Newt 2013 Saturday 13 July

Karla sat in the passenger seat next to the naked driver, Stuart directly
behind her hemmed in with suitcases, Polly the Collie squashed in the boot
beside my boxed kit. The little car trundled down the B15 from Munich towards
Salzburg in the beckoning sun of early July 2013. The motorway ground to a
standstill with all the holiday traffic, as we waited, patiently, to proceed
into Austria. The road wound it’s way into the Tauern region, we passed
Radstadt and headed along a winding road up the hillside to the tiny hamlet of
Mandlberg where we had rented a farmhouse for the week.

It was a big place, ideally situated, slightly apart from the other houses, and
with a green square for the garden table and BBQ out back overlooking the
valley. The big house slowly filled, as the day wore on, with naked hikers from
every which place. Gianni and Mira arrived, and Maria, from Genova. Pascal and
Clarisse from Strasbourg. Bruno Saurez and Frederic from Marseilles. Maarten
from Amsterdam. Augustus from Rugby, Bernard Gibert from Paris. Andreas from
Thuringen and Mathias from Hanover. Last but not least was Roberto di Mattei,
who I very nearly forgot to pick up from the train station.

We made ourselves comfortable, in the twin and more bedrooms, on a first-come
first-serve basis. Paul from Manchester and working for CERN in Geneva, was
doubly unfortunate in that he had to firstly share a room with me and put up
with my snoring, and secondly that he was forced to twin next to the lovely
Spanish Conxita, a film-maker from Edinburgh. We promised not to tell his wife,
Marion, too soon 😉