chattius

boogie -> bogey When at naval airbase a bogey was an unidentified possible hostile aircraft.

Yes he wrote a single book: The Leopard Lampedusa -> Seelenverkäufer / Seller of Souls Lampedusa is an island in the mediterran now known because it is overrun by migrants They arrive there by rotten ships which areN't seaworthy at all. Ships which aren't seaworthy but on sea are called seller of souks in German. In former times these ships had high insurances and were sinking to get them. Now the ships are written up and used by people who earn a lot of money from migrants to bring them to Europe,

The place with the horses is where our oldest fruit trees are. The apple tree with its blossoms is an old variant and cut in plateau shape by my grandgrandpa to spend shadow for working horses, planted somewhere in the 1930ties. Behind it are thorny bushes with sloes. On the hill at the horizon is my backup income: big beeches and big oaks. Urban place has some advantages: the headline of the local newpaper was that the last!!! cinema in our district with 140000 people is closing. Not so bad beause of the movies - but as a teen cinemas were a dark place to meet my girlfriend. It is so stupid. film studios demand most modern technology to allow cinemas to run their movies. Who cares, as a teen I would have considered dolby stereo and bright digital beamers as disturbing while ssitting next to my girlfriend. So less income because of covid, not enough money to update for new movie techniques ... goodbye cinema. Teenage kids will miss you.

We were watching USA vs Germany at the home of an american family who had US TV. Game wasn't broadcasted on FreeTV in Germany. We watched the very exciting game which was a fight with open visors: 113:111. And the underdog was winning. And suddenly end of broadcast, no interviews, not showing the excitement of winning, just switching to a replay of a show. The american family and ours changed looks, what happened. Are the runners of ESPN not accepting an underdog winning? It was a good and exciting game and it didn't deserve this total opposite of fairness and sportsmanship.

Congratulations - Surely something that changes life There is an old african saying: It needs a village to raise a kid! Hope you have your village: family, friends, good neighbours in times of need ,... We were lucky in this and we hope you will be lucky too

Burger King -> Ungebildetheit / the state of being uneducated Wienerwald was one of the biggest chains of fastfood restaurants, well until they did restaurants in america. People there knew only Wiener as sausages but Wienerwald was selling fried chicken. Very tasty chicken as I remember from my youth. But it seemed nobody went into the restaurants in america so the company went into bankrupty.

My cousine runs a horse farm/hotel. People from towns have no room for the horses of their daughters. So my cousine has them and cares for them. The owners come mainly on weekends for some riding. 3 years back her farm was in danger of flooding and she moved the horses to our place (posted in covid threadi think). Obviously on our hills far away from flooding rivelets. You see last remins of storm clouds. This sunday she did a open door day and whole family was there for helping because it were like 700 guests. The kids and the AuPair were doing french fries and Bratwurst while my wife and me were busy at the field kitchens. Deer ghoulash, Rotkohl (like Sauerkraut but red cabbage), sweet chestnuts, partridgeberries and Semmelknödel, cut in dices and roasted. Sold all my 200 portions and the biggest compliment was from a Banker who asked if he could hire me for the marriage of his daughter. He was puzzled when I said that I am just an amateur in cooking I read several recipes in internet and made my own adaption for field kitchen. The first picture would be closest but we served on wooden plates. I asked for pictures but there were non of our food, just one of my wife while serving. But the girls had dozens of photos from the horses.... My cousine has like 40 easy to keep European fallow deers for meat production.

To be fair: With 17 AuPairs and 5 times guest family in kid exchanges we know all the laws, traps, insurances, ... What took 2 month at first AuPait is now 2 hours paperwork and preparing the guest room.

With only the twins still at house we weren't asking for an AuPair this year. But we agreed to be on a reserve list in case a family is not able to take an AuPair because of sudden events. Yesterday we got a call from foreign office that a to come student in foreign affairs from northen Finland who planed one year as AuPair had to look for a new place. The father of the guest family got a heavy stroke. Normaly we know the new AuPair months in advance from several emails before we and they agree. This time the call was as short as: 18, near Oulunsalo (town where Oulu Airport is), hobbies Karate , free climbing and bird watching, parents diplomats and yes it hurries 18 is our third, free climbing our second's sport and we have lot of birds. Probably not the sea birds she is used to but more different species I would bet, My wife and the twins are currently on the way to pick her up.

writer -> Autorenlesung / public reading by a book writer himself 9 houses away from my mom's birth house and now home of my brother in Wetzlar is Europe's biggest library for SciFi and Fantasy. Every two months there was and is a public reading from author's with some time to ask them. Once I was visiting mom and early taking place in first row. Next to me was an old lady and we talked a bit about the old city of Wetzlar. Then the library runner spoke and introduced the lady at my side: Anne McCaffrey Where my mom abd brother lives and what we talked about.

