Day 83 - Forest Finds and Family Games in Scharnstein

I was up early again, expecting another morning meeting. Alarm went off, coffee brewed… and then nothing. No meeting. No messages. Just an early start for work that never arrived.

Instead of being annoyed, I took it as a gift.

I’ve been wanting to make some bigger changes to the website for a while, and this felt like the perfect window. So I got stuck in. Properly stuck in. Rearranging, refining, tightening things up.

Kia and the kids were up around 7 and we all had breakfast together before the day scattered us in different directions.

Around 10, Kia and the kids headed off to the local library with our Norwegian friends. It’s small. Very small. And the English book section is even smaller. But the kids still managed to find a few books each and a board game.

€0.30 per item to borrow.

You wouldn’t even get a chocolate bar for that back home.

After the library, they stopped at a local dairy farm to look at the cows and buy fresh yoghurt. Very Austrian. Very wholesome.

They were back around lunchtime and we all ate together while I continued deep in website mode. Kia jumped into some video editing and the kids headed over to our Austrian host’s house to play.

And then… drama.

Just as they arrived, their eldest daughter had cut her hand badly and had to head to hospital for stitches. Not ideal especially after her dad broke his ankle skiing the day before.

A rough couple of days for that family.

Around 3pm we all decided we needed some fresh air and headed into the local forest.

It was drizzly. Grey. Quiet.

The kind of afternoon where the forest feels even more alive.

We stopped for about an hour so the kids could build animal houses from sticks and moss. Apparently Austrian kids do this often and judging by the remnants of old stick structures scattered around, that tracks.

No screens. No rush. Just imagination and damp forest floor.

On the way back we had to climb over a hill to return home. As we were walking, we passed a tree with what looked like an animal burrow at its base.

Kia and one of the Norwegian girls shone a phone light inside and said they could see something metallic.

I crouched down, reached in, and pulled it out.

It was the slide from an old hunting rifle.

Of all the places to find something like that… a quiet forest floor in Austria.

Strange little moment.

After the walk it was home for dinner, then back over to our hosts’ house for games night.

We played a version of Chinese whispers, but with drawing. You draw something, pass it on, the next person writes what they think it is, then the next person draws that description, and so on around the table.

By the end, the final picture is almost never what it started as.

Heaps of laughter. Kids and adults equally terrible at drawing.

Around 8pm we wrapped it up and headed home, tired in the best way.

Another simple, full day here in Scharnstein.

Back to the slopes tomorrow.