Like November 1989

After the Berlin Wall collapsed on 9th November 1989, things changed for a while. Several people went to their cars in the morning to find it standing on 4 bricks and the wheels gone and possibly the remainder set on fire. This is thank goodness all history. Today happens to be the 50th anniversary of the assasination of probably the most famous Berliner, John F Kennedy. I can't remember what I was doing at the time the news broke but I was at school in Somerset. As it happened in the evening (UK time) and we didn't have Sky News et al. in those days, I guess we heard about it the next day.

The Blip is of one of the JCB Fastrac 3230s belonging to the grass drying unit at Sontheim. The "factory" is now going through the winter close down. I have never seen so many high pressure cleaners in use at one time. All the equipment, the entire very large tarmaced grass unloading area, all the machinery in the buildings were being attacked. I had gone there to load 360kg of grass pellets as our friends Michi & Christa are coming tomorrow and need some for their OAP horse, Grappa, who has a problem eating/chewing hay. This is quite normal with older horses, the teeth no longer the best and unable to chew/grind the food - it's the most common cause of death in wild horses.

In other news, have at long last managed to put winter tyres on Angie's car. Took me a bit longer than 2.3 seconds, apparently the record for 4 tyres. The cold snap predicted for Monday will probably mean salting will start, so storage time for the mag summer wheels. Very late this year - they say one should use winter tyres when the temperature drops below +7°C.

Angie rode out with Sultan & Luna, I having to drop Flash off on my way to Sontheim. Yesterday Flash went with them freely when I started up the petrol chainsaw (he hates machines except the car). Today he spotted I might be going out in the car and although I quickly started the chainsaw he saw through my trick and refused to go with Angie.

Special Blip days as Dave hit 1000 Blips today. Sadly I didn't see Emmy's similar feat on Thursday until today. Well done to two such great loyal Blipers.