rodeo in los alamos, nm

today i stumbled across these pictures as we stumbled across the event last summer - a local rodeo show, barely made public on a few flyers, a low key affair for the working cowboys in los alamos, but for us a real treat and baking in the hot august sun that afternoon was about as remote from the cool, sleek laboratories that we had seen earlier in town as it could be and made the place where oppenheimer et al invented the bomb even more unreal. great riding skills but i still manage to feel sorry for the little calves...

halle 1 - new york city 0

why - my dear husband wanted to know when confronted with the idea that i would spend a weekend away in halle/saale - why is good ol' andy not celebrating his 50th birthday in new york city? it's conveniently located, cheap to get to and, best of all - you get a direct flight...

reader! you don't want to get bored with the saga that followed. suffice to say that andy's birthday present - the good man is 50 after all - shrank considerably as i attempted to make a booking for his town. not sure exactly what i had in mind - a nice louis vuitton travel set with four large suitcases or a voucher for three suits at dior homme, but the travel set became a small key ring holder and the three suits turned into a silk tie in the sales and eventually even that was out of range and andy has a bottle of shampoo now as i finally got hold of some complex business class arrangements via munich and frankfurt. she's so caring i can hear you mutter - true, but the question remains: how good's the party??         

first rate is all i can say - great people (all the usual suspects!), great venue great dancing and great atmosphere - andy clearly didn't get a few other birthday presents this year. as with the better part of saturday spent in the air and an early start for a long, long night there was not much time left to actually get a look at halle but after a lavish breakfast on sunday midday we managed to get a glimpse of the market place, marienkirche, roter turm and moritzburg - all incredibly beautiful and very sensitively restaured. a pleasure to see and definitely a place to come back to. after a long round of saving. or moving the lot to new york...

(will post some pics if and when others send some as i managed to forget my camera)   

fun at the lord mayor's show

despite torrential rains and a few seconds of sun inbetween we actually managed to have a lot of fun at the lord mayor's show last saturday.












not that we are usually too impressed by any kind of military parading but principles quickly fly right out of the window when your darling daughter stands in front of the lord mayor himself and blasts into her french horn.

lovely insight of course into the belly of guildhall where it all started in the early hours.

 










and it has to be said that the marching of the old guilds was rather impressive and brought a little piece of history alive.







shame we couldn't find a camel...

watch the whole show on the bbc here

Unser Andy wird 50!

Wir gratulieren auch recht herzlich!
Viel Freude im neuen Lebensjahr, lieber Andreas!

Hier ein paar Jubilanten, die dieses Schicksal mit dir teilen:
Möbel Martin
Das Sandmännchen
Barbie
Asterix
Die Currywurst

mikesh

rike took these lovely photos of her little cat, mikesh, last summer. mikesh came to us as a stray five years ago and was a cute little rascal, full of energy and mischief. one of his many tricks was to knock on the front door to get into the house - cat flaps are soo boring - so to the amazement of friends and visitors they would kindly open the door for us only to find a cat sitting there looking eagerly towards the cat food corner. today the vet had to put him down because he had cancer. all very sad...