Break camp at dawn

J's plan to be up with the sparrows somehow didn't happen. I'm sure it had absolutely nothing to do with the quantity of empty beer bottles but more to do with the fact that he had left home in Sussex on Thursday morning at around 4:00am and then being in action for almost 24 hours.

So a slow start to the day and time was getting critical. Just as we were about to set off Farmer Franz from the village and Farmer Albert from Erkheim, independently and coincidentally turned up within minutes of one another - added to this they are cousins or in-laws or somehow family wise connected. Two farmers getting together means lots of chatting, two farmers with family connections mean never ending chatting. Franz wanted to ask us about slurry and Albert was just taking his newly acquired 1955 NSU motorbike & sidecar out for a spin and knows I like an unusual photo. See extra photo.

Somehow we managed to get to leave but all my carefully made plans for the day were anyway long ejected. Theme for the day was bike riding for Kate and family and J with me following in car and hose trailer (as bike trailer) to be support crew and pick up any flaggers. Because we were 6 persons (5 bikers +me), it was not possible to use just one car, so my plan had been for the two boys on e-bikes to cycle the 3km to our local station and then all 5 of them to take the train to a station between Landsberg and Munich where I would meet them. Then a short bike ride for all to the monastery at St Ottilien, load Kate and children in car while boys cycle to the Ammer Lake where again all cycle as far as they can down the lake shore, eventually taking a ferry from one of the towns across the lake to Hersching and then a bike/car ride up to Andechs monastery and brewery before somehow driving/cycling back to the station and train home .

However Angie offered to help by driving to Landsberg in her car as well and would then again collect in the evening. Seemed senseless for her to drive the 50 odd km trip four times but I was outvoted.

So car & trailer to Schöffelding near Landsberg, unload boys who rode to the Ammer Lake while Kate, the children and I drove there. I made the first mistake as I went to the wrong village but after a quick call got that sorted and when we eventually all met up at Schöndorf, the five of them set off on the bikes and we later met at Utting for picnic lunch.

Fortified the intrepid 5 set off again and made it to Utting where I tried to meet up with them. However blindly following my navsat somehow got in to a very narrow dead end. While reversing and trying to do a U turn in the very narrow path, I oversaw a lamp-post tree combinationand managed to part the whole of the front bumper from the rest of the Jeep.How on earth one can call such a massive chunk of plastic a bumper is beyond me. I had no idea it was everything but a "bumper". Somehow managed to get it back in position ignoring dangling fog light bulbs and wires and with the aid of hay bale twine, somehow fix it to the car.

By this time J had tracked me down and with black storm clouds looming (almost inevitable around the lakes during hot summer days) we agreed to abandon the day. However we couldn't all get in the Jeep and now especially with white bale twine visibly holding the car together, it was not sensible to risk one adult getting in the trailer and taking an illegal ride to the train station or a point closer to home for Angie to collect us.

There followed an hour or two of chaos as we in various combinations made our way homeward. When finally home,I felt mentally exhausted and unfairly disappointed as we hadn't done half of what I wanted to do. As they said, for them it was a great day seeing new places as was most of the bike riding (the boys had had to do a long mad dash at the end but actually not that bad given the e.bikes).

So in fact, the day was a success and while Kate & I threw an evening meal together, the rest had a swim and we all fell in to bed.

Sadly because of all the hectic and due to them using cycle tracks whereas I had to use main roads, I took far fewer photos than planned.
Extra photo is a collage of some of the events but doesn't include one of the car!