Burgenland Villages That Look Like Movie Sets.

The Characters Just Jump off the Page.

Winter is approaching and the smart ones start to stock up on some form of heating material. A friend of my parents had a lot of old fire wood in her shed; remnants of the previous owner ( the dust and cobwebs proved it ). She wanted to get rid of it, and we collected it. Fair exchange as we had to do a few car and trailer trips to fetch the wood.

I had never been to her village nor her house. It was at the end of a picturesque road with most of the individual gardens blooming and blossoming. A few ladies were tending to their gardens and dogs were doing their proprietary march along the fences. As we drove past the houses, the heads would come up to see who we were and I saw a few curtains twitch. The sky was overcast with rain just around the corner. Somehow it reminded me of the English villages depicted in movies and books.

It was almost predictable, that the house we went to, was the last on on the street. A white picket fence and three hysterically barking, curious yet excited dogs greeted us . The friend was trying in vain to quieten the mob, while opening the gate for us. She was in her sixties and straight away I thought of a Character in a Miss Marple story set in " St. Mary Mead ".

The church was close by and my mind went into overdrive, imagining all the murder plots in the village and the sleuthing of them.

Living in a small village now, makes me realize how much we know of other peoples business. Luckily, I think, people are curious enough to know about us and our lives. Having grown up in larger towns, Agatha Christie's villages were the most wonderful, comforting and exciting thing to read, but it was pure fiction.

Now, I can see how she could solve all those crimes the way she did. Living in a small village is like an open book. Everyone can see what is on the page, and the curious few can even pick up the open book and look at other pages. I would not change this life in a small village for anything, and should anything sinister happen, my years of reading Agatha Chrisie will stand me in good stead !

Biggi