, washing up and generally mucking-in. As learning curves go it was fun.

This place is spectacular, no other word for it. Mountains everywhere you turn, it’s picture postcard heaven. My room has a view down the valley which has to be seen to be believed. And I have my own personal alarm clock right next door in the shape of a very pretty church. The bells are electronic now and, for some wholly unknown reason, chime 60 times at 0600 – no snooze alarm, you just have to wait for it to finish. But I have got so used to it that I don’t hear them anzmore.

John took me halfway up a mountain on my day off (another concept which is not As You Know It……….) and left me there with a map, a compass, a gizmo which has GPS but proved to be wholly beyond my technical capabilities despite the operating booklet (why are they always written by someone who assumes a level of competence which lots of us do not have?), so I kept things

very simple and walked up some more of the mountain and then back down to my starting point. Knees also had something to do with that – like lots of other bits of me, they don’t work quite as well as they used to).

However, I did learn from the booklet that the gizmo has a kezboard if zou can find it and I think, as well as tracking your trip, giving you average speed of movement and all sorts of other interesting information, it allows you to write interesting things about the route as you go. Now, for those of us who still vote Luddite Tendencies, I have a question: why would anyone want to spend time on a walk with fabulous views peering at a very small screen and trying to use even smaller keys to tap in all the things you are missing by………..peering etc).

John didn’t know you could do this, fortunately, or doubtless I would have been doing that instead of just ambling up the hill, admiring the horny-handed sons of the soil (grandpa, dad and son – and grandma) who were using large scythes to cut what I gather is the second crop of hay this year. And the butterflies, wildflowers and did I mention the views and the fantastic sunshine?!

John collected me and then what was undoubtedly the highlight of my week took place. We had several groups of bikers staying here and one of the Gang of Four took me for a ride on his BMW. I am in love! Fantastic ride and thank you Steve for a wonderful memory. You and the rest of the Gang of Four will be a very hard act to follow in the coming weeks.

Thursday I went off for a cycle ride but missed the (according to John) very easz to find cycle route to the Gossfalle and found mzself meandering up and down rather more than I was expecting when I set off but as I was going in the right direction it wasn’t a problem and (have I mentioned this before?) the scenery and views are spectacular. Got to my destination 50 minutes later (took 5 in the car when Ros was showing me around) but as I was the only one there, I didn’t actually throw mzself in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall because getting out would have required clambering over a lot of slippery rocks – those who know and love me will be surprised to hear that I used that much discretion! Beautiful spot though, with a walk around it and lots of “thinking spaces” with benches, none of which have ever seen a vandal in their lives.

Paddled for a bit, got my feet and legs nice and cold and then went back via the main road. This country is very cycle-friendly – everyone overtakes you on the other carriageway rather than trying to clip your handlebars in passing without actually knocking you off the bike. There is also no road rage at all as far as I can see – everyone travels sedately and even those who have been following me on my “L” trips with Ros don’t seem overly concerned about my very slow pace. Mind you, the roads do wind a lot and are frequently bordered by drops into water on one side and sheer rock face on the other. And did I mention the scenery?!

Had mz first staff meeting this morning - a very lively affair in which I took very little part, but there was coffee and exceptionally good chocolate cake! The country is awash with exceptionally good cake of various sorts. Apparently Ros and John had agreed to host a German walking association's 100 anniversary celebrations next Sunday - there will be about 100 people coming to the Hutte at the car park where John dropped me off for my hill walking expedition the other day. A knees-up there on Saturdaz night and then down to us for lunch on Sunday.

The local bank manager's father in law dropped in for a drink last night about 0015 (which will teach us to stay outside drinking till all hours) and casually asked Ros what she was doing about music. News to Ros, although FIL who plays in a local brass band, offered to put her in touch with the band's reserve team. We will be all ledderhosen and accordions bz the sound of it. And run off our feet. But how much fun will it be?! Lots!

Enough alreadz for this week. For those who have got this far, thank you for reading it – for those who have never been here COME! It is the most amazing holiday destination and Ros and John run a fantastic operation – it would be impossible to get anything more guest-friendly. And John is not a bad little chef (sorry John, I meant excellent……….put that knife down…….), it’s pretty much all cooked from scratch and to order – a short and simple menu each day using fresh produce and all done simply and very well.

I hope your coming week is as good as mine will be……….watch this space.

We have been back here for over a month and this is the first chance I have had to add to our blog. We rushed back here to attend a tourism meeting which was then cancelled at short! notice when we got back. Still, there was lots to do to get ready for the summer season. Our friend, Andi Nethercoat, arrived a week after we got back and is planning to stay for the whole summer. He is this years "Manuel", he has almost no German so we need to find him a nice Austrian woman to teach him a thing or two.

