Dick van Dyke country

Day ending badly as I now have to try and recreate all my blurb for this posting. Usually, it’s my fault when I hit a wrong button but today had done nothing more than hit the map button which started to show and then seized. Grrr

The morning was likely to be bad too – lousy night but then woke to sunshine and over the wake-up coffee read the kind comments from yesterday and a very upbeat Blip from RedFlash from Sunday evening. So felt much better after that.

Got some work done in the morning and then shortly after midday went to Ottobeuren for the third of my six prescription massages. Afterwards wanted to quickly grab a Blip within 20 metres of the physios. I wasn’t dressed for spending a lot of time wandering around the town.

So all you get is this not very old building but a bit “weird”. I may have blipped it before. It’s a listed building shown as being built in 1900 and the family name on the left “Notz” is still shown in the online “telephone books” as being the owners. The sign says in full “Alexander Notz, Coal and Peat Merchants”. The right-hand sign above the large ground floor window says “Ironmongery”.

Brick as the exterior of buildings is not common in southern Germany possibly because of the materials commonly available which may have prevented very high heating and thus a closed strong structure. The bricks in this house are what are still often referred to as “Reichs” bricks. In 1872 a dictate made these the “norm” needed due to the industrial revolution and the need to have a standard for such things as transport. It was obligatory for public buildings. It has been revised since then a bit. The colour of the bricks comes from the iron/lime ratio – high iron, red: high lime, yellow.

The chimneys and the woodwork on parts of the building are very unusual. Would be interesting to know the background to the reasoning behind the style.