Who witnessed the drama?

First blush on the Klingspitz

It was a no-brainer. Go down into the cellar and sweat it out for half an hour on a bike on rollers, or head out into the frosty dawn as the rising sun paints the tips of the mountains that surround us.

Early morning is the best of times: all the opportunities of a new day lie ahead. Even in the old life, back in the city it was a good time but here in the mountains, where the night sky sparkles and the mountains loom in the dark waiting for the dawn, it is drama of the highest order.

 

Baukogel's peak catches the first rays

As the stars fade and a pink glow profiles the Rauchkogel, it is time to get out and watch the magic. The valleys below us still snooze under featherbed covers of morning mists as the highest peaks begin to blush. First the Baukogel’s peak with its sharp edges and behind us the softer, rounder,  Klingspitz, still thickly coated in snow.

The Hochkönig is veiled in mists but further along the valley other peaks begin their morning transformation from grey to delicate rose.

 

Klingspitz glows while the valley lies beneath the mist

The air crackles, the woodpecker rattles out a few sharp volleys and a blackbird begins its welcome to the dawn. The ground is frozen and the snow underfoot crunches like the munching of breakfast cornflakes.

Within a few minutes, the overture to “Another Brilliant Day” has ended. The snow on the mountains glistens white against the deepening blue sky. Who witnessed the drama? How many people missed it? There are still a lot of visitors in the village but being on holiday, they probably slept through a virtuoso performance.

But still, there is another chance to see it tomorrow.

Blushing pink - the Baukogel

Wonderful monochrome

Sometimes a mistake leads to new ideas or the revival of old ones. Photographs taken when cross country skiing on a bright sunny day, with snow being whipped off the mountains by the föhn wind, being unintentionally in black and white were a surprise.

Not only did they bring back memories of trays of smelly chemicals in a tiny darkroom, they were also a reminder of the dramatic effect that can be achieved by extinguishing the colour from a scene.

In this winter, when the snow has been in short supply and the snow shovels stand forlornly outside the front door, the early mornings are often cloaked in a thick white blanket hanging over Embach. The scene is very largely a monochrome one, the trees standing starkly black against the white of the lying snow. Only the brightly painted houses in the village stand out.

Prompted by the surprise of accidentally taking black and white photos, it was a short step to purposely taking more monochrome shots on one of these grey mornings.

Setting out with the object of taking photographs sharpens the eye. Attractive monochrome images are not the same as those that catch the eye when colour plays a role:  big subjects like the skeleton of a tree with limbs broken by heavy snow, hanging, pointing accusingly at the whiteness below and the magnificent rounded crown of a tree disguised in summer by its leafy garb, or detail, like a drip of water hanging perilously from the tip of a branch or a spiky thistle poking out of the snow.

Suddenly, there’s a break in the cloud and through it the top of the 3000m Hochkönig can be seen, its snowy cloak glistening in the sun against the blue of the sky. A moment for a quick shot in colour. Then it is gone again.

It might not be one of those days with deep blue sky and fresh, shining snow, but look around and there is always a reminder of Louis Armstrong singing “It’s a wonderful world…ooooh yeah!”

Schmoozing with Äktschn Man

A week ago, returning from abroad, it would have been easy to convince me that I had been away four months rather than four weeks. It appeared as if spring had come, there was more grass to be seen than snow and the tow bars on the ski lift hung disconsolately on the motionless cable.

One week later and everything has changed. The snow has been dumping down, the wind blowing, the lift is towing skiers up the mountain and snow ploughs are busy keeping the roads clear. After a couple of hard hours clearing snow around the house, this blogger is sufficiently inspired to get back in action too.

Action is a popular word here though usually pronounced Ection with the “e” as in egg. But this week the Salzburg newspaper, on the front page of one section has spelt it “äktschn” which is as good a spelling of a word pronounced Ection as one can arrive at in the german language. Just to confuse matters, the german word “Aktion”, pronounced ak-tee-on means special offer.

Meanwhile, we have another election on the horizon, this time for the local council. We recently had a provincial election which was quite exciting as there had been a financial scandal, then a national election which was boring as the result is always a coalition. The parties then take three months to agree how it is going to work, during which time the country is in political limbo.

The coming council election is far more interesting. This is real local stuff. Here with a population of just a couple of thousand, voters know personally most of the candidates and the hopeful councillors know the residents.

