The Bear has landed!

Willkommen aus Deutschland

It is early Sunday morning here and this evening there will be bonfires lit everywhere to celebrate the beginning of Spring. Is that not a wonderful celebration of our arrival here🎈🎈🔥🔥🔥🔥🌟🌟🌟 Driving here yesterday we saw many farmers on their tractors dragging old trees up to make the village bonfire. I am looking forward to it immensely, although the evenings are still very cold.

Look at what I saw as we descended into Munich.

My arrival was perfect. The plane touched down 5 mins early (thank you Emirates), customs was a breeze and the luggage was super quick and the airport was a decent size. Not like the super transport cities that are developing everywhere now.
And the Bear people were all great. Handed him over relatively quickly (you know vet checks and other customs stuff has to be done). They said nice things about him, had taken him out for a walk etc. I think he was in good hands.
Such a good thing to have completed and be done with safely. Team Germany is back together.
So Bear was stowed in the back of the van and Helmut, Susanne and I were on our way just before 10am.

Now, I am spending the next 6 weeks in the village of Lampertsweiler, which is 10 mins from the sheep in Moosheim. Both are 10 mins from where I will shop, Bad Saulgau, and where Georg and his wife Margot live, Braunenweiler. 
I LOVE IT. Once you leave the autobahn things are not linear. Communities have developed via walking paths or horse and cart tracks, not cars and trains so they are close and there is a real geographic relationship between them. Oh, and the barn is in Moosheim too.

Got it?  Just talk to Google!!

I have a comfortable apartment on the ground floor of a two storey building. It has 3 bedrooms (one bunk, one messanine) one bathroom, two toilets, an outside deck and roomy lounge, kitchen area. And it is about 10 metres from the barn with the dairy cattle who help themselves to the robot milking. Super. It is part of a very interesting farm/tourist complex on the edge of the village. I have not yet worked out where one begins and the other ends.
When you are sick of hearing about the sheep I will send you cow stories!!!! 

Bear and I went to visit Georg with his sheep. He has about 150 ewes with lambs in the barn and the rest are out in the fields, where he tends them with his dogs. He moves them around every day. And he will be in this area until the middle of April, when he will move them to the base of the Swabian mountains, where they will stay till the end of the year.

Bear behaved well on his visit but he was scatty, unsettled and sort of hyper. As time went on he became more relaxed so I am looking forward to our visit later today. It may not mean he behaves any better (!) but it will be good to see him a little more confident in his environment. The trip from Australia is a tough one.....for us all.

This is THE PHOTO

I also picked up my car. I have called him Kermit. Definitely a car that needs a name. And not an overly thought out one. Obviously.
There has been a whiff of derision in the air regarding this car and I absolutely will not entertain any overt criticism BUT I did sort of gulp at the size of the tyres!!! I would not like to compare them to the tyres on a good trolley. They might come off second best!!
However, as I have already had international correspondence and money transfers with the city of Bad Saulgau regarding speed of travel it is probably a good thing that I take some care.

There will be another photo of the car. With the dog added to give it some grunt!!!

Time to get on with the day. You know where I am now. Until the next post......