Bavarian-Swabian Tigger

After the morning walk had unloaded the dogs and was feeding the chickens when the familiar "thump, thump, thump" of the village youth's carnival float came in to hearing distance.

For the past few weeks they have been working on the float in a barn, the closest building to our house. So we have had several days of techno music to accompany our work around the yard. Flash has been pretty much deaf to anything more than 5 meters away but the sound waves from the speakers carried over the 500 or so meters and he fled from the stables to the slightly better insulated house.

It's only for a few weeks and for a good cause by a bunch of friendly young people having a good time,  not causing any undue stress and spreading a bit of fun and smiles.

So I quickly went over just before they parked the float for the last time this year. I think they had been on a quick parish tour. Their main outing had been yesterday at the parade in Obergünzburg, a few kilometers south of here. As I post this, one side of the barn is closed but I can still hear the thump, sitting here in the house.

As an Extra photo, their float with a Walt Disney theme. Having been given a very friendly go-ahead to photograph the float, Tigger kindly jumped on to the top of the castle to do a bit of strutting. So for his efforts he had to be the title photo. Thanks to him, the Attenhausen youth and all the other groups who have given us some fun and smiles.

Thinking about Tigger, I (and my former wife) were given an original A.A.Milne sketch as a wedding present in 1977 by someone some Blipers will know of. A year or two ago, the sketch was sold at auction. I was not financially (or otherwise) involved but sometimes wonder if an official divorce settlement might have been a good thing!

Enough of divorce .... talking of which ...... did manage a few minutes of Boris giving a speech to British Business. Even if I wouldn't trust a single word he said, my compliments for the tone. As the youth in the village know, the tone makes the music.

PS Some might like to see some of the professional floats from yesterdays Düsseldorf parade which like most events and parades, include a large degree of political satire. No one is spared whether German internal politicians nor international. Interestingly one of the last of the 14 odd photos on this link is the "Brexit" one - Mrs May with a pistol in her mouth and the words "Good Luck Great Britain". In all the events seen on TV in the last weeks, I have not heard or seen a bad word said about the UK . Rather sympathy and the question "Why? What have we done". When the result of the referendum was known on 24th June, the German Deputy PM said "We can't sit back and abandon the youth of the UK". I got the impression that Mrs Merkel waited and waited with her foot in the door, hoping there might be a change of heart.

In another interview today, on child labour digging out cobalt for our mobile phone batteries, a lady who I didn't catch her title or company, said it wasn't helping anyone to just drop the source of the problem and walk away. That wasn't helping anyone, especially not the children.

And that is my issue with the UK & EU - Why walk away from something that has a useful "end product". Why not take some responsibility, find the mistakes and fix them. 27 other countries would be only too willing to help. I suspect if the UK wrote down on a piece of paper (factually) what bothers them about the EU, there would be three or four key issues:

EU citizens claiming UK social security benefits
EU making some laws which should be local issues. (ie scope of EU)
...................
and now I stuggle - but on the above two points, I can guarantee you, the Germans, French, Dutch  et al would fully support reform. As to immigration in general, the UK has more control of it's borders than any state, so all that border nonsense is a non starter.