The local council has its own budget, is responsible for local roads, property and services, employs its own staff, has influence over schools and residential homes for the elderly, liaison with business and also cultural activities. So this election is really hands-on. It is also the only election where non-Austrian but EU citizens, registered as residents, can vote.

We also get to elect the mayor who can have a real influence on our lives. For events like a planning application, he will be there, on the spot, to oversee the procedure. In fact he is pretty well everywhere; hardly an event, sporting, social or cultural takes place without him in attendance – a sort of Äktschn Man.

So as the candidates are going into äktschn perhaps to do a bit of voter schmoozing – we see that the English, too, aren’t against pinching and adapting a word like schmusen from German – and modifying its meaning.

Colour blind in a red and black world

Embach as it looks today

Early in the new year there will be an election for the local council which covers the industrial village in the valley, Lend, and the farming village of Embach 500m above. The result is a foregone conclusion. Of the 2500 residents, those in Lend will vote red (socialist) and here in Embach they will vote black (conservative). The reds will win more seats on account of the bigger population.

Politics are ingrained deep into life here almost like skin pigmentation. It pervades even the most benign group or organisation. Each village has its own pensioners club reflecting the “colour” of the residents. Other groups, such as those for sport and social activities also have a tendency towards one colour or another.

The recent visit by the red pensioners, albeit with a number of Embachers, to a huge steelworks in Linz, contrasted with Embach pensioners’ traditional Advent get-together with zither and accordion music, poetry readings and primary schoolchildren in a short nativity play, followed by coffee and cake, wine and plenty of gossip.

 

Traditional entertainment enjoyed by Embach's pensioners

Being an incomer, an outsider from London, only resident in Embach for 11 years – one doesn’t have this red or black streak in the DNA. For this “colour blind” outsider who has activities in both communities the indelible colour definition is still something of a surprise.

Embach once had its own council and mayor and, for some, the colour-clashing merger of Embach with Lend in the 1930s has rankled ever since. The council and mayor do their best to organise events and activities that bring the communities together. But if an event in Embach is reported in the media as happening in Lend, grumblings echo around the mountains.

However, there are some things on which both villages are agreed. A class of children at the local school (which has pupils both from Lend and Embach) were unanimous as to what they would be eating on December 24th: Wurstlsuppe. This is a thin soup with noodles and pale frankfurter-type sausages swimming about in it. Christmas Eve is, after all, a time of fasting.

Embachers will also indulge themselves with Backikoch, As we wrote last year, everyone has their own recipe and no-one seems keen to give it away. It is made of milk and flour whisked together over heat with a pinch of salt and a little butter. Some people also add honey. Apparently everyone eats it and loves it – but only on Bachltag (Christmas eve).

To all readers of this blog around the world, as the Embach people would say:

Frohe Weihnachten und einen guten Rutsch in das Neue Jahr – happy Christmas and a good slither into the new year.

 

Embach pensioners enjoying each other's company

Monstrous tradition

Doing the rounds this week of schools and homes with children is a bearded old chap in long robes: St Nikolaus. He brings little gifts for good children, carried in a basket loaded on to the back of his small, but also bearded, assistant. Wearing a tall mitre, his face obscured by a white beard and carrying a crook to tend his flock, the saint’s true identity is only given away by a pair of clumping-great farming boots.

However, before his arrival, children are often fearful in case they have been given a bad report. For St Nik is also accompanied by the fearsome krampusses. These huge, hairy, roaring and cacophonic creatures were roaring around the village at the weekend, lunging into the crowd, dragging out wrongdoers and whacking them around the shins with bunches of twigs.

True to say, most of the punishment is meted out on teenage girls who “foolishly” place themselves near the front of the crowd, secretly hoping to be singled out though they don’t know who lies behind the mask. For the masks are huge and hideous with snarling mouths and fearsome teeth.  Long horns add to the ghastly appearance.

The masks are old and carved in wood, handed down through generations - Embach does not allow krampus groups wearing the modern “horror” masks. Shaggy bear-like skins cover the body and on his back, the krampus carries huge iron globes full of something that sends out a deafening clanking sound – possibly the teeth and bones of previous victims.

As St Nikolaus visits homes in the village during the following evenings, the Krampusses hover menacingly in the background, ready to deal with any children who their saintly master dictates need punishment. The threat is enough and the sound of them outside the home makes the blood run cold.

Looking back, I see that this is pretty much where this blog started out two years and nearly 70 blogs ago. The story above is much the same as it was then…but isn’t that what tradition is all about?