droppings from the rabbithole... 69

the end of an era, helping pack up the flat on austellung strasse in wien... timing to be there at the start and the end of things here... back in the day i'd arrived a couple of days before p&s had got the keys, spent the next few driving around wien with p, listening to radio stefansdom, finally getting and falling for classical music while s wondered how two people could share so much stupidity... and then there was the baby grand, who knew how heavy they are or that moving one in pieces up and around narrow stairs could be so strenuous, live and learn... and that's another thing which this flat brought, life and learning, a clutch of friendships rising from this centre, people who redefine you, s at the centre and p weaving his spells; there was strudel with kiwi fruits from the tirol, "you are like an italian in the kitchen" came the compliment as i liberally splashed rum into the mix  as s pierced the ceiling with her eyes muttering something in viennese under her breath, then german, just what i need, two italians in a kitchen... back then, at the start, there were trams, the front windows left open to the passing seasons, bells clanging as they passed in the early morning, sometimes before sleep, often before sleep... a place of small parties and staying up talking until dawn, sitting on the balcony and watching the prater disappear incrementally behind a car park, the music of the trams replaced by a u-bahn stop and through it all the same central faces, friendships deepening until you realise that this is your family, almost impossible to conceive how life would be without these people, how much poorer your memories would be... and then there were the home made schnapps, witchy medicine, and a mad and joyful hungarian, the resurrection of kabaret and symphonies of household implements; but at the heart of it all s&p, the proud proprietors of the gaindorf gulag now... but this place had its own magic and, hopefully, now someone else is finding it sprinkled upon them...