(20*C+M+B+21)-1

“The only statistics you can trust are the ones you have falsified yourself”.



It is claimed a famous Tory PM said this in the 1920/30/40s, the current lot have actually taken it to heart. My dearly beloved Blip friends, please don't believe any messages you may be getting from Blip HQ that I am celebrating 10 years of non-stop postings. It's fake news, not even Blip is saved this new fashion. I did indeed start around 10 years ago but on 21st February 2011 when my long-time 'Weggefährte', Nigel introduced me to Blip as a form of therapy to get me out of a dark hole. He is my beer garden companion, physiotherapist  (walking from one beer garden to next) and most importantly psychiatrist.  I managed a few Blips before I gave up for a while, then restarted and at some point it took off, and I haven't looked back.



However, Blip also gave me the opportunity to fulfil a long time wish to record some of my past for my widespread family, and as a paying member, I have the opportunity to back post my diary entries to my birthday. And thus, all these back blips from the previous 55 years have bolstered my total entries to 3,650. I hate to tell you folks, there are 24,233 still to be done as at today. That is a mountain of boring nonsense for you to have to read in coming years.



Yes, I have been a very bad Bliper the last two years, caused by a mother in the UK I don't know, who wrote a message on a birdy social media site that went through my heart and out the other side. I could see, feel and taste her tears, Her teenage daughter at a northern university had just been told that her promised EU Erasmus sponsored stay at a university on mainland Europe had been cancelled as there was so much uncertainty as to what would happen with Brexit due to take place on 29th March 2019.


I was already doing guerilla war on that awful site, but now I went to war. Blind with rage at how a few wealthy 'people' could inflict such hurt and pain on the youth of their own country was more than I could stand. I became a really nasty piece of work myself, f'ing and blinding at Archbishops, Prime Ministers, Lords, Dames, Sirs, Ladies, prominent journalists and even the Royal family. I didn't enjoy it, but it had to be done. I was so angry, I couldn't face the peaceful, friendly, delightful, humorous, kind, considerate, thoughtful, caring, wonderful people of Blip. A bit like Forces veterans coming back from Afghanistan and being unable to get back into civvy street life. I did try several times to get up to date but had to turn off comments as I couldn't face replying. However, during all that time, I took my photo a day and thought about you all.



The events on Christmas Eve 2020 changed that. I had been to Ottobeuren Basilica to light some candles partly in memory of others but largely in thanks for many more, including the staff of Coventry University Hospital who had given the first vaccine jab. I did it at the Basilica's 'Coventry Cathedral Cross of Nails" altar where every Friday prayers are made to remember the horrible acts of war but more importantly to promote reconciliation.



After I got home switched on the box to see the UK's PM strut on about some fantastic deal he had made. OK, let him believe what he wants but what then followed was a series of Victory tweets by a chorus of ***** Tory MPs. No, absolutely NO attempt at reconciliation, or trying to haul in to the boat, the now widely accepted majority of the UK population who were less than happy.


There was now no sense in continuing, only those resident in the UK can save themselves. As it happened, that Christmas Eve night around midnight, I was jailed by Twitter for 12 hours for one of my comments to a Tory MP, rightly if you took my words literally. I decided to stop the Brexit war and while I might tweet the odd mainly German based message, the daily grenade throwing is finished, and I returned to Blip, deeply wounded but knowing I was safe here.



I will need time to regain the trust & friendship many of you have shown over the years and I will work to do so. Thank you all, thank you, Nigel.
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And now today's Blip!

Went for a lovely evening dog walk with Luna starting at the village church at 16:20 which you may just be able to make out on the extra photo collage. We walked over the newly finished Danube relief flood plain and up through the forest but had to divert when we saw friend MrB's van parked up near his hunter's barn. He was no doubt 'sitting' on the lookout for a deer at dusk, and I didn't want to be the cause of the deer bolting. The season ends in 10 days, and maybe he has to fulfil the quota he is legally forced to make, even if he would rather not.

As we walked back in the increasing darkness, I suddenly thought how stupid I had been - the church would be in darkness and I needed to go in to do some "shopping"! Luckily as the church came into sight, saw the lights were on and indeed the doors were open and only the Sacristan was walking around doing various things.

As I stood in front of the altar, I saw two large packets of table salt near a huge 20 litre decorated bucket of water. The Sacristan came close by and I asked him if the salt had some kind of meaning - e.g. it is a practice in Germany to give people moving into a new home a present of bread and salt. He replied he was getting the 'to be' Holy Water ready for tomorrow's Epiphany mass blessing and needed to add the salt now to dissolve in time in the cold. Apparently Holy Water is always salted except at Easter.

We went on to have a lovely chat, he's not a born local and has only been living here 21 years, so like me (19 years) he is still a bit of a foreigner! He is the chief Sacristan and recalled when he started there were 22 young sacristans to help including doing the special work tomorrow on Epiphany. He said now there were only six children and although Corona had stopped almost all Epiphany work, they would not have been able to perform the traditional house visits anyway. Despite my own personal lack of belief, this made me very sad. The link explains all the background to Epiphany in Germany, and the Brits involvement centuries ago.

So I picked up my little bag of incense and stick of chalk to do the Corona D-I-Y blessing of our house and made my donation to this very well worth charity - children collecting for children around the world, this year especially Ukraine. Maybe tomorrow I might even go back with a small bottle and get some of that Holy Water to bless the horse stables - the farmers do this with their cow & animal stables often accompanied by incense burning. We may need to do it for our chicken house. One of the girls went missing today and one showed signs of having been attacked from a bird of prey. Added to that, a case of bird flu has been reported 30 km from here, and it is likely we will be put into chicken lockdown as has already happened to my daughter in Ireland.