Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

I am writing this at my parents' house in Carinthia where I have been since Tuesday night. Later today (Sunday), I am going to drive back to Highflyer's house outside of Vienna, but he probably won't be there as he is planning to fly to Innbruck for a few days where his sons (who live in Germany) are right now. We do try to coordinate our schedules, but it is not always possible if one of you has a more or less regular Monday to Friday nine to five office job (with a lot of home office flexibility, thankfully!) and the other one does not and often has to work on weekends and public holidays, but then might have several days off in the middle of the week. The realisation that "long weekends" due to public holidays falling on Fridays or Mondays are meaningless in his world caused some frustration on my end when we first started dating, as well as the fact that invitations by friends or family at short notice often mean that I would attend alone as his time off requires advance planning. By now I have got used to it and the fact that even after we got married I kept my flat in Vienna and typically stay there on "office days" created further temporary separation. Probably not everybody's cup of tea and people are often surprised that I have kept my old place (where he also sometimes spends the night on days I am there if his schedule allows for it) for several reasons. While it comes with some logistical challenges such as always having to think what item of clothing is where at  any given moment of time, it is not that big of a deal actually due to the vicinity of the two addresses. Also, part of us actually appreciates this scenario as we appreciate time together all the more and I am always overjoyed if Highflyer does have a whole weekend off and we have little to no plans other than enjoying time with one another. Holidays when we can spend time together 24/7 are all the more precious and we still don't get on each other's nerves and have yet (4 years and counting) to have a fight. So, yep, I do agree to that old saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder...

Love Language

My love language is making gifts and spoiling people I care for. Stingy or thoughtless people sometimes really exasperate me. Over time, though, I have come to realise that it's mostly their upbringing that made them so and often comes without any ill intention. As the only child of financially comfortable parents I was always showered with gifts on birthdays and Christmas and it had been instilled on me NEVER to show up without a host(ess) gift when you're invited for dinner, for example. Highflyer definitely knows to deliver on special occasions, puts a lot of time and effort in the cards he writes and I would definitely describe him as romantic, but his background is entirely different. As someone with 8 (!) siblings and one one parent working, his upbringing was definitely more frugal and I noticed that if it weren't for me he would probably show up empty-handed at most friends' and relatives' houses, just because he would not expect anything himself either, whereas I'd definitely raise an eyebrow and wonder what I had done to deserve this treatment.

This being the case, I don't expect random gifts without an occasion from him, but am all the more delighted when I do get them for example when he finds the time for a bit of shopping on overnight stays abroad. Well, having hinted that UK or French magazines with freebies in particular are highly welcome might have helped a little...

Last Wednesday I returned to the country house after a few days spent in Vienna, knowing I would not see him until late the following night. There were 7 roses in a vase on the dining table and another 3 on my desk. I knew well that he had probably picked them up at the supermarket along with groceries, but I was delighted all the same by this thoughtful gesture. If this happened every week (which it doesn't) I probably would not appreciate it nearly as much, but knowing that gifts and surprises are an "acquired skill" for him and not something he grew up with, always makes me go "aaaaw".

 

Last Chance Hotel

Pre-Covid and Pre-Highflyer I gifted Mademoiselle a weekend in a part of Lower Austria that was pretty much "terra incognita" to me. She profusely thanked me and we fixed a date. Shortly before said date, she told me she would not be able to make it as her nephew's christening fell exactly on that weekend and she had only been invited at short notice. As I had booked a non-refundable rate, I could not ask for my money back, but got credit from the hotel and was asked to just tell them an alternative date whenever I had made up my mind. We settled for one and that one was in the first (of several more, but we did not know it then) nationwide lockdown and the hotel cancelled our reservation. Last year I wrote to them asking if our "voucher" had an expiry date and they told me it did not, but I was determined not to postpone it any longer and suggested this past weekend to Mademoiselle when I knew Highflyer would be in Germany for one of his son's birthdays. It was fine for her and we ended up going and spending a very nice weekend, making excursions and enjoying the hotel spa and the glorious autumn landscape. However, I did not know that the hotel would close down for the time being at the end of this month and it was more or less our last chance to book. Upon checkout we asked the receptionist if they were closing temporarily for renovations and she said that the group of owners were trying to sell, hinting that they had not been very ambitious in keeping it alive. We would have got our money back, but I am glad that I picked this date and that we got to experience the hotel and this part of Austria that I probably would not have been back any time soon.

Reality Check

While we had a carefree picture-perfect mini-break in Cyprus, my heart went out to the (surprisingly many) tourists from Israel heading home to a war-zone at a gate close to ours. There were several scheduled flights to Tel Aviv on Sunday afternoon and evening and I could not help wondering what I would do if I were them. Would I actually try to stay abroad or would I want to fly home immediately as long as I could? It is painful to imagine leaving the country during a public holiday, looking forward to a great time with friends or family and then finding your home country had been attacked and war been declared....

Autumn

 

Recently I've been seen a lot of memes on social media along the lines of "how was this 30 years ago already?!" I really can relate. In my mind, I was at uni max. 20 years ago when, cough, it was more like 30 years ago. The 1990s don't seem that long ago, when in reality someone born the year I graduated from university might be in a managerial position and could be maried with children and my smartass boss. Mind. Blown. Even worse, I still tend to think that "middle aged" refers to people perhaps slightly younger than my parents, when in fact, it is people like ME and actually this is even a rather generous label as the average life expectancy in Central Europe is not quite a hundred years, so yeah.

Just based on naked facts, you could say I'm in the autumn of my life, whether I like it or not. When did this happen?!