Tomorrow's projected high in Villach: 20 Celsius.
I have been writing these entries on a laptop. I bought it years ago and since my old computer died long before we came to Austria, I have had to depend on this as my main computer, unless I sneak in and use my son's when he's out.
The problem is that a laptop is not ideal from anyone's point of view. It's small and compact, but it's uncomfortable to sit for any period of time and write. I end up crouched at a table and when I get up my back is in agonising pain.
In my last job, which I finished a couple of months ago, I used a laptop but it was plugged into a keyboard and screen so it actually functioned pretty much as a standard PC.
So I thought of doing the same thing here. I can use this screen for the time being but the keyboard is inconvenient. Susanne actually went out and bought a radio controlled one for me. I refused to try it. After all it was a German keyboard and the letters are all in the wrong place.
Well, not all. But y and z are interchanged so I can't even spell my name without swearing.
But eventually my back hurt too much to put up with and I plugged it in.
It turns out that it works perfectly. Yes, the y key and z key are in the wrong place. But press y and it comes up 'z' and so on. It actually reads the keys the same as the UK one, probably because that's how the keys are currently mapped to the keyboard.
So, it works well and my back doesn't hurt. As long as I don't actually look at the keyboard as I type ...
Predicted high for Villach, 16 October: 15 Celsius.
Susanne called from below, "We are having a problem!"
I forget what the problem was, except that it was soon solved, and probably related to the state of our kitchen, which was chaotic and is now almost settled. We have a fitted kitchen - fitted by her and me, a process which included me making a fair imitation of a swiss cheese out of one wall as I attempted to make a successful arrangment of holes to put screws in to hold up the cupboards.
Finally, we managed to get the cupboards up, and so far they've stayed up. And they only wobble a little, really.
But the other thing that got me thinking was, how wrong that sounds. Susanne's English is excellent, so it's only the odd phrase that's not quite right that reminds me how recently she learnt the language (she grew up in Germany).
And as I know that German gets by with one tense where English has two - they say Wir haben where an English speaker must choose between 'We have' and 'we are having' - I'm not surprised at the confusion.
But how do you explain the difference? The difference is so obvious that there are few examples where you have a choice of both. The mistake is one of those that always sound like something a foreigner would say, much more so than other errors. Yet, it's difficult to nail down what the rule is.
In this case, it's clear - 'having' in the sense of possession is clearly 'we have'; having in the sense of doing something is clearly 'we are having'. If you wait for ages and finally your takeaway meal arrives, you could say 'we have dinner', or if you are talking about something that takes place regularly, 'we have dinner at eight,' say. But otherwise not.
Anybody got a clear explanation of this phenomenon? One that meets all situations? I will return to this another day.
Predicted high for Villach: 19 Celsius.
We had a jolt on Saturday when the sirens went off. They have these loud wartime siren thingies that go off every week. On Saturday they went on for ages. There was no sign of nuclear explosion or bombers overhead, so we ignored them. But it went on again then.
I saw on the news on Sunday that it was a national siren test. Apparently it was very successful. The first one was a warning, then they had the test, then they had the 'test over' one.
So if there are any bombers, or nuclear explosions, or special sales at Billa we'll know what to do. Though, of course, we probably won't know which one it is.
Oddly enough, they used to have sirens like these in Camberwell when I worked there in the 1990s, but they only tested them once a year and eventually stopped, having presumably noticed that the war had ended.
Tomorrow's predicted high in Villach: 19 Celsius.
It's the little things you notice.
If you've ever watched European movies (and you should, if only to impress potential girl/boyfriends) you'll know that the police and ambulance sirens sound different - sort of flatter - I can't describe the difference, but if you've heard it you'll know.
And they sound exactly like that in Austria. I don't know, at night reading the BBC news on the laptop you could feel you were in London. But there it was, the unmistakeably continental sound of a klaxon.
Which is an unusual sound here - we're practically in the countryside, with fields nearby, and little farms with potatoes and sweetcorn and chickens and sheep. Not very like South London where I lived until August, where we had sirens roaring by several times a night.
But there you have it. They have emergencies here, too. They just sound different.
Even I get thrown sometimes.
"it tars my dooce bus".
It took me at least two goes ("juice? bus?") to realise that Katie (2 years, 8 months) was trying to tell me that her electronic toothbrush was now charged.
Sometime it's really cute. A few months ago I asked her if they told a story that day in her kindergarten.
"Yes".
"What was it about?"
"A headsock".
"Oh, a hedgehog? Really?"
2 October, predicted high temperature in Villach: 23 Celsius.
What is wrong with the Austrians? Quite apart from who they vote for, how difficult can it be to vote here?
I noticed that although the turnout was quite high by British standards, the number of invalid votes, at 82871, was extraordinarily high - 1.8 per cent, by my calculation. In the last UK election the figure was around 0.7 per cent, and in Ireland, where (due to the sophisticated form of transferable voting) you need to be able to count (in order to number the candidates preferentially, though not strictly necessary), it was 1.1 per cent at the last election.
Given that there's a four per cent threshold, doesn't this run the risk of seriously distorting the results? Couldn't they, you know, make it easier? Like have a box in big print saying 'Put an X in one of these boxes here. PS not one of the extreme right-wing parties, remember what happened last time ...'
Just a suggestion.
Weather in Villach, Austria: sunny spells, predicted high 25 Celsius.
Political weather in Austria: uncertain, cloudy spells; predicted Chancellor: Alfred Gusenbauer.
Well, the votes have been counted, and despite my optimism, there turns out to be enough right-wing pie to go round in Austria. Both the far-right BZÖ and t.he even more far-right FPÖ have managed (apparently) to grab a slice of the parliamentary pie.
In our city, the Social Democrats were the leading party, at over 40%, and the FPÖ slumped to 8 per cent from the last election's 23 per cent. But given that the BZÖ is basically a breakaway group from them, and they gained 21 per cent (this province is their main centre of power, they got about 25 per cent there as opposed to just 4 per cent nationally), there appears to be an increasing proportion of idiots in the country.
Not good news for Austria, or indeed for the Austrian tourist industry - inviting people to your country while simultaneously campaigning against foreigners is never going to be an effective approach.
Hello! Welcome to Austria! Okay, go now ...