Bobby and Betty Go to the Moon

Hi Woodsy

A customer gave me this yesterday. 

Never seen it before. Must be mid 60’s.

Will O.

Anyone know it?

Seen Hornet

I've just seen a hornet - not the green kind - but a real one. It's only the second time I think. 

It was so big I had to get out of my deck chair because 1. I was intrigued and 2. Terrified! 

It must have been 2 inches long and a quarter fat. And loud! Like a Chinook chopper landing!

Sooo much bigger than a British wasp! 

Have you seen a hornet readers?

Reporting for Duty. Charly Duty.

 I've always liked Charly Duty from Italy

A sort of Billy Blastoff clone with its own clunky but charming style. 

Have you got Charly? 

Nice Orc if you Can Get it!

To the left of this group of recent purchases is a loose solid plastic creepy action figure I thought I knew.

This is what I had in mind, Graf Orlok, a Silent Screamer. 

Nosferatu he isn't though, he's actually from Lord of the Rings.

I give you Grishnakh.

My Shrek is well and truly Maxed! 

T in a Maritim

 That Hotel Maritim image rang a bell.

I knew I'd seen some box art with a similar nocturnal boat scene.

The T in a Circle Cabin Cruiser!

*

For further T in a Circle boat fun see Gasket Case from 2011.

Die Letzten Bilder von Königswinter

 A few final clicks before the sun goes down on our two and a half week Deutschland Ticket rail tour.

My holiday tipple, Aperol Spritz. A true sundowner.

Our Abschiedsessen or farewell meal. Good hearty Deutsches fayre.

Our hotel from the Rhine (hotels own snap!)

A German Ritter or knight in armour.

Oh, and Drache.

A huge model of the cogwheel train route up Drachenfels.

Schloß Drachenburg

Drachenfels summit

A random but welcome UK flag in the town. I wonder if it's to do with 1. John Le Carre or 2. The twin town of Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire?

Possibly the first villa John Le Carre saw as he first disembarked from the train all those decades ago

In

Tomorrow, back to the Ruhrgebiet.

The Drachenfels on the Rhine

 Well, in 30 degree heat, we've slowly explored just a few parts of Königswinter.

The great Rhine separating it from the city of Bonn provides an idyllic setting for boats, barges and ferries.

But it wasn't the Rhine that drew us in. It was the Drachenfels mountain railway, a cogwheel set-up begun well over a century ago. The green carriages really are quite beautiful.

Once at the top we did what has to be done. Sat on the summit cafe terrace and drank Kaffee and ate pommes!

From there we discovered

Drachenfels, the mystical ruined tower beloved of Wagner, Byron, Turner

Schloß Drachenberg

Distant Bonn city, its tall Telephone Building and the UN Centre

St.Petersburg where Adenauer entertained Presidents and the Queen

And another of the many highlights was a Goodyear zeppelin passing over the mountain cafe terraces.

I waited for the Skyship 1 shot, where it's stuck on the tower! 

All in all a fabulous day in an historic setting. 

With one last glimpse of the Drachenfels and the castle from the town

We're Back in our hotel now cooling off!

In the footsteps of John Le Carré

We have arrived at our final stopover on a German rail tour and I'm so excited to be here.

Königswinter.

60 years in the making, I missed out on visiting two years ago when we visited Bonn, but this time I was determined for the missus and me to end here.

Being a boomer and a cold war kid I have always been fascinated by spies. 

Königswinter was spy central in the 50's and 60's. Bonn, the West German capital was just across the Rhein and the post-war republic's first Chancellor worked and lived here, Conrad Adenauer.

But personally much more important to me is the fact that Königswinter was the residence of one John Le Carré, the master spy author and my late Dad's favourite. I can clearly remember his small collection of Readers Digest hardbacks of Smileys People, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and A Little Town in Germany, which is set in neighbouring Bonn.

Understandably the actual Gästhaus where Le Carré stayed is unknown, as he himself was an assistant secretary at the British Embassy in Bonn, before becoming a full-time writer when The Spy Who Came in from the Cold made him world famous.

Oddly, I can find no trace at all of Le Carré in Königswinter, unlike Lord Byron and Turner, whose residences are on the town map.

I even asked in a second hand bookshop if they had any of his books. Nichts.

No matter, I'm making up my own spy master footprints!

My second hand retro pen bought in the town's charity shop in commemoration of the author,

The attaché cases stacked unceremoniously in said shop too. Who knows what they once contained!

And imagining that this old photo of a hotel here held the sort of milieu Le Carré mixed in as part of the post-war diplomatic service.

Dossier closed!

😎