For those of you that know me well you will know that I never do things by half. This year I have been practicing hard to improve my German by listening to radio stations, watching Austrian news on the tv, reading books and constantly listening to my Michel Thomas cds. As part of my quest I have also been searching out blogs to read. I found a fantastic blog - altough not German - and have really enjoyed reading it over the last 12 months.

Madelief has the most beautiful photographs on her blog and I love to read about the garden and other things around her house. At the moment she has a fantastic Christmas Giveaway so why not head over there and take a look around. I am sure that you will park yourself at her table and stay a while.

Looking forward to the New Year

Much excitement abounds in the Welsh household at the moment. Plans for next year are underway. The great escape to Austria is, hopefully on track and who knows, by this time next year I may be posting about my first Christmas in my new home.

In the meantime I needed to start making some plans for a patchwork lifestyle when I arrive in Austria. I have worked all of my adult life and I really cant see myself enjoying life without some kind of work but, at the same time, I feel the need to change down a gear or two. After all I need to learn to work to live not live to work as they say. Hard I know but I am trying to get there.

At the moment my days are filled with travel, meetings, presentations, planning, developing projects, but most of all daydreaming of the next year.

As part of my plans I have managed to secure myself a few weeks work with a ski company who bring schools to the Alps for skiing holidays. It isnt well paid, nor is it long term work but it is a start. When I left school I had big plans to go into the travel industry and work all over Europe doing exactly what I will be doing next year.

My work will bring me to Zell am See in February and then Bad Kleinkircheim at Easter. I will be heading to Birmingham in January for the training so that should be good.

I am really looking forward to the New Year and the chance to start planning for the big move. I am now following a blog of a man who lives in Lofer and blogs about all of the hikes that he goes on around the area and each time one of his posts land in my inbox I get a little flutter of butterflies in the tummy.

Hopefully I can start posting more on here as I have more news.

I was going to post some photos of my new home village Unken but blogger is playing up and I just spent an hour attempting to do it so maybe next time.

Krampuskränzchen der Kalchofenpass

Here in England we know about Santa Claus, St Nicholas or Father Christmas and the fact that he brings cheer and happiness to children. The giving of gifts is so exciting for children but how many times as a child would you be warned that if you were not good then Father Christmas would not come. I know that I was often told that the Elves were watching me and that was enough to keep me on the straight and narrow, well, at least for the month of December.

So what if , as a child, you were told about the Krampus? I know that if I had known about the Krampus I would have been terrified, just the sight of them are enough to scare me to death.

What, I hear you ask, is a Krampus? Take a look at this............

Are you scared by that? If not, how about I tell you a little more?

In Austria St Nicholas is often accompanied by this bad natured and wicked demon. Whilst St Nicholas rewards children with gifts and treats galor the Krampus will happily punish children who have been naughty.

In Unken The Krampus traditionally visit before St Nicholas, they roam the streets and terrorise the residents, they don't mess about. They mean business. Tradition says that they will carry off the naughtiest children in their baskets to certain doom.

On Saturday night the Krampus will be parading the streets of Unken bringing trickery and fear to the residents. Anybody who is on the street needs to be aware that they are likely to become a victim.

This tradition is making a comeback across Austria and Hungary so I wonder......... how would you feel about being visited by the Krampus and would it have made you behave in the run up to Christmas?

Here is a little video for your....... erm, enjoyment.

A new home to look forward to.

 I finally stepped through the gate and started treading the path to my new life. A life that I have been dreaming of for so long that I still cannot believe is now within touching distance.

In June  I flew to Salzburg on a mission. The mission that I chose to accept was signing a contract for my very own Schloss............ well, it might not officially be a Schloss but hey its my Schloss.

The Austrians' have a very different way of buying a house than we do here.  Whilst I am now classed as the legal owner of the house I still have to wait a few weeks before my name goes into the land registry to show that I am the official owner.  I have been lucky enough to find the house of my dreams but I was not yet ready to go to Austria and so I have been even luckier in finding that the couple that  I bought from are happy to stay there for a while until they find their own new home. I know they will really look after it for me. If you want to know more about Sue and her plans for the future then check out her very own blog here. Onwards and upwards for all of us.

Now I will share a picture of the house but I wont show the inside as that is still somebody else's home to share but in the meantime if you want to hear more about my adventures in Wales until I arrive in Austria then head over to my  blog Cwtch Corner here I will be blogging about all things Welsh and plans to move, from research for moving over to quick little jaunts and places to visit. And of course I will share with you my plans for furnishing as they grow in my imagination.