The Guide -> Douglas Adams He wrote 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' and my alltime favourite book 'Last chance to see' -bought 37 times, 35 as a gift and the original english and the german translated one for me. “Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” ― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See “We are not an endangered species ourselves yet, but this is not for lack of trying.” ― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

3D -> kungfu dryad I said our oldest daughter would get a 3D Spacemouse if they would win a Sacred2 Niob weaponless challenge: see kunggfu dryads.

Eagle Scout rank -> Landjugend / 4-H I was only a cub the one year I was at scouts. We moved a lot and villages nearly never had scouts. In a small village people know each other and help each other. Don't need to be a scout. Kids often join youth volunteer firefighters or the Landjugend, comparable to the USA 4-H.

scuba -> Rettungsschwimmabzeichen German rescue swimming badge. Everyone in family has it. The twins in bronze (need 14 years old), our third in silver (need 16 years old), the rest has gold. I have also a rescue diver certification with a special in drift diving. Many small ponds, artificial lakes and small rivelets. But at heavy rain the rivelets may turn into monsters. But before jumping into water: Most used by me is a Rettungsball / rescue-ball: 7 times (2 undercurrent, 3 drifting in a flood rivelt, 2 breaking into ice). Mine is like a basketball in a net attached to a long rope and always in car. As a former goalie I can throw or kick it up to 30 metres with enough accuracy. But this is the normal distance for it:

CCI -> Camping Our oldest did a one year trip through Europe studying forests. We bought her a Volkswagen Caddy Maxy Tramper 2.0TDi 4motion - name bigger than the mini van. She still uses the car when working mid in forests for some days. On the trip she had a Camping Card International (CCI). Time goes by, now she has three kids.

A staff/Stab is when you grap it around two-thirds of its height. A stick/Stock at his often ornamented end. mobility -> segway chairwheel My mom had broken hip and shoulder after she was falling. We were looking for an electric chairwheel to boost her mobility. She decided for a segway variant. Insurance took 70% of the costs. Now she is able to use country roads to visit friends. Normally the small front wheels prevented this.

fry -> Wanderstab (staff for wandering in nature) I collect mushrooms while walking with the dogs. When I find a nice piece of wood I often carve a Wanderstab on the way home. A walking cane as wiki says is not exactly the same as a Wanderstab. My staves are normally head high because I live in hilly terrain. These nordic walking things are more for flat or easy terrain. With the staff you can check rocky ground for grip, or at water crossing, or to defend against robbers if we go some centuries back :)

survival -> mushrooms Granny was 17 and a nurse at eastern frontier at end of WW2. She was fleeing through half europe to come back home. When we were kids she told us how to survive if needed. A big part were mushrooms: tinder fungus for fire making, some wood fungus to make shoes, what could be eaten,... Guess my interest for nature is cause of her

practice -> Bauchgefühl Will translate direct as belly feeling. Intuition, gut instinct, gut feeling,.. When I was planting saplings for generations to come there were theory with its global warming models, opinions from forest rangers with long practice... In the end I was listening to my 'Bauchgefühl' because models don't apply perfectly to our micro climate. Practice, there is no practice when trees need a century to get their size and all practice is mainly before global warming.

merchant marines -> 8 years Before reunion: A friend signed as a cookie in the merchant marine. Signing for 8 years and you hadn't to do the 18month being drafted into army. I signed 8 years as volunteer firefighter and wouldn't have been drafted. But my sis got a brain cancer and joining army as an officer meant no costs for university and good payment. The friend no runs an international restaurant with all the recipes he learned at his travels.

kiev -> war generation Chicken kiev was created when french chefs were hired by russian nobles. These chefs used only the best parts. I think the old ladies who learned the hard way in war and after war years to make the best out of the few they had might have been the better cooks, I learned all about which herbs could be collected in times of need from my grandma - and hell, what she could make from it was so good. Kiev, I could reach it with my Diesel car with its 90l tank without refueling. Modern war has no save distances.

menhir -> chicken Menhir is old breton for a long stone, the ones Obelix is carrying. In the German comic it is named Hinkelstein. Myths say that the stones could only be moved by a 'Hüne' (giant person) and were named Hünenstein. With time this became a Hühnerstein (hen or chicken stone). And we Hessians have a slang which calls chicken Hinkel.

creme de menthe -> Obelix warm beer, boar with mint sauce, ... Thanks God - that you made Britain as an island with lot of water between it and the civilized rest of Europe.

Found a 11 pound heavy giant puffball at the morning walks with the dogs. Will probably turn into something like a Pilzschnitzel (mushroom-schnitzel) at firefighters. Add potatoes in skin and a sauce from roasted onions and cassis. Tasty sauce is needed because the puffball itself is nearly tasteless. And there were more of these balls, but yet not as big.

mint -> Minthe Minthe was beloved by Hades, the King of the Underworld, and became his mistress, but she was transformed into a mint plant by his wife Persephone.