Walking in a Winter Wonderland, in Spring

Absentee or Long Suffering Boyfriend says he’s taking control of the situation, no way was I going to be allowed to ski and the skis are going back to the rental shop.

‘I’ll be fine by Wednesday’ I assure him. He’s not in the least perturbed, but, sadly says there is no point staying in a ski hotel if we’re not skiing. We can drive somewhere else I helpfully recommend, have car will travel, I think. I can see he’s already diverting back to work. If I had a few bob and no job, well that is half the case, I’d drive to Lake Como and be there in time for Easter when the season opens in the middle of the lake, or Venice where there’s bound to be some carnival atmosphere, and let the lodgers and cost centres take over the bills.

There’s a short train ride from Davos to Klosters, it’s on my itinerary, and we might not have got there if we skied each day. It’s also a 24km ski run, which is a bit much even without an injury.

I’m expecting to find somewhere spectacular; this is where Princess Diana came with her boys, and where all those other royal skiers get papped in Winter. The train trundles through pine forests sloping dramatically on both sides, glimpses of frozen lakes appear, ABF keeps saying he can’t believe there’s so much snow this time of year, there’s usually green fields by the end of March. We arrive in Klosters and guess what? The streets are empty, as are the bars and restaurants. We go in search of a quintessentially pretty Alpine bistro; there are none open for lunch, probably only high on the slopes. Most buildings have classic Alpine character, unlike Davos, making it at least a pretty place to visit. I had wanted a stroll around Klosters and I’m certainly getting that in the search taking us to all ends of the town, hobble, hobble.

I’m beginning to think Dublin is as vibrant and alive as they say in Failte Ireland adverts.

I have morphed into a restaurant critic, but since I’ve left landladyland all I’ve done is eat and drink and fall. And I’m not even here forty eight hours.

We decide on the Bars (Bears) Bistro in the Piz Buin hotel and agree it’s the kind of hotel we’d prefer to stay in. Very hip detail. Of course, we’ve missed the lunch window and have to opt for pizza. It was, without doubt, the most feathery light, even healthy, pizza ever seen or tasted. So there’s the place to eat next time you’re in Klosters with the Middleton Classes.

Back in Davos I meet Mr Tel Aviv again, I’ve emerged from a massage and he is waiting to go in. The masseur did something to help my knee and certainly seemed happy there was nothing broken.

Tel Aviv and I chat idly in our bathrobes; he tells me they’re doing retail therapy in Zurich the following day. He seems really pleased about that – men who like to shop, that must be another unusual Israeli trait? He says the skiing wasn’t great, low visibility and wind chill. I’m pleased, as Absentee Boyfriend assured me the same, we wouldn’t have been skiing much on our second or third day even if I hadn’t fallen. Always good to see the glass nearly full to the top, I say.

I’m due to meet ABF for a visit to the sauna; I’ve brought my swimsuit as instructed and go looking for him, it’s not the kind of thing you want to do, open sauna doors and peer inside. Especially when the occupants are fully naked.

Oh, dear, I’m going to look like an eejit in a swimsuit. Well they weren’t exactly super models in there so off it comes and one just gets on with it. Quite easy really. ABF tells me my return flight is booked for the following evening. Oh dear yet again, we’re not even here forty-eight hours, which I point out and then start singing ‘48 hours in Davos’ to the tune of ‘24 hours to Tulsa’. He’s only slightly amused; I think it’s my pitch rather than my humour. We are alone in the sauna by the way.

You can cook your own horse at the table

Later we go in search of some famous steakhouse in Davos Platz, back on the bus again. It’s called Ochsen as in Oxen. I haven’t done this before, cooked my own steak on a piece of stone in front of me. White bibs are tied around our necks and off we go. I simply had to photograph the menu with all the horse dishes and was expecting a rap on the knuckles by the surly waiter, who wasn’t impressed at the arrival of late diners. My eye was drawn to the horse filet steak at 37 Swiss Francs compared to the beef filet at 48 Swiss Francs. Not as wide a difference as the burger meat processers would have us believe.

It’s Argentinian rib-eye beef for him and American filet for me. Now, I was sure most of Europe was buying Irish grass-fed, open grazing beef these days. The indoor grain fed American variety is tougher, but very flavoursome as it turns out.

