MY WEEK SO FAR...

I decided to go to Vienna. The last time I went I was staying at the Palais Schwarzenburg, a pretty hotel with the sound of Mozart down its corridors.  I was heavily pregnant and my ex husband was doing the deal which changed my life forever.  Now, I had little time to see any museums I could just feel the air.  I used to love the Schonbrunn Palace of the Hapsburgs, the stories of Queen Sissy, Empress Elizabeth of Austria, married to Joseph 1, who wore large diamond stars in her hair, who drank blood, to keep her 22 inch waist all of her life, and who finally was murdered, a tragic and enigmatic figure. I tried to persuade the concierge at The Imperial Hotel to show me Hitler's War bunker but it is not open for the general public.  The concierge did however show me the state rooms, where our Queen drank from Queen Victoria's tea set, not quite as exciting?.

I then raced to the Mayr Clinic.  It took about 4 hours as a kind friend picked me up in Vienna and drove me there. My son Jack and I were full of excitement.  We wanted a week away.  A week of solitude.  Boy am a tired. The adrenalin of finding a real life "bolter", [as in Nancy Mitford's story Love in a Cold Climate],  in my family tree last week washed me out.  I have spent every minute asleep.  I was meant to be singing, and have, but mostly I have slept.. Either I have been dying of hunger or I am genuinely exhausted?.  Anyway sleep has taken up all of my time.
The Mayr Clinic would not be my first choice of destination, I like and believe that these things should be part of your every day belief, but the relief is that they do too.  It is on a beautiful lake with crosses and churches everywhere, a pilgrimage for the religious, and the weather is glorious.  I have not done any blood tests but the wave of colours, in a bathroom, to change your character, has for me been the winning thing. The food too is good, although there is little of it.  I refused to be weighed and measured, I am bored rigid with all to do with the scales and somehow here everything feels calm, it is perfectly serene and perfectly alright to be who you really want to be.  I shall wait and see how it changes me. Anyway it has given me a perfect excuse to watch and read Love in a Cold Climate all over again.