It seems that during the last two months there was about as much sun in Queensland as there is green in Greenland (Erik the Red = marketing bozo).

But luckily I didn't have to sit out the big wet: instead I spent most of that time with friends and family in Vienna (where it's white to grey this time of the year). Conny told me to take more photos than usual (=next to none), and so I tried but only with limited success.

That's my parents and I just after I arrived; the brown house on the second photo is the apartment block I grew up in. Vienna in Jan/Feb doesn't always and necessarily invite suicides - occasionally there's even a sunny day to be had (if cold). The other photos show the view from the kids' room, the local market area, one of Vienna's main shopping streets - and the primary school that I attended (where my main teacher is director nowadays).

I ended up spending quite a bit of time looking after my nephew Emil (a bit over 2.5 years old); no idea what devilish things we were plotting on that first photo, but it must have been Good Stuff. The first thing I had to do with him was admire his newest and most beloved toys, chief amongst them the Thomas train set Conny gave him - and the rocking horse that's been in our family for almost 40 years. After having survived me and my two sisters my father had to spend a lot of restorative effort to make it shine again...every single bit of gear he lovingly made by hand and from scratch, including the saddle and the stirrups.

I admired my sister's personalized Ikea catalogue - apparently Ikea.at offers that service for a few weeks every year...

And then there was fresh snow! Lovely but it didn't last very long.

One of the main reasons for my trip to AT was my parents' 70th birthday in February. To make it entirely stress-free for all parties we celebrated in a nice restarurant around the corner, just the parents plus us kids and partners (and of course Emil, who is happily but totally inept at using a kaleidoscope - at a running sushi later on he also mainly enjoyed taking things off the conveyor belt).

And that's about it. The time in Vienna was over much faster than expected - I had hoped for but didn't manage any pub excursions with friends (but at least I managed to see most of them at least once).

Travelling back wasn't much fun, especially as I had collected a cold on the last day in Vienna, and thus I spent the first week back in Queensland in bed coughing and sneezing. As it was mainly pouring down outside I didn't really mind too much, except for the obnoxiously high humidity (fabric is and stays clammy, nothing dries out properly and mold is growing everywhere it gets the slightest chance).

Come on, sun!