We’re still not here 48 hours and it’s the last night. We venture up the town for a nightcap, there are really gorgeous wine bars here, but still empty. I guess they make the most of it in January when the politeratti and regalatti are in abundance.  

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner 'View of Davos'

We make it to the Kirchner museum next day and a heavenly snowy walk. The German Expressionist artist, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was one of the founders of the Die Brucke (The Bridge – between academic art of the past and modernism) movement; he’s also one of the artists labelled Degenerate by Hitler. The collection is in a purpose built modern gallery which conveys his range of woodcuts, oils, timber sculpture and tapestry really effectively, over a life time dogged by mental illness. There is a wonderfully vivid streetscape of Davos in the 1920’s which shows the town before the very pedestrian high-rise blocks went up. As far as town planning is concerned, I thought we were the worst culprits in Europe. We’re not. And, believe it or not, I am a historic building planning consultant, nothing pleases me more than an old wall.

Later in the day, we’re back at Zurich airport, ABF will take a train south and I have four hours before my flight. Time flies as I grapple with the duty-free conscientious decision. A carton of cigarettes for distribution, or not. At less than 4 euro a pack I know many takers.  Conscience takes over, especially as I haven’t been tempted to partake in four days.

I still have the relic of the boom days, a Gold Circle Card which I’ve had to pay for by giving up points rather than earning points. When there’s a four hour wait the luxury of a lounge with wi-fi, armchairs, let’s face it, free wine and hot food, I think Zurich is one of the last to do the hot food, helps take the sting out of not being able to shop. I thought there’d be lots of quiet moments on this trip where I could continue the tenth edit of my novel. It’s been such a short time, not even 72 hours and I try to catch up on editing in the lounge. Not a good plan, a novel takes some serious head space and concentration, even to re-craft a sentence. So I start writing blogs of course. And remember to text the cost centres to tell them I’m on my way home, give them time to sort the mess before I hobble in.

At the boarding gate I’m reminded of the article by Melanie Reid in last Saturday’s Times’ magazine, she broke her neck and back falling from a horse in 2010 and writes The Spinal Column about the experience. Last week she was being moved from her hospital bed to a wheelchair for the first time in over two years. She felt lucky to be sitting in a wheelchair. When you have two injuries, you’re glad you don’t have three, she says, and would put up with having one. As I see two other skiers (I guess) in wheelchairs with black eyes and slings. I agree, a short trip was cut shorter and a couple of sprains are not a lot to put up with. I had a great time and now I’m looking forward to my own bed.

Once upon a time..

Annaghmakerrig Lake from Tyrone Guthrie Centre

When I was growing up we never heard of ADD, children were just bold or difficult or in my case, a chatterbox. Looking back I think I had attention deficit because I was bored when I was ahead in class or more often, confused when I had missed a few lessons. I was often in trouble for talking in class and, worse, I never learned to knit, having been sent out of the classroom on lesson one.

I would divert my attention from the task in hand to start the next and the next and the next, not finishing anything in one go. Which is all fine while I work for myself and take serial diversions while writing a report or a letter; nobody can see me hopping up from my desk every 3.5 minutes and the job still gets done on time, as well as laundry washed, newspapers read, emails sent while walking the dog.

What has this got to do with my new landlady status? I think my daily on and off-line activity has multiplied by fifty since the lodgers arrived. And I wouldn't be writing now if I concentrated minutely on every task, I'd be one of those people who don't have time to imagine. Which, if you have young kids and a busy job, you wouldn't have time, I remember. I waited until the Recession was a good three years in and the cost centres were in university before I pulled out all the research from years back, sat down and wrote a book, I had no more excuses.

But for the Landlady Diary, it takes a bit of concentration and even more distraction to turn the quotidian into quasi-prose. It is my second night this week escaping lodgerland, blonde Racquel invited me for a fantastic dinner and went one better, collected me. The moonlight walk uphill home awakened me so much I couldn't resist checking to see if anyone had made their scrabble move. I begin to chat, defend, navigate and play three games of scrabble and bridge online at 2am, and ponder the laundry spread on the floor as if I'm on the banks of the Ganges. You see, keeping the house warm until Lodger No.2 departs means the stone floor in the kitchen stays hot overnight.

