The mystery of the yellow thing

A month ago Mark, Simon and I moved into a new place; a furnished place that looks a lot like an IKEA catalogue. And, from someone who’s often dreamed about what it would be like to live in an IKEA catalogue, let me assure you it is AWESOME.

One of the most exciting features of our new place is the washing machine which coyly sits in our kitchen, smiling and occasionally shrinking our clothes. It’s reassuring to know that we no longer have to go outside of our apartment to make our clothes smaller.

And, like all good apartments, this one also comes with a mystery. In the centre of our room there’s an enigmatic banana-shaped object. Nobody knows what this object is…but we have our theories:

 

 A poor man's puppy,

a smile simulator,

 a hat befitting a sea captain, arrrrghh...

 or ummm...you know...

or a chair...

but most likely it's just a yellow thing...

Nostalgia

This is Kicia. She stumbled into my life at about three weeks old purring and trying to suckle milk out of my earlobe. She’s gotten a bit more intelligent and fussier with age. This is her letting you know that Her Majesty would prefer to sunbake away from your camera and you should go back to your servants’ quarters until she calls for her meal.

This is Hammie; he is roughly the same age as Kicia but joined the family a year after she did. Kicia was not nice to him when he first moved in so he’s made it his mission to kill her. This is him assuming his evil plotting position. Don’t let him fool you. He’s pure evil on the inside.

Uncanny!

It’s like they were separated at birth

Servus Österreich

Last weekend was quite monumental for me because I didn’t die. And, trust me, the odds were stacked against me. I had even prepared several significant texts (namely “Hey Simon, could you take our laundry down?” and “Mum, you win. You can have the cats”).

Not great, I admit, but it’s hard to be inventive when you’re busy not dying. Mostly, your brain just screams in a high-pitched voice. Like when you take a baby seal, dress it up to look like a pumpkin and make it watch Two and a Half Men. Or is that just me?

So anyway there I was, careening towards the edge of a steep, icy ravine and thinking about seals and about how I was going to get those texts out while skiing and trying to shut my brain up and the most incredible thing happened: I stopped. Like, before I fell and snapped all of my limbs into convenient pocket-sized pieces. Even though I was on skis and hadn’t strapped those to my feet in over half a decade. This is your chance to be impressed and also to hurl all kinds of insults at Mark (like, for example, “you giant-thumbed whoopsie, just what do you think you’re doing taking a crippled incompetent on an icy, narrow, ungroomed, steep, ten-kilometre red track!” I mean, whatever, I’m sure you can put it into your own words.)

So yeah, Mark tried to kill me. Unhappily for him I hadn’t lost all of my skiing know-how and in between whimpering, swearing and shitting my pants I managed to get to the bottom just fine, thank you. And that man who I had to push over the edge totally understood.

And that’s how we passed three awesome days in Austria’s Stubeier Glacier. It was magical.

Here’s proof: 

The life and times of Gustav

Lately I’ve been quite crap at updating the blog, but one person has stayed true. Don’t feel too good for him; he has vested interest. He wants his story to be heard. And, really, who am I to stop him?

So I’ve decided that I will kick off my return to blogging with a condensed version of his life.

The life and times of Gustav

Gustav was born in Sweden where he learned Swedish. At the age of 23 he moved to Munich in search of a new life and a more Swedish hair colour. 

He met a strapping lad by the name of Simon and a crazy-haired lass by the name of Agnes on a debaucherous night out at the Hofbräuhaus which included – but was not limited to – the climbing of greasy cranes and cramming schnitzels down heaving gullets at four in the morning. 

After that everyone became fast friends. 

Also critical to the story is Emilia, who is curiously both Norwegian and Swedish, and Mark, who is random.

You could say that Gustav’s life in Munich was going rather well – he was working his way through intensive German courses, immer doing well and immer telling delightful stories that few people can remember. But one thing still stood in his way; his hair was a worryingly dark shade of blond.

“Oh no!” he exclaimed upon looking at himself in the mirror one day, “what will the other super blonde, super attractive Swedes say? They’re immer walking around with blonde hair!”

Luckily Gustav could rely on Simon, Emilia and a homebrand hair bleach. 

On one fateful day in February he knocked down the door of The Palace de Geyerstrasse and demanded that its inhabitants strap his head up in a giant condom and smother it with a white paste.

Reluctantly Simon agreed and spent several minutes prying beige-coloured tufts out from underneath the latex cover. 

Gustav roared with laughter, “I look so cool!”

And dared another person to coat him in bleach. At first nobody spoke up, then slowly a wayward hand crept forward and lifted a finger in interest...

 ...but instead Mark's sister, Jess, bravely took up the challenge. 

She slaved over Gustav's locks and watched in amazement as they turned the colour of gold, while everybody silently feared that they might fall off. 

The room was thick with anticipation as Gustav disappeared into the bathroom and maddened laughter could be heard from within - an unfortunate side-effect of the chemicals. 

Finally he emerged, looking one-third more Swedish.

He pondered his new look

and joyfully exclaimed, "I'm ready to meet the woman on this box. Look guys I think she likes me. She's immer looking my way."

And he lived happily ever after.

The End