Work In Progress

It was rubbish out, dismal and grey and WET.  Much better to stay indoors and potter.

I read some more about Ludwig the Second.  And I was reading about his relationships with women...  I think it's fair to say that he wasn't really all that interested in women.

He was engaged (once) to a Princess Sophie (a cousin, naturally.  They were all cousins to one degree or another) and they held an engagement ball to celebrate.

Ludwig turned up late, danced once with a woman who was not Sophie then greeted Sophie's parents and then decided that was the end of that and left to go to the theatre*.   And he thought that was fine.

Unsurprisingly the wedding was cancelled and as an aside Sophie had an affair with the photographer who took the engagement photos .

Ludwig doesn't stop there with the oddness. Oh no.

He loved the voice of the opera singer Josefine Scheffzky but he was very picky about how people looked.  Josefine was a solidly built woman who really didn't fit in to Ludwig's idea of the perfect womanly form.  When she would visit to sing for him, he made her stand behind bushes.

If I've understood correctly, their friendship ended when he invited her on to his rowing boat in order to enact some Wagnerian scene.  Alas, as the poor woman tried to get on the boat, she managed to capsize it and with it Ludwig.  He swam off and left her to be rescued by his staff.

It's all fascinating stuff.  And oddly funny.

The Blip is of the beginnings of a Kugelbahn that I intend to build.  What for?  No idea, but it is fun to build.


*Schiller's Maria Stuart was playing.  Better known in Britain as Mary Queen Of Scots.