Carnival and rain.

This week is the start of the street carnival; it starts on Thursday with what they call (Altweiberfastnacht) which means roughly when women assume control for the day.
The high light of the street carnival is Monday which is called (Rosenmonntag) and that is when the street processions take place, something like in Rio only on a smaller scale.
Last Monday we had snow again but it only lasted a day. Compared to the south and east of Germany also Austria were they have had a lot of snow we have been lucky.
On Saturday afternoon we drove to the local town to do a bit of shopping. My wife wanted to buy some wool for the socks that she is kitting. We had a gander around the shops and my wife bought a pair of jeans for the spring and I bought myself a light lumber jacket. In the town we met some old neighbours that we hadn’t seen for thirty years, they are about the same age as we are. I myself thought Wow!!from their conversatio with us that they were old people, strange, afterwards I thought, what did they think about us!! (I don’t think in anyway what so ever that we are old, positive thinking!)
It rained during most of the night and this morning I decided not to do my run in the wood seeing that the paths in the woods would be to muddy, instead I did a road run. Just before I had finished my run it started to rain again and it’s never stopped since.
Take care out there were ever you are. Tshüss
The photo I took some years back but it reflexs how the weather situation is just at the moment.

Short story’s of past incidents in my army life (funny and sometimes sad)


When we were out on the square practising drill there were also other squads doing the same. One or two funny episodes I remember rather well
We had one lad in the squad that never wore his braces (although that was an order), well one day we were marching back and forth and every time we did an about turn or we halted we stamped our right foot hard on the ground (the British army way). The sergeant noticed that this lad’s denim trousers were slipping because he was trying to hitch them up all the time with the inside of his arms. The sergeant moved closer to him and kept shouting, “Swing your arms shoulder high you horrible man” and at the same time he made the squad do a lot of about turns till eventually the lads trousers were around his ankles. The funniest thing though was the lad didn’t have any underpants on either. He made the squad stand to attention for a good five minutes in the middle of the square while the wife’s of the training staff passed bye on there way to the NAAFI to do there shopping.
This lad went AWOL (absent with out leave) the same evening. I myself never saw him again.
The second incident that I remember took place in another squad they were also doing drill and apparently one of the lad’s couldn’t keep instep. Later on I found out he was a farmers son from the Lake District. The training sergeant of the squad brought the squad to a halt then ordered two squaddie’s to bring an empty dustbin. When the dustbin arrived he told the lad to get into it and hold the dustbin lid over his head then he told him to sing Good King Wenceslas. It was so plain ridicules and very funny but you didn’t dare laugh because if you did you was the next one in the dustbin.
One day we were told that during the morning we would be marched to the medical centre for inoculations of some kind (I can’t remember what they were) anyway we were doing rifle drill and in the middle of it we were marched to the medical centre to get our jabs. After we had all received our inoculations we were marched back onto the parade ground to continue with rifle drill. We were in three ranks and at open order practising present arms when suddenly there was a loud bang, which startled most of us. We all turned round to see what it was! One of the guy’s in the last row had fainted and had fallen forwards straight as a log. We naturally all went to help him, which in the eyes of the sergeant was wrong, “ stand still were you are you’re like a bunch of F--- schoolgirls” he shouted. He then ordered one of the lads to fetch a medic, he then moved the rest of us away from the guy lying there and we carried on with our rifle drill.
Later on we heard that the guy had broken his nose and fractured his jaw in three places. We never saw him again.
Discipline was very hard but sometimes it was just plain stupid. For instance we had in each boot sole thirteen studs if you lost one, say going from your barrack room to the morning inspection you were charged with being improperly dressed on parade. In one case a ladybird landed on the beret of one bloke during the inspection and he was charged with having a dirty beret. One guy had to sweep the edge of the parade ground with a toothbrush for an hour or so, these things were of course done deliberately to break you and then make you into a soldier or so they thought.
Two of the worst punishments that you could get (in my view) were one, cookhouse kitchen and the other cleaning the washrooms and toilets. I did one day in the cookhouse kitchen in basic training and I vowed I would never do that again and I didn’t.
One thing you learnt very fast was, never volunteer. They asked for volunteers for a weekend guard duty, we were told that if we volunteered then we would get a long weekend pass the following weekend. I volunteered thinking that it was a good deal, the next weekend we were on a exercise that weekend. Another time they asked if any body could play the piano, one guy volunteered and was sent to help out in the kitchen cookhouse for the day.

To be continued.