Unlocking New Memories

I spent the greater part of last week at the house that my grandparents lived in when they retired and where I spent many summer and winter holidays and most Sundays as long as I lived with my parents. When my grandparents bought the half finished two-family house it became our holiday and weekend home and my parents finished and furnished the top floor. I have fond memories of quality time with my grandparents and other relatives and of summers cycling to nearby lake Ossiach with my mum and winters with cross-country slopes right in front of the house. These days are long gone and the house has been empty ever since my grandparents died. My mother inherited the house and tries to visit at least once a week, but she stopped staying overnight since my father's health deteriorated considerably this February. Since 2020, I have spent part of my summer vacation with Highflyer and his teenage sons there and we started new routines, such as eating our meals on the large terrace that we hardly ever used when I was a child. We even got new lounge furniture for it and it has become quite cosy. Overall, there is a bit of a "camping vibe" as the stove is old and there is no dishwasher in the house anymore ever since mum got rid of granny's old one. My parents didn't cook much in our apartment's kitchen back in the days as granny insisted on cooking for us and we enjoyed spending time with my grandparents. It was quite a novel sensation for me to be the "woman of the house" there and to see the village and its surrounding tourist attractions with the eyes of, well, tourists. In the past 4 years I visited places I had never been to before and developed new routines. Part of me misses spending my summer break exclusively in Klagenfurt as I used to as an adult, but at the same time I enjoy this new family life at the old - happy- place of my youth.