General Inspection

Yesterday was Father's Day and would have ideally fitted today's visit from Angie's Dad, Sepp. The proper christian name is Joseph, the nickname Sepp being used mainly in southern Germany and Austria.
In this football year, some examples:
Sepp Blattner, (still) head of FIFA
Sepp Herberger, German World Cup winning team manager 1954
Sepp Maier, Bayern Munich and German (comic and) goalie World Cup winner 1970

Angie's Dad celebrates some special events later this year. He was born in the then Jugoslavia 80 years ago and in 194, just days before his 10th birthday, was forced to flee his home with family on their horse & cart to avoid the advancing Russian Army. Arriving in Austria two weeks later, they were housed in a camp until 1954 when they moved back to the original family homeland in Germany.

His family were one of the so called "Danube Swabians", southern German people from the Danube area who were used to living and working with wet marshy area conditions, mainly farmers. They were enticed in the 17th-19th century to move to the Austro Hungarian Empire to develop the marshlands around the lower Danube, with the offers from the monarchy of things like 10 years tax free living and free tools and equipment. Sepp's family were in the building businness and this tradition followed right through to Sepp who qualified as a Master bricklayer and after building their new home in Germany, he set up his own building business near Munich. Sepp even gets a (very small) Austrian state pension for the time he worked as an apprentice there.

The Danube Swabians throughout their time in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and after WWI when it was split between Hungary, Rumania and Jugoslavia, retained their German traditions and language and have German christian and surnames.

Over the years, Sepp has been our architect, planner and chief bricklayer for all the work we have done on houses, horse stables, chicken coups etc etc. From drawing up professional plans to sketches on the back of beer glass mats, we have quite a collection of his work. His last major project was building the large bunker for our wood pellet central heating system in 2005. Since then, his role has reduced mainly to that of an overseeer but even last year he had the trowel in the hand and reset some paving slabs around the entrance to the house.

Angie collected him from Munich at lunchtime and arrived back with the Jeep packed to the limit with pots of tomato, sweet pepper, cucumber and aubergine plants which he had raised from seed. This is nowadays his hobby and although he had claimed he wouldn't be doing much this year and unlikely to have any plants for us, he again over did it. So our greenhouse is not only full but there are now pots placed all over the place. Not only does he provide quantity but also variety. There are 6 types of tomato, 4 each of cucumber and sweet pepper. Luckily he gives us an instruction sheet as to which varieties need pinching out etc.

When he arrives, the very first job is the dog greeting, they adore him. His love for animals of all types was clearly passed on to Angie. Then a walk around the garden, fields and buildings to inspect and make suggestions for "work in progress". Sepp, Angie and the dogs are just starting out in the Blip.

In the evening, he and Angie went to the Ottobeuren observatory to hear a lecture on Saturn but due to the clouds they couldn't afterwards do any star gazing with the telescopes. When they got home, the clouds disappeared and the stars twinkled brightly! Next time perhaps.

I was extremely lucky to be presented with a bottle of Port recommended by Sepp's wine dealer. It was excellent and even Angie after half heartedly trying a sip, kept grapping my glass. The bottle is now hidden away.

As always great to see him and have his help and advice and a few hours of always very jovial conversation even though it means a late night for all.