Fasching

A cracking spring like day. Rosenmontag, the highlight day for many of the carnival followers. Rather then "Karneval" which is used in most of Germany and in particular the carnival capital area around the Rhein in Mainz, Cologne and Düsseldorf, the Bavarians tend to call it Fasching

On the morning walk in Ottobeuren saw the children from the Waldkindergarten (Forest kindergarten) all dressed up in their various costumes. Flash even went for a paddle in the forest stream to cool off while in the town, people were sitting out on the market square, enjoying an ice cream, coffee or beer from Pedro's Ice Cream parlour.

For the evening walk drove through the village and saw the Bliped scene. I was a bit confused as the rather nice very new Deutz tractor had a numberplate from the neighbouring county. Assumed the float was simply having a pause on it's way home from a parade somewhere.

Turned out to be the youth from our parish capital, Sontheim, who weren't taking part in a parade but simply taking it out to spread some mobile party "feeling". The tractor was a demonstrator borrowed from a Deutz dealer.

Find it great that the youth in these parts take such trouble to build these floats. Last year on Flickr I posted loads of photos of the great floats they build. Today just shot a short video but not very good as they were not exactly rocking it, many relieving themselves of fluids in the field behind the float and visiting friends, probably to get freah supplies, in the nearby houses. The video shows the procession they then did to the next stop in Sontheim.

Had the misfortune today to see the "Narrenfreiheit" - Jester's Licence" of someone in the Uk who I found out has been a UK politician since 1997 and at times a Minister for things concerned with Agriculture, Fisheries and Environment. Had to look him up on Wiki - Owen Paterson. What a very nasty sounding person, so much so that not even Mrs May was prepared to have him as a minister.

Now as a backbench MP,  extreme Brexiteer, slf claimed "Expert" and chairman of "UK 2020", he continues to do everything possible to forward his appalling views and style. I simply can't believe a country like the UK is being influenced by such people who are doing such unbelievable damage to the UKs chances of getting a good deal-

He sat there in a TV interview claiming the UK would now have control of it's borders and be able to keep out nasty EU things endangering the UKs "Bio-Security". This was in answer to a question on how he could calm Farmer's fears about losing 60% of their incomes with the loss of EU subsidies and needing now some certainty as they needed to plan for what would happen in 2019. When pressed for a proper answer, he said" they will give us a good deal - they need us more than we need them"

Typical Brexiteer answer followed by a question on diesel pollution - "this is an evil imported from the EU and killing off our children. Now we will be able to take control of our motor industry and stop this".

Fabulous for the man who spent most of his time as Environment Minister blocking EU attempts to improve such issues. He was amongst others described by a UK journalist as : "the worst environment secretary this country has ever suffered". The man would have got a top job in Germany in the 1930s with his racist views.

God bless the USA but please save the UK first, for the sake of our youth. Carnival may not be everyone's cup of tea but a German church minister in his 5 minute slot after the main TV evening news on Saturday "Word for Sunday" said it was a good event where people could hang down their hair, have some harmless fun and above all laugh and smile - important for the soul".