HEM

Unfortunately late on Friday evening we had to take our dog to the vet for the 3rd time that day & he was put to sleep. SInce several days he could not get air when lying down & thus no sleep. We had been several times over the last month to the vets & all they saw was an active dog & claimed he had an infection. But as soon as he was home & laid down to rest he got no air. In the afternoon they did an endoscope examination & found that the larynx was staying shut rather than opening & closing. When running around it seemed that adrenalin was making things work. Tried antibiotics and cortizone but to no avail. The family is in deep depression. Daughter (29, still lives at home) cried most of the night. He had 7 good years with us after we got him from the rescue centre. R.I.P. Scotty. He was a Yorkshire Terrier - a rather large one at 6 kg.

The contraption looks as if it was built by cutting an old German Panzer in half!

Is not the issue that Boris won't let people out? Thinks back to the days of the DDR (East Germany). There was a headline over here about TUI promising Mallorca "free of English" (for Easter I think). I've probably related this story before - some years ago we had flown into Ibiza from Hamburg (early departure) and were waiting for the luggage to appear. All Hamburgers (+ kids) standing queitly waiting & collecting their luggage. At the adjacent belt was a flight just in from Glasgow. I was observing the crowd, most of whom had obviously indulged in "inflight refueling" & rather worse for wear & short-tempered with their kids. I felt sorry for them on the first day of their holiday.

Coot Club was the first AR book I read at the age of 10 - a well-worn hardback in the classroom library at junior school. I have the entire collection - most being hardbacks bought as new during the 1960s. Unfortunately I was not able to inspire my own children with the books as they have German as their primarly language (speak English reasonably well especially my son who is in IT).

My daughter (28) had AZ last Monday & was completely K/O on Tuesday. Bit better Wednesday & back at work Thursday. She works in the forensic medicine dept of the large Hamburg hospital (UKE). She said a cooleague of hers who is totally fit etc had never been so ill as the day after his AZ. Others were OK. MIL (she is 91) had BionTech/Pfizer 2 weeks ago with hardly a side-effect. Just wife & I are "in the middle" with no prospect of vaccination in sight. There is a vaccination centre within walking distance.

He only posted the bear facts...

Similar stories come regardless of where one moves to. There are numerous expats in Germany who "came over for a few years" and after a while get tired or the job or relationship folds & when they return to their home country they usually find its not what they remembered & is no longer what they like. Generally the countryside has remained but the people have changed...

Agreed - I use one all the time when filming. Can double as a walking stick when hiking up mountains (such as Lassen Peak).

The answer was a clear "No" (well actually "Nein").

My daughter works in the forensic medicine department of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. She works in the toxialogical lab & thus does not examine dead bodies... However, the director of the forensic medicine department states that MOST people (84%) die FROM Covid-19 rather than WITH Covid-19. The equivalent insitutute in Kiel come to a similar conclusion.

If you are into archaeology & happen to be in the far North - a visit to Vindolanda close to Hadrian's Wall (which it pre-dates) is well worth a visit. We were there in April 2019:

Your poor lot. I had to go from Pounds/shillings/pence => pound/new pence => D-Mark => Euro!

They measure their bicycles & TV / computer screens in inches as well... But the wingspan of my glider is in metres (actually thats a global thing).

Something maybe wrong here...

Apparently so - if you are referring to the well where Sven pulled up a bucket on a chain at the other side of the path you can just see a black pipe that carries the water down to parts of San Carlos. Many of the new "fincas" don't have running water & a guy makes his living by driving the water truck around. We certainly enjoy the hike (did it twice in 2018 & once in 2019). Thats one of the reasons why its fairly green there (in recent years we have gone in September i.e. the so-called off-season).

Oh yes - see here starting with gentle rains at 6:17 with downpour at 7:37. Sven (who led the hike) had warned us before setting off that rain might come. The girls whose stand we took shelter under took it all with humour whilst getting wetter & wetter... We missed the rendezvous for the return hike, no busses, 3 taxis for many hundreds of people so we set off on foot (squelch). After a couple of miles Sven & the jeep from the hotel appeared looking for us.

Thanks - the resort offered (I have to use the past tense as Corona has badly affected the team there) a hike each Saturday morning to the Hippy Market in San Carlos where the Hippies first congregated in the 1960s. The route is mostly along back lanes & paths which makes it interesting. Sometimes there are > 20 people in the group; this time we were just 4. We did the hike the previous year where we got caught in a massive thunderstorm & were drenched to the skin... Filmed that as well... You have to see the thunderstorms on ibiza to believe them.

We have been to Ibiza many times (11x with the kids & 4x without) and have never been in one of those sorts of clubs! This was in 2019 (had to cancel for 2020 due to the virus; wanna go back again). Comments are in German but just enjoy the video... I doubt if we will be able to go in 2021

The adage "How to make a small fortune in the airline business - start with a large one" applies here as well...

Likely to be more crowded than before the lockdown given that travel abroad are going to be restricted in many ways, at least in the near future. With a drone you can do aerial filming without the need for a noisy helicopter and at a faction of the cost (I am aware that drones are not silent but the noise level is far lower than for a heli).

As they frequently used to say in "The Men from the Ministry": there has been a lot of arson about!

What in Germany is referred to (translated) as "warm renovation".

Maybe what they perceive to be demand. However many seem to have their own agenda.

One has to realise that the media is "in the game" to just stir things. We had a similar situation over here (but in the air) in the Summer of 2019. There was a near miss between a glider & a Lufthansa A321 - the press plastered that as "Glider obstructs Airliner". I have read the official report & it was VERY close. The official report absolved the glider pilot of all blame (she was allowed to be where she was) - basically the controller should not have routed the airliner where it was (low down & at considerable distance from Hamburg RWY 23). Thus the correct press heading should have been "Airliner obstructs Glider".

Certainly "someone" (some people) saw this coming but they were probably put down as being "Remoaners".