Tomorrow´s predicted high in Villach: 7 Celsius. Predicted low: minus 1.

PKW: I kept seeing this in our local newspaper, the Kleine Zeitung. PKW this, PKW that.

It sounded familiar. It wasn't long before I figured that it was short for Personenkraftwagen, or as we would say in Ireland, a 'car'.

They love their cars here, maybe a little too much in fact. My wife and son were nearly run over by a driver on the zebra crossing near his school a while back, and a few days ago I was crossing at the lights on the corner near here when a car drove right across in front of me. I glared at the driver - only to realise I was actually glaring at the passenger, because I'm still not entirely used to the whole drive on the left things.

She looked a bit shocked, either because I dared to cross when the light was in my favour, or because (I hope because) the driver had completely ignored the lights as well as the fact that I was pushing a baby buggy at the time.

I'm almost sure there were a couple of kids in the back of the car, in fact.

I'm not entirely sure what you have to do to get a licence in this country. Spell your name and get several letters right, I think. There was a story in the paper earlier this week about the huge number of road casualties here. It would help if they actually took crossings seriously.

Oh yes, that PKW thing still nagged at me. I looked it up on the internet. Sure enough, there it was: PKW is also short for Panzerkampfwagen. Or panzer, which is what they drive them like ...

Tomorrow´s predicted high in Villach: 0 Celsius. Predicted low: minus 3.

They had a Christmas performance in my son's school the other day. It was in English (they teach several subjects in English) and was about Christmas in other countries.

"In Britain," they said, "people send each other lots of Christmas cards, even to family members. Some families receive as many as 100 cards!"

I can see why they might think that odd, because posting letters and cards is virtually illegal in Austria.

Well, not illegal as such - not yet, anyway - but certainly it seems to be discouraged. In London where I used to live we had about 5 post boxes within 500 metres of the house. The post was collected from each one about four times a day.

In Villach, on the other hand, there appear to be around 5 post boxes in this entire town, and they're only collected once a day. We eventually found one to put our Christmas cards in, on the wall in a corner hidden behind some cars. It was tiny, like a little yellow biscuit tin.

I suspect a racket. I think the idea is to avoid taking up the time of the postmen, whose main occupation is delivering pages and pages of junk mail advertising special offers in the local shops. They spend so much money on junk mail I wonder how they ever actually make a profit.

Today´s predicted high in Villach: 2 Celsius. Predicted low: minus 8.

I was listening online to Virgin Radio (nostalgia, sigh) when they had an item about the secret messages used in organisations to indicate, without alterting the public, that a problem has arisen. One listener called in to say that when she worked in a department store, if another member of staff asked if there were any "crash blankets" in the stockroom, it meant something was amiss.

Years ago, when I worked at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, if you heard an announcement that "Mr Crisp is in the building", it meant that the building was on fire. That´s "crisp" as in Crisp Road, Hammersmith, where the building is located, but also "crisp" as in "burnt to a".

Tomorrow´s predicted high in Villach: 1 Celsius. Predicted low: minus 4.

I blame the Austrians.

They don´t eat sliced bread (sliced pan, as we say in Ireland) much here.

Austrian bread, like German bread, is either dark and heavy - which can be delicious at times, but not first thing in the morning - or white, in which case it´s only delicious if you eat it the morning it´s baked.

You can get a feeble imitation of Irish or British sliced white bread in the supermarkets - it´s called toast bread, usually with American branding as if only Americans ate it - and it´s so full of chemicals that it tastes disgusting. (Well, maybe just different chemicals than the British and Irish use).

So, last week, finding no toast bread in the brotkorb I fell pray to the temptation to slice a brötchen (bread roll) instead, hoping it was a bit edible.

Big mistake. Austrian bread rolls, after a day, turn into Austrian artillery shells. Armour piercing ones - none of this nonsense about depleted uranium for the Bundesheer.

So, instead of slicing a bread roll I ended up slicing my thumb instead. And as a result I spent part of my afternoon in the Landeskrankenhaus with a big blonde woman whose English was not perfect (although better than my German) - you have only cut the meat and the muscle, not bone, she told me - and waiting patiently while she stitched my thumb with what appeared to be fishing line.

Top Tip: don´t approach Austrian bread after a day, unless you´re wearing protective clothing.

Tuesday's predicted low in Villach: 0 Celsius.
Tuesday's predicted high in Villach: 7 Celsius.

I had just picked up Katie from her kindergarten and popped into the Billa supermarket when I saw him, standing behind the cash desk.

He was dressed like a bishop, complete with red frock and crozier, but he also had a very false looking white beard like Santa Claus.

And that, more or less, is who it was: Nikolaus, the man who brings children presents in Germany and Austria on the night of 5th November. In Germany, the children have to clean their shoes and leave them out for him to put gifts in. In Austria, they just leave a plate.

Somewhere, Nikolaus is the origin also of the Santa Claus phenomenon, but interestingly (and good news for children here) the Weinachtsmann (Christmas man) also comes with presents, at Christmas. He's the one with the full red costume and no religious stuff, and he comes on Christmas Eve, which means that dads, er I mean kids, in Germany and Austria can have the trains sets out and running while English and Irish kids are still being tucked into bed.

Anyway, Katie got a handful of sweets from Nikolaus and then from another man who presumably didn't want his.