Tranny

I doubt there are many who will consider the contents of today’s Blip collage photo of any significance whatsoever. And that’s fine. But my journal is, like all others, an individual thing and that is one of the three main reasons I enjoy Blip and put a bit too much effort into. I know that much of the time my words are too long and full of trivia that doesn’t interest anyone else, but I am not here to gain points.  
 
At the beginning of the week, I had been planning to get out today and set off with Luna into the lower Alps for a quiet, late summer stroll along some valley and with luck, a beer and snack at some off-the-beaten-track Alpe/Alm surrounded by cows with bells enjoying their last days before the Almabtrieb that brings them back down to the valleys for the winter.
 
As the week progressed so did the chances of realising this plan. The forecast got worse and worse. By midweek I was planning a walk from the Ammer Lake south of Munich through the forest and up to the Andechs Abbey with its lovely views from the Abbey’s Brewery beer garden. A day later, I had moved even further north to Munich’s English Garden and the Chinese Tower beer garden. By Friday night, I realised that without taking a plane, I was going to see neither sun nor a beer garden.
 
So a bit depressed, hung around at home in the morning with the sixth mug of coffee wondering what to do when Mr&MrsB rolled up with a big bag of goodies and their 13-week old, second German Wirehaired Pointer. Lots of chatting despite them needing to move on. I showed MrB my honey as I was a bit concerned it wasn’t reacting (crystallising) as I had expected. He confirmed his honey was the same colour, consistency and taste. That’s great news for me and my main customers (grandchildren) as it is exactly as we like it – runny and slightly aromatic.


Just as they were about to leave MrsMY phoned to say she was now free to go out for a hack with Angie and so as Mr&MrsB left with arms full of cucumbers, tomatoes and courgettes, MrsMY arrived and the girls with Luna set off donned in rain gear to “enjoy” the 11°C damp country air.  I met them at the usual halfway point to collect Luna and was greeted by “Happy Birthday” from MrsMY who had learnt of the event during the ride.
 
Back home my uncle called from the Heidelberg area where he lives to say he was sitting in his 24°C sunny garden and enjoying a Grappa his wife had given him as a reward for sanding and cleaning up some wooden garden furniture. Lovely if depressing to talk to him.
 
Eventually, the girls got back and after a snack, we settled down to thinking about how to survive the miserable atmosphere of the evening. Angie lit the fire and while she was preparing to cook dinner, I answered a surprisingly large number of birthday messages from around the world which was very cheering. Before dawn, I had opened my birthday cards that arrived from England and Ireland. They were all fabulous and very personalised, bringing a slight amount of moisture to my eyes from joy and pride at having such a wonderful family.
 
And then the phone rang – it was MrsMY: “Come over for a spot to eat, MrMD has cooked a large pot of goulash”. It was too good an offer to refuse, especially when you know that the beef comes from their own organic Limousin herd.
 
So off we set and together with their two young children had a wonderfully spontaneous, funny, evening with all the trappings – Happy Birthday banner on the wall, bubbly, delicious food, beer, Granny’s freshly baked damson plum tart topped off with a candle which I failed to blow out thanks to the children tricking me with a non-extinguishable  one. We also went down to the “party-cellar”  to play with all those wonderful things from MrMD’s childhood – two model electric train sets (Märklin not Hornby),  slot-car track (Carrera not Scalextric), plastic model WWII destroyers and fighter planes (Revell not Airfix but there was a Spitfire!) and then masses of large car models – mainly Ferrari (my son had these) and finally back in the sitting room, an almost complete set of large model tractors and various trailers that would have coped with doing all of East Anglia’s arable work. Yes, a JCB and New Holland alongside the Fendt, Claas, John Deere, Deutz …..
 
I could have been occupied with the whole lot all night and at least until Monday morning but I had to try and act my age. Even if I can now sing- along to the Beatles tune, I think I have to wait at least another year or according to the UK pensions people over two years.
 
Sitting back with the boring adults now downing various Schnapps, I spotted out of the corner of my eye, the subject that became my main Blip.  It had been switched on all evening and had quietly in the background been providing music. A Roberts Radio!! My shout of joy was greeted with some very strange looks. Even though a “modern” revival model, It turned out to have been bought by MrsMY’s grandfather. I tried to explain but it was pointless …. Bloody foreigners with no sense of tradition or culture!
 
All the Scalextric, model trains and toys we had played with earlier were more sad memories for me due to the vagaries of my split upbringing, very little of which was at home and thus I hardly had any of my own toys.
 
It is difficult to imagine how important radio could be in one’s life that started, without TV with the old huge wooden box type stuffed with lightbulb size vacuum tube valves and when I eventually got my own (used) one at about age 13, I got to learn quickly how painful an electric shock can be as lone struggles to get the thing glowing into life.
 
Events such as listening live to the birth of the UK's first pop radio-station, Radio 1, just days after my 13th birthday: Or two years later, trying to illegally listen to  Radio Luxembourg under the bedcovers hopefully playing the BBC banned “Jet’aime” over the crackly nighttime ether with the now modern battery powered “Tranny”, transistor radios.
 
My first ever proper portable transistor radio was a Roberts Model 505, identical in colour to this one. It was a present in 1974 (aged 20) from my then first girlfriend Annie and her mother who both had such radios. It was a dream machine and included FM!! I will never forget my joy. In the coming years with the astonishingly fast advance in consumer electronics, the Roberts had to make way for one with an integrated incredible invention, the compact cassette, and then the ghetto blaster and stereo and compact tower systems and ……. But the Roberts always had a very special place in my heart.
 
Eventually, we said our farewells and thank you's for a wonderful evening and headed home where I sat down on the sofa for a goodnight coffee and a warm feeling of joy helped by the wooden fire luckily still giving out some warmth. I fell asleep sitting there and woke up at around 2:30 am. My mobile phone was blinking and despite the tiredness, I quickly took a peep – the light was telling me an email had come in ……. From Annie in England wishing me a happy birthday. I had been worried about her as I had heard nothing from her for months and not whether my via post Birthday card to her in April had arrived – Annie is not a computer/social media type so messaging had always been problematic and the reason I sent an old-fashioned greeting.
 
Luckily my card had indeed arrived and all is well but as we had only ever communicated electronically, she didn’t have my postal address. I then spent an hour or two replying to Annie and updating her on my news. But somehow in the heat of the moment, I forgot to tell her that she had been on my mind just hours before, thanks to the Roberts radio!


Thank you MrsMY and MrMD for an unforgettable evening.




And thank you to all those who have contacted me by wahtever means.

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