A weekend in Upper Austria

Wednesday late afternoon I left Vienna to spend the long weekend in the country. The 15th of August is a national holiday in Austria, the Assumption of Mary. Since it fell on a Thursday this year I took the chance to make the bridge and went to Upper Austria. My family has a house in the Salzkammergut and I spent every summer of my childhood here.

It has been a while since I came here, but the moment I arrived it felt like home again.

Just sitting in the garden, enclosed by mountains on all sides, enjoying the sun and reading a book, life cannot get any better.

The garden is lush and beautiful, flowers everywhere.

I started running again, made yesterday and today a small round to the village and back. It takes me right along a river and it is wonderful to run through the woods.

I didn’t run a long distance, just one round, but will try for two rounds tomorrow.

I finished ‘The Language of Flowers‘ by Vanessa Diffenbaugh and can only recommend it! Loved the book, the story and the characters. They are all a bit flawed but you start rooting for them on the way.
After ‘The Language of Flowers’ I read ‘Engel des Vergessens‘ by Maja Haderlap. I was shocked about how little I know about the Slovenian minority in Austria and how much they suffered during WWII. That I belong to a generation which has never learned about  the horrors of WWII in school but instead still heard that we were the first victim, should not be an excuse for my ignorance. Since then a lot has changed, our president has apologized to the Jewish people and we as a nation accept our guilt.

I am starting now with my necessary reading for the book club. This time it is a play by Harold Pinter called ‘Betrayal‘.

Yours, Pollybert

PS: I am still on my new Masterplan, the 10in2 diet. Even though my mother takes it kind of personal when I am not eating.