DNA

A public holiday in Bavaria and the other Catholic German States - "Fronleichnam" or in English "Corpus Christi". Traditionally lots of outdoor religious festivals including carpets of flower petals. Another "good" religious holiday always held on a Thursday and thus many take Friday off and have a 4 day weekend. It's the 4th public holiday in May this year.

For us an impromptu family get-together at Angie's father's house in Olching near Munich. The house which father Sepp built with his father and brother back in the 1950s after they had fled from the former Austro-Hungarian-Empire village in Yugoslavia in 1944 for the safety of Austria and then later Germany. A "Danube-Swabian" southern German community, recruited in the 18th and 19th century to cultivate the fruitful but then boggy area along the Danube.

We often meet at this time as it's the towns annual weekly festival but as Sepp always feels responsible for paying for the beer tent meal and drinks, Angie had suggested it would be more sensible if we did a BBQ at home, everyone brought something with them and would have the advantage of being able to talk to one another without the blare of a big brass band and the "formality" of sitting at beer tables for hours. And it was also his wife's birthday a day or two before and she wouldn't have joined us at the festival. Jani has had a rough patch the last few years but as ever is still actively involved in making sure everything in its place and then sits back to knit woolly socks for all the family!

Turned into a lovely lunch and great long afternoon. Excellent food, beer was as always the same brand as it has been for the last 50+ years (Augustiner, Munich's last private brewery and if Sepp had one cent for each bottle he has drunk in his lifetime, there would be an inheritance worth fighting for). The Schnapps to break down the "fatty meat" afterwards was the traditional Williams Pear for the men and some sweet stuff for the ladies.

We were 18 "family" in total:
Sepp and his wife Jani
Sepp's four children
Children's three spouses
Sepp's six grandchildren
Three grandchildren's wives and partners.
Plus one visitor and dogs Timmy, Flash and Luna.

And the countries of Serbia, Bosnia, Bavaria, Swabia, East Germany DDR, Austria, Italy, Trinidad, Great Britain represented with all getting on very well together!

Sepp would quite like to have been at the town's festival as it is also the site of the town's motorbike speedway track which he has been a member of for as long as he can remember and even helped with building parts of the facilities. Today was the German Open and a Norwich born Great Britain Team member won, even beating the town's local-born hero and four-time German Open winner.  

As we left around 6:00pmthe heaven's turned black and we drove through some thunderstorms on the way home but luckily it was dry on our arrival and we managed a walk with the dogs who had not had the most physically challenging day. Flash though insisted on getting up to meet,   greet and say adieu to each and every one - his obsessive control dysfunction has never let up.