Trying o tidy up around the garden and yard all day but no chance of winning. I forgot to mention yesterday that Thomas, a friend from the village and neighbour and colleague of MrB's came by in the evening to install a new remote control unit for our front gate.

Thomas had recommended the unit I should buy and having ordered it last week it arrived promptly. Last Friday he came around to install it. Being an experienced and qualified electrician he started by first of all attaching the unit to the mains with an old cable and set about programming it and registering the three hand transmitters. The unit would not work properly. After countless tries, he eventually phoned the company and got some further advice which however did not help. The company said they would send a replacement which hopefully should arrive Monday.

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday no sign of parcel so I phoned. I think they had forgotten (the parcel tracking info I then got confirmed this) but at least it arrived Thursday. Although I hate and don't understand electricity, I had seen enough previously to attempt the programming and indeed it worked. So phoned Thomas as the next step was to try connecting it to the mains in the housing down at the gate, a horrific site full of all sorts of cables.

Thomas came by at 7:00 pm and within a few minutes had it wired up and working. Hurray and thank you, Thomas! Will make life a lot easier.

A short break from tidying up when Farmer Blank came by with a bale of hay (2014) for the horses. He has appeared recently in his Claas and Deutz Intrac but today he turned up in his Deutz Fahr DX 6.05, a 1987 built 5652 cm³, 98hp, 6 cylinder air cooled machine. Quite a successful model apparently, around 10,000 built in 5 years and supposedly good value. The basic price back then was the equivalent of 45,000 Euros which pretty much matches the then rough formula of 500 Euros for each horsepower. Not sure if the formula still works as it is as good as impossible to find new prices online. A quick look at used prices suggests Farmer Blanks is worth around 17,000 Euros not bad after 28 years. Now you have seen 3 of his tractors but there are more - typical for these parts, each implement needs a tractor.

Of particular note is the registration number of the tractor. If like me the eyes aren't what they used to be, try looking at the extra photo!
For those who may be stuck on the M20 or at Calais and are staring at a German number plate and wondering what the numbers all mean, there are sometimes plates with small numbers on the very right as with this tractor. In this case 04|11. This means the vehicle is only registered in the time from 1st April to 30th November and used very often by motorbike and Porsche cabriolet drivers to save tax during the winter months when the vehicles don't get to see the road, snow, ice and salt. The various colours of German plate letters & numbers (black, green or red)  to be explained another day.