We had three weeks to get the place ready and we just made it. The middle weekend in May is a holiday here, or rather the holiday is on the Thursday so everyone takes the Friday off as well to make a four day weekend. We had two biker groups, one from Austria and one from Germany leaving us just one free room all weekend. Despite the weather (bank holiday weather in the same everywhere) they all had a good time. Most nights we managed to close the bar by 3am. only to find most of the enthusiastic drinkers were up and about a few hours later, ready to ride. Our German group (who were on a return visit) proved very knowledgeable about Malt Whiskey. We stock 13 malts at the moment and hope to extend our range soon. After a tasting session one of the guests told us a joke (in English) that I can't possibly repeat here.

Our next guests were two bikers from England and five guys who had ridden all the way from Northern Ireland. I'm sure they were good riders but as drinkers they have a way to go to catch up with the German group! Their group was called the Flying Dicks, which is strange because none of them was called Richard. We also had another visit from Earl. Earl is what you might call a mature rider, he travels alone but has a knack for engaging with people wherever he goes and therefore has a treasure trove of stories to tell. He also has the distinction of being our first biker guest to abandon his bike on a mountain top. They dug it out of the snow the next day, bike and rider were unharmed although Earl fretted whilst separated from his beloved bike.

On Monday our first bus group of the season arrives and will fill the place until Saturday. We are hoping that our new employee, Gertraud, will be able to breath some life into them. Maybe we can even persuade them to say up beyond 9pm! Still, they don't get in the way of other guests, they have breakfast early and are on the coach by 8.30am. They have their evening meal at 6.30pm, push the boat out with a small Radler (Shandy) and stagger off to bed.

On Friday we attended a tourism meeting in Gmünd which became quite lively. The guy running the local organisation is rapidly losing favour- not before time- and the knives were out. Even Andi, who did not understand a word, got the idea that he was yesterdays man.In true Austrian style the meeting ended with food and drink and then we decamped to the local wine bar. Nice to be a customer for a change!

On Saturday, as a special treat, Andi and I went to ride in a steam train. I tried to volunteer to help in the off season, November perhaps, but was reminded that it's bloody cold here in winter! The station is at 1100 metres, that's around 3,500 ft. and minus 20C is normal in winter. What they do is drain all the water and leave everything until next spring. So all I can do is tell our guests about it and hope they visit. It was good fun and,as my anorak was showing, I got to get on the footplate. The railway starts from Mauterndorf which is about 45 mins away on an impossibly scenic route. The town is very pleasant, the Burg (castle) interesting and the railway trip which last for twenty minutes each way is great fun. All in all an good day out without too much driving/riding.

I can't quite believe we are into February already, spring is on the horizon although there might be a fair bit of snow to get through before it finally arrives. The weather has been variable - OK so I get this months prize for stating the obvious- what I was trying to say was that the temperatures have been very erratic. A few days mild weather followed by days cold enough to have one worried for the manhood of any brass monkeys unwise enough to be in the valley. We have had a few ice climbers staying but when a warmer spell and a weekend coincide then nobody comes. On a brighter note bookings for the summer continue to come in. We now have more than 400 bed nights booked as a direct result of our stand at the motorcycle show. We have also just taken two bookings from school groups for early summer. As someone who empathises with the man who said" It's not that I don't like children it's just that I can never manage a whole one" they are something of a trial. However I will try to remain positive, at least we limit them to one class. The first year here we had 55 kids at one time, an AK47 would have been very handy!

Just because we have few guests does not mean we don't keep busy, there is always a list of jobs to do. We have also been working on our contacts here. We are working in partnership with a local coach company to enable us to offer all inclusive packages to groups of walkers. The aim is to remove the need for car hire, we collect from the airport and arrange transport to and from the walks. There will be,this summer, a walker's bus shuttle service run by the National Park which will be wonderful for individuals or small groups but would be overwhelmed if for instance a group of 20 arrived from England- you are coming aren't you?

We drove to Salzburg to visit the KTM dealer (to you poor souls who have no idea what a KTM is and why it should have a dealer I extend my deepest sympathy)

We hope that guests who have little time for,or don't want to, travel all the way to us by road will be able to hire a KTM in Salzburg.

Last week we attended a six hour meeting at the local council offices. A brand new building erected last year when the previous building was deemed a total loss following a small fire, it has every modern convenience. Well it would if some of the locals were not convinced that the internet is the work of the devil and is to be resisted at all costs, so no wireless internet facility.

The meeting was to decide the direction to be taken as regards tourism over the next five years. We were pleased to see a good turn out and even more pleased to see people speaking their minds. I found it very hard, six hours of discussion, all in the local accent, I doubt I fully understood more than 25% of what was said.
Ros did very well in understanding most of what was going on and even speaking to the meeting.

We were reasonably pleased with the outcome and hope for better things once some of the changes take effect.

