Biennial Outing

Off to Guggenberg above Ottobeuren for the tractor MOT. The 6,150- metre long, 124-metre elevation uphill journey is almost the highlight every two years for the 1965 John Deere-Lanz, topped only by the 6,150-metre return, 124- metre downhill, journey. Rumour has it that I may have topped 40km/h at some point - I have my doubts even if the mower on the back, which I couldn't be bothered to take off for the test, probably aided any following wind advantage.

What I didn't realise was that the usual MOT inspector was on holiday - he "knows me" quite well & that, apart from this special day, I total about 2km per annum on roads & is thus perhaps a little "lenient". A very costly oversight. His stand-in was determined to find problems. Some poor farmer with his big tractor was failed for having signs of age wear on the big rear tyre walls - I got the same judgement luckily only on my two small front tyres & that my handbrake wasn't acting equally on both rear wheels. Before I could splutter anything, Christoph Auerbacher, the joint business owner & who sits at the wheel for the tests said something to one of the mechanics and whossshhhh the tractor was in the workshop jacked up, front wheels replaced & one of the team was on the floor underneath playing with nuts & bolts. Within half an hour, I had the MOT badge stuck on my numberplate & was handed the approval certificate - the invoice for tyres to follow! Only a smallish fine for the overdue MOT but at least I get 24 months from today rather than it being backdated to autumn 2018.

On the way home, just down the road from the agricultural engineers, stopped at an EU sponsored picnic bench to have a celebratory beer. Then realised I had forgotten the hamper. 50 metres away, stopped again to take a snooze on the EU sponsored lovely curvy wooden sun lounger only to find it was already taken by three young passing visitors. Two of them were quite happy for me to photograph the backs of their heads. I don't blame the third one for not believing a single word of my strange explanation as to why a passing Englishman on a tractor would want to post a photograph on something called "Blip" & also take a close up of the EU sign attached to the bench!

A close up of the Geotag in Satellite mode shows the lounger site & just south of it a couple of trees on the other side of the road hiding the picnic table.

Just for good measure and as I have been lacking in my Tractor Tuesday Blips, took some tractor porn photos on the afternoon dog walk. Everyone was very busy before the rain arrives. Nice set of two now quite outdated but much treasured Mercedes MB-Trac tractors, one belonging to a farmer in the village & the bigger one I think to a local contractor doing some earthworks transport. The MB-Trac was the forerunner of the UK's Brexit superstar JCB Fastrac, two of which are owned by the local grass/maize drying plant & often Bliped by me.

Note the lack of snow on the Alps since Easter. However, snow is coming back soon!