All that is left to say is Thank you to Susan, Peter and Georgia for entrusting me with  being the next caretaker of this beautiful home. I promise you I will love it as much as you have.

Now where is the schnapps.

Another Evening in Salzburg

There is so much that I could say about why I love Salzburg but I wouldn't really know where to start. 

I love the architecture of the old part of the city 

the shopping is quite unique

the romance 

little nooks and crannies to explore off the beaten track 

who could resist coffee and cakes in Cafe Tomeselli

should we try sitting out on the balcony amid the flowers ? 

or hideaway inside? 

 I wonder what it is that other people love about Salzburg?

An Evening in Salzburg

No words, just pictures 

Bad Ischl and Cafe Konditerei Zauner

I was told that a visit to Bad Ischl would not be complete without a trip to Zauner's and so it would have been rude not to go. 

If the cakes are as pretty as the outside what am I waiting for 

How to choose?  

Sheer opulence - chandeliers with cake? 

Tradition means to perpetuate the fire and not adoration of ashes - Gustav Mahler 

Well I was celebrating a rather special purchase 

People watching from here seems like a plan. Cake and Prosecco helps 

Stop the habit of wishful thinking and start the habit of thoughtful wishes. (Mary Martin)

Sometimes dreaming isn't enough. Sometimes that dream grows and nags away at you until there comes a day when you simply cannot ignore it any longer. Too many signs appear to tell you that the dream you harbour can be more than a dream. Too many friends and family are lost before they ever have the opportunity to try to reach their own  dreams and you start to think that you really should do something about fulfilling a long held dream. And then comes that fateful day when your whole being shouts YOU HAVE TO DO THIS.

This is what happened to me when David and I got together. Suddenly, out of the blue whilst driving back from a weekend at his home in Wales he said that he was dreaming of living in Germany. Well somebody might have just as easily slapped me across the face because   my soul shuddered and I was awake. Burying my dreams to deal with everyday life did not mean that it was no longer there. Many times over the years that dream had surfaced during my quiet times but whenever I mentioned it to anybody they laughed and said "there you go again, off into Lala land"

And so there it was again. "Let's do it" I said "OK" he said and that was it we had decided. So why has it taken us a further 2 years to get there?  Well I suppose it is because we are both planners! I am a control freak and I want to know what I am letting myself in for.

This wasn't a pipe dream for either of us. After all we had both studied German, we had both been longing to live in the Mountains of the Austrian/German border area for so long. We knew that, together, we could make this dream come alive.

And so we set off on our Adventure which was to become an Austrian adventure sooner than we realised.

Be careful what you wish for lest it comes true

We all have our own life to pursue, our own kind of dream to be weaving. And we all have some power to make wishes come true, as long as we keep believing.

As a young girl I looked forward to springtime with great anticipation. I would look for the appearance of the dandelions and burdocks and the seedheads with a head full of wishes ready to blow on those seeds and send my wished to the sky. I would sit crosslegged in, what I believed to be, my field of dreams and ponder the list of wishes that I had to make sure that I would only choose those wishes that I really wanted to come true. After all I was taught by my Nana "be careful what you wish for lest it come true" and I was always an earnest child so I took my wish making very seriously.  In truth my "field of dreams" was a patch of grass behind a row of council houses in the middle of a chemical industrial town. Still I dreamed of far flung places, seeing the world, living in the mountains of Germany or Austria. I truly believed that this was a dream and wish that I did want to come true and so, every year, my first wish would be thought through as "I want to live in the mountains where the air is clean, the people are different and the sky is blue". Hey I lived in a chemical town with nothing more than a mound of grass at the back of my council estate what more could a girl dream of.

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=503

This week I have found myself revisiting those dreams and wishes as I wander through the forest near my home in West Wales. It is filled with Dandelion Clocks or, as I prefer to call them, Jenny Joes.  I have no need to make that yearly wish this year because I am already heading towards my dream of living in Austria. Not quite there yet but so close.

I thought that a blog might help me to work through all of the plans for the future. I can share my preparations for the new life, mistakes I make, discoveries found, my ups and my downs (of which I am sure there will be a few)

Join me, make comments and share your thoughts about your own dreams and wishes. But most importantly enjoy the trip.

As Louise May Alcott said
We all have our own life to pursue, our own kind of dream to be weaving. And we all have some power to make wishes come true, as long as we keep believing.

- Louisa May Alcott