Last Sunday we gave ourselves some time off and went walking in the snow. We went with our friend Andrea (mad as a box of frogs) and her dog(ditto) from her place at Pflugelhof up the valley to see the ice tree. It was great to be outdoors after several days inside, yes it was cold, but properly dressed the cold did not matter. We walked along the cycle track that runs up the valley, the views are great and the ice formations stunning. Photos can't do them justice as in real life the colours change with the light and with viewing angle. You just have to come and see for yourself.

Whar have we been up to?

Strange how when things are quiet, it's always more difficult to find time to update the blog? Must be a mindset I suppose. Anyway have decided that today is the day it gets to the top of the 'to-do' list, (one of those lists that never seems to get any shorter however many things you cross off!). Since John's last entry the ice climbing season has really got under way and the Eis Total festival 2010 was a very successful weekend. 160 people officially registered but many more came - there were cars parked up the mountain from all over Europe. Although we were full we did have time, once they had all left on the Sunday morning, to go up to the main practice area and take some photos as you can see. We plan to once again send a report to the UK climbing press asking why no British interest in this ever more popular event. Come on guys - what about 2011?

Now that the main event is over, there is a little more time for other things. There is a lot going on at the Gemeinde (council) at the moment. My friend Andrea and I went to a meeting last week to learn about a new community project for Malta called 'Dorf Service'. It's basically a self help approach to community issues and the meeting was led by a very professional community worker. Within minutes I felt on very familiar ground and the social worker in me was working overtime! I am hoping that some involvement in this project may well serve towards the training and development time I need to retain my registration next year - do the GSCC read German do you think?

We have also found time to follow up on a promise we made to the guys who provide the music for our coach tours and visit their home town,Tamsweg. Expecting a brief visit, we were astonished to be taken on a full scale tour of the area for 5 hours, lunch, coffee stops and finally cider punch and doughnuts all thrown in! They took us to some really lovely places - Preber Lake being one - as well as to their home village where the family had owned the inn on the erstwhile border between Salzburg (then Bavaria) and Austria. Fascinating historical insights! The fact that it has a steam railway as well was an added incentive and John also enjoyed the impromptu visit ot the brand new state of the art Fire Station (although we had to smile when we learned that the super duper computerised system for mapping calls transmitted route information to the fire engines by fax!)

We are currently working on our staffing for the summer and are looking for someone who fancies a summer in Austria working for bed, board and a pittance in exchange for a chance to improve their German and enjoy this wonderful area. Any offers?

In a couple of weeks we are making a flying visit back to the UK for my Mum's 80th birthday party - sadly it will mean missing the Fasching procession here this year but we know our friends at Soisses will be doing a live broadcast again which we will be able to watch. The back here for a few last minute skiers before retuning home for a few weeks to celebrate another birthday - one John is trying to ignore but can't! Hope to catch up with UK friends and contacts then!

No we have not gone into hibernation! Just been a bit busy and got out of the habit of updating this blog.

We had a bit of a quite patch after new year but this weekend is the Ice Climbing Festival here in Malta so the place is nearly full. The weather is perfect for such a crazy activity, that is bloody cold!

Today we had an unexpected invitation to go up to the Fredo Kordon Hutte (1700 m) and try the "taxi" service for tobogganing. We got a phone call early on an overcast afternoon-"the sun is shinning on Stubeck- do you want to try tobogganing?" Silly question, Ros would probably have preferred to stay in the warm but we had been invited and it would have been rude......

The drive up to the hutte was interesting, minus 4 in the valley, minus 10 when we got up there. Right from the start we were driving on compacted snow, if you haven't tried driving on winter tyres you would not imagine it possible. Almost takes the fun out of it The only " moment" was when we met people tobogganing down the road!

We had seen the "taxi" service advertised, seen the vehicle parked when we were last at the Hutte, but never seen it in action. A sort of giant tractor with the widest tracks I have ever seen. The deal is 3 Euros to hire a toboggan 5 Euros for the ride up, a bargain. All the toboggans are tied on behind the tractor, everybody climbs onto the back of the tractor and up the mountain you go. I should have got my camera out before we started as I needed both hands to hold on once we were underway. For the first few minutes we were in cloud and then suddenly in bright sunshine. A sky of the deepest blue and one of the most amazing views I have ever been lucky enough to see. A 360 degree panorama of snow capped mountians floating above the clouds. For once the words "awe inspiring" meant something, it was hard to take in the scale of the scene before us. I could have stayed there for hours but we had guests to feed that evening so we had to get back. Ros took the tractor back down and was offered a seat in the (warm) cab. I regressed to childhood and tried a toboggan. I think the last time was 1963! well ,we don't get much chance in the UK.

Despite no obvious means of steering let alone braking it was great fun. I only crashed twice before gaining some sort of control. To give you some idea of how long the run is it took me about 20 mins to get down and I nearly caught up with the tractor. Not wearing waterproof trousers was a mistake though, a wet behind and minus 10 is not a good combination. Next time I will be prepared and there will be a next time- soon.




John