Don't ever, ever forget

On an early morning mission to Ottobeuren on behalf of my daughter Kate. Took the opportunity to do the dog walk there in the beautiful sunny warm fields to the south.

Today she would have been on my thoughts all day anyway; On 28th October last year her beloved retriever "Poppy" had to be put to sleep without any warning after cancer diagnosed. Álthough the issue of wearing poppies is controversial in Ireland where she lives, I suspect she is suffering at the moment. Our thoughts are with you all.

On the way back to the car met a new dog walker with his young Rhodesian Ridgeback and heavily in heat. For the first time in literally a year, Luna got on amazingly well, no snapping and growling and simply wanted to play. Was having a good chat when a rider came by that the dog walker knew and at the same time Flash was beginning to get worked up by the constant advances being made. So we said a quick "Auf Widersehen" (Till we see each other again) as I would have liked to talk more - the dog walkers parents have a small horse stable close to us but we didn't have time to get in to more detail.

Close to the place where we did the walk is the Ottobeuren cemetry and so I stopped by to see if the war memorial was there, I couldn't remember ever having seen one in the town. Found a large memorial to the combined Austro-Prussian War of 1866 (Austria and southern German states vs Prussia) and the Francö-Prussian war of 1870/1 which saw the unification of southern and northern Germany.

Finding no sign of anything for WWI  or WWII asked an elderly visitor who was attending his family grave. He told me where it was - on one of the walls of the Basilca and so we set off, getting there exactly at 11:11. In parts of Germany, particular around Cologne, the official start of carnival.

(A reminder at this point to reset the camera time - I checked the time of the photo for the Blip and saw it still showed summertime.)

So I held two minutes silence, thought of my father who despite being reported missing, assumed dead in Burma during WWII survived the horrors. Sadly I know as good as nothing about his experiences - as with so many, he didn't enjoy talking about his experiences. My German mother, a teenager, while fleeing the advancing Russian army in the back of a lorry, saw by pure chance her brother being marched to the front having just been conscripted in the Hitler Youth. Luckily both survived.

Monuments, names engraved in stone, a sculpture of a mythology of St George and the Dragon ....... unreal, ancient history. No ... it was just the other day. Have we really learnt from the senseless loss of millions of lives, notably in WWI . We must never forget the bravery of all the servicewomen and men who fought for freedom and not let them down by letting it ever happen again in Europe. For me reason alone to promote for a borderless Europe, a group of very individual countries bound by common values and ethics.

Germany remembers the victims of all armed conflicts and violent oppression this coming Sunday, when the war memorial will be decorated and services held here, probably led by the local veterans society. These societies play a very low-key role, many having been founded after the 1870 war, attending to the personal needs of veterans with problems and tending the war memorials. Most of the members have never seen active military service but as Germany had national conscription until a few years ago, most have done two years of squad bashing.

Back home could think about some of the more pleasant matters associated with 11th November, namely St. Martins Day or "Martini", the last day of the agricultural year, the day to pay agricultural rents and feast on all the surplus things that won't survive or can't sensibly be brought through, the winter  ---  eg geese which gave away the hungarian born, ex Roman Empire soldiier Martin forcing him to become Bishop of Tours in 372 AD.

Photographed the geese together with some daisies which are called Goose flowers in Germany (Gaensebluemchen). Ours don't seem to have a passion for them. Unlike probably millions in Europe, our five survived today and are safe at least for a few more weeks.

I would have liked to have gone to Memmingen to see friend Kathi ride her horse in the traditional kindergarten age childrens St Martin's lantern procession. She had borrowed our horse trailer yesterday as the procession was directly in the city centre. Have seen some photos but they are on Facebook so can't link them. St Martin was a cavalry soldier. I did try photographing the villages kindergarten procession but discovered back home that all the photos were blurred, the flash refusing to work - I think the software had hung up and I didn't react quickly enough to do a restart.

A day full of mixed emotions....

PS The Blip had to be taken at a strange angle as the sun was beaming directly at us.