A Barbecue In The Snow
I’m not generally a lover of barbecues, as I’m not a lover of burned underdone meat. But in my time, I’ve had a few good ones, where a whole animal has been properly spit-roasted.
- At University in Liverpool, during Panto Week, a team roasted an ox on the steps of St. George’s Hall. It had one of those tastes that you’ll remember for ever.
- A farmer, once roasted a pig for members of Ipswich Flying Club.
- Once, we were driving back from Crete to London through Yugoslavia and when we stopped for petrol, found that a sheep was being roasted in a service station. It gave a whole new meaning to motorway food.
When it was suggested there would be a barbecue in the snow, it was something I could take or leave, but my heart rose, when I saw that a wild boar was going to be spit roasted.
I’ve had wild boar in the past and on most occasions, it would have been better, if it had gone through a food processor first, but this method of cooking brought the meat to the same sort of tenderness and quality of previous experiences of spit roasting.
So don’t ask me to a barbecue unless you’re spit roasting a whole animal.
A Sleigh Ride
We went for a ride on a sleigh pulled by two horses.
The more I look at the horses, the more I think that they have a lot of Suffolk Horse in them.
I also took a video.
I’d like the opinion on the horses, of someone, who knows their Suffolks.
The railway bridge is one of many in the area and was probably built by the Germans as part of the Prussian Eastern Railway, that used to connect Koningsberg and East Prussia to Poland and Greater Germany.
High Seats In The Forest
There are high seats in the forest from where you can observe the wild life.
Unfortunately, in my two hours in the seat, we only managed to see one rather skittish roe deer, despite it being a clear, moonlit night.
Others were more lucky and saw several wild boar and a raccoon dog.
In The Steps Of Kaiser Bill
The area of forest in which we were walking had at one time been the private hunting forest of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
The stone commemorates the shooting of his two thousandth stag. I find that rather excessive!
At Poland’s Border With Russia
After the Second World War, all the borders in the area we were staying changed dramatically.
Koningsberg, which had been German before the war and was largely destroyed during the war was the capital of East Prussia, and all the land around it became Russian, as did the previously independent Baltic States. What remained of the city, whichhad once been one of the largest and most cultured in Germany became Kaliningrad.
We were actually staying in the old East Prussia to the east of the town of Goldap, not far from the border with the Russian enclave that is surrounded by EU territory.
These pictures were taken at the border.
It doesn’t appear to be a very heavily-defended frontier.
Although none of us did anything that would threaten the Russians.
Turpentine Grows In Trees
Do you know where turpentine comes from?
Despite both my father and father-in-law being good decorators and users of turpentine, I didn’t!
Until I saw this and took these pictures.
The Russians used to grow forests especially for its product. I think it is true to say, we had found ways of making an alternative synthetic product.
European Bison
These European bison were in a reserve.
There were about fifty in the herd.
The birders in the party were excited about the number of yellowhammers. I know them well, as the birds seem to like the post-and-railed fields of studs in the Newmarket area. The birds are also regularly seen in Cambridge.
How To Charge A Battery Train
There is a Twitter hashtag of #ipemu and this tweet has been posted, which describes something called a Railbaar from a well-known Swiss company called Furrer + Frey, who are very much involverd in transport electrification.
Railbaar
This could be the missing link in running IPEMU trains on branch lines, like those to Barrow, Lowestoft, Scarborough or Windermere. After pulling into the terminal, the battery is topped up to make sure the train gets all the way back.
As an example, current schedules at Windermere allow somewhere between six and fifteen minutes for the turnround, which is probably typical around the UK rail network
I Had To Look Twice!
When I picked up Monday’s copy of The Times, I had to ook twice at the picture on the front.
I Had To Look Twice!
I was asking myself, why they put an old picture on the front.
But then, I realised it was the daughter-in-law.
So do men, marry women, who look like their mother?
I didn’t as my mother was dark with brown eyes and C was a blue-eyed blond. But once when I visited her in hospital before we were married, everybody thought I was her brother!
The Anonymous Widower 