An early bird

Off to Munich to collect the bits & pieces, Lothar the farrier needs to do Rosie and another horse. Had to drive to the opposite side of Munich, so took the southern Middle Ring Road which was not busy but for some years a massive roadworks. The last time I drove here two years ago at 2:00 am, I got my photo taken and it cost money. Passed by some scenes known well to Nigel "Nogbad", forgot to Blip the Bruedermuehle Strasse Tunnel but got the Gruenwalder Stadium. On the way home went on the outer ring and took a photo of the Allianz Arena, this week the site of Man City's defeat by FC Bayern Munich - sorry Nigel.

Had a wonderful 45 minutes at Neupers farriers shop. Hans Neuper senior (approx 80) greeted me, opened up the shop and once we had the bits and pieces together in 5 minutes, spent the rest of the time chatting about some of the farriers we both know, in particular a certain Peer Kraft who was once married to the previous owner of our house. He showed me newspaper cuttings from the 1985 Calgary Stampede when he sent Peer and another farrier to take part in the Farrier World Championships and proudly showed me two "sliding" shoes, Peer had made from a slab of steel. I asked for a pot of a certain hoof cream and he said it wasn't bad, a cavalry officer had recommended it to him in the 1930's. Hans had been the more or less official horse racetrack farrier, his house and shop being right next to the track.He showed me the "Farrier Master" certificates from his grandfather and great grandfather. His son is also in the business. We could have gone on for another hour but I needed to get home.

On the way stopped off quickly at Stegen on the Ammersee (Ammer Lake) in the south west of Munich, another of Nigel's favourite places although he prefers the Andechs monastery which overlooks it. I think they have a brewery and a spectacular beer garden! The Blip is one of the beer gardens at Stegen. It was relatively quiet and I would have loved to have ordered a cool wheat beer to prepare a toast for Nigel tomorrow.

Dropped off the things Lothar needed at the stables he was working at and returned home. Around 7:00pm Lothar arrived and began with the gluing of cuffs (a sort of artificial hoof wall) on the front hoofs and then screwing the irons on to these. Rosie lost one of her rear irons as I led her out to Lothar! He managed to nail new irons on the rear end. During this his wife and daughter retreated to the pool, Jo the daughter (about 3) spent the next two hours swimming and much to parents approval as she was then exhausted before they sat in the car at 10:00pm for the 500km drive home. Lothar finished off by joining Jo in the pool to try and get the muscles to relax after two, 12 hour days of farrier work at about 30°C.

We had had a few drops of rain in the afternoon, while elsewhere in the region there were bad storms and lots of damage. By 16:00 we had full sun. On balance I guess better to have to water the garden than cover the roof with tarpaulins and pump out the cellar.

If the UK was on Central European Time, I could now get ready to toast the b******y boy but will now wait until a sensible hour tomorrow. Still - thinking of you tomorrow Nigel and hope you have a great day.

PS Not sure why but Blip is showing on the "Preview" several links to Flickr photos/video I posted but when I hit "Publish" they disappear. To see these photos/video you just need to hit the Gruenwalder Stadium link below & look at the Fotostream.