An Extraordinary Garden

Friends Alison and Franz now kick-started into action in organising the itinerary across Germany, and found us somewhere we could rest up for a day, so on the morning of Monday April 30th, Zorbee and I plodded off through the German countryside . As usual the route was a little unplanned due to the vagaries of map reading....

 Crossing the Danube for the third time - here by bridge at Winzer....

 .....to stay at the Sunshine Ranch of Helmut and Sabine at Aholming.  Germans evidently start training their children to down a swift half at an early age .....

 ...and their daughter Jo is also already following in her farrier father's footsteps by practising on the dog.....

 ......in this case a Dalmatian that they rescued from certain death as he was spotless, and I don't mean clean.

The horses were quartered in a small wood with access to a shed, and Mike had use of a cabin to sleep in.  This was in the extraordinary garden of the Dengler family who also lived in part of the large house at the stables.  They have created an eccentric wonderland out of old rubbish and it is full of constant surprises.  Below is Mike on our day off relaxing on the little balcony outside his cabin with Zorbee in the background.  Note the tin man fishing from the right side of the pond, and the watering can on the side facing the camera - when we accidentally flicked the wrong switch in the cabin, water came spraying out of the spout.

 An exhaust pipe tortoise, sadly minus a head ........

 A flower of  worn horseshoes, tended by a flowerpot man....

 A guitarist with a bird's nest hairdo .......

 The figures could be slightly unnerving after dark, in particular this ominous character in the sheep pen, drinking himself to death judging by the bottle of beer he is swigging .....

 One of the creators of this amazing place - Mrs Dengler with daughter Eva.

They kindly washed a load of my stinking clothes for me, and let me use their Wifi connection to try and catch up on my blog.

And in the evening Franz and Alison came round to take us out to dinner. This turned out to be at a lovely little restaurant I had seen while riding along the Danube the previous day...........

..... amazing Fixer Franz had been hard at work researching routes and places to stay, so I was able to relax with a large glass of wine safe in the knowledge that ride planning was in extra capable hands..