Since I  put the bedroom up on DAFT,  Easyroommate,  b&b sites and now a new one - Trusted House Sitter, the temptation to relate to actual people I know online has emerged. Only introduced to Words for Friends after Christmas, I've lost every game to Cruella's husband, except now, after ten games I've beaten him - at last. So, allow me to digress again, it's worth sharing. If you're under thirty-five, don't bother reading the next paragraph, you'll be so OVER it!

I thought on-line scrabble would be impossible, how could you guarantee staying put for the same hour as your opponents? Of course it doesn't work like that, one recent game took three weeks because my opponent went away for work and played one word every few days. The name, Words with Friends, is apt, you can be thousands of miles apart and chat with someone you haven't seen in fourteen years while they're on a ski trip. Not in public, like Facebook, but as if you're in the next room. Still, it's not the most satisfying of games, unlike scrabble; it allows ridiculous words that would create all-out war in the board game version. But as a concept, Words with Friends, is just that, exchanging little pieces of news, encouragement or commiseration, empathy and humour, with the delicious edge of competition and effort. So, while austerity might get the better of nights-out, there are other ways to communicate on nights-in.

Back to concentration; during the day the attention deficit  is no different, only more tasks are bundled on to the desk or into the car and ever more so with tenants, as the actual house has to be cleaned. I used to be too busy to clean, which is fair enough when you’re working hard and haven't the time, so I paid a very nice woman. But, since I built the house extension seven years ago, we haven't had anyone to help. The cost centres got big enough to hold a vacuum cleaner and used it every evening when the builders left. That was a seven month ordeal and it was a good habit to get them into.

Now, while waiting to find a publisher, I want something to do, rather, I need something to do. This requires tailoring each CV for the prosaic and poorly paid approximation of the ideal job, then diverting to shopping lists and collaborative project ideas with two entrepreneurs all the while plotting scenes for my next novel or improving the heroine in the first one. And then actually going to do the food shop.

There is somebody who gets very, very frustrated with this stop-start activity. Tess, our sheepdog, pokes my leg at least ten times a day until she gets a walk. Which only leads to another round of distracted activity and, frankly, that's because the route has been walked for seventeen years and only the changing of the seasons gives any cause for surprise.

The highlight of the dog walk can simply be the purchase of the weekly bar of chocolate in the local Spar (the only place you can find the new Lindt caramel and sea salt),reading all the headlines, scanning Hello and OK and a quick flick of Grazia, the better magazines being in sealed bags. Cost centre no. 2 bought me Vanity Fair for Christmas, such is the treat it has become; but you can easily get through Vogue or Elle in the hairdresser, which is a saving of seven euro, making a blow-dry cheaper in the long run. In fact the blow-dry is really free if you manage to get through four magazines. This diversion activity brings me completely up to date on all manner of political, catastrophical, movie, fashion and music trivia.

On Saturday I'll actually buy a  newspaper, I've moved away from the relentless Church coverage of the Irish Times, which I can read online, and buy the ridiculously irrelevant FT Weekend, if it includes How to Spend It, I think you'll find that's the best use of irony in this blog.  It has all the salient news on trends, shakers, gadgets, movers, makers, doers, in other words, another world, with lots of Attention Deficit people in it.

I justify this keeping in touch with economic and style trends in case I return to the days when I worked on large restoration projects.  I was also an interior designer back then, when there were only ten in the phone book.  I split my attention between managing building sites, buying antiques and paintings and travelled a lot for research and inspiration, many times with my children. From the distance of landladyland, It's great to have those memories now.

I brought the boys to Lake Como, Rome, London, Luxor, New York, Brittas Bay and Ballymoney, many places that would be etched in their childhood memories. Or so I thought. I remember every picnic and beach trip, every airport queue and ice cream van, every hotel, every tantrum, every hug. The boys have no recollection. So,  mothers and fathers, don't sweat. Stick to bedtime stories. And Fables. If the story of Chicken Licken and the sky falling in was a mystery to you, you haven't been distracted enough.

Reading, writing, storytelling, laughter, drama, tears, re-imagining and sometimes HEA ('happy ever after') is what it's all about. Allegedly.