Tag Archives: colditz

Sunday 26th July 2015 – IT’S BEEN THREATENING …

… for quite a few days but today it finally happened. Summer ended and the weather broke, and we’ve had rain this evening.

This morning though I had a nice lie-in until 09:30, and quite right too, for I was well-away during the night. I’d made my escape from a concentration camp – an extermination camp in fact – that was actually a fortress something along the lines of Colditz Castle. I’d made it to safety but two young girls whom I encountered (I know who they are but I can’t recall them now) insisted on going back to see for themselves what it was like back there. And so I took them, and I wanted to introduce them to a girl whom I knew there, but I was warned off because it would be likely that I would be arrested and that would be the end of me. So I spent all of the night skulking around the town with these two girls, trying to evade capture.

And you’ve no idea how exhausting that can be. I was totally worn out when I finally awoke.

This morning I’ve been carrying on editing my blog and I’ve made an outstanding discovery. Well, it’s not a discovery because it’s such an obvious requirement that it must be a possibility, so perhaps I had better say that I had worked out how to do it.

And that is that I can write up blog entries and then change the posting date so that they relate to an earlier date and fit in, in the correct chronological place. And so where I didn’t make a blog entry back in 2010 because I didn’t have internet access, I can do it right now.

And here is one that I made earlier.

After lunch I started to write up the text notes for another topic for our radio programmes. And although it’s a subject about which I know a considerable amount, it must be something of a record that I was able to sit down for just 2 hours and 15 minutes and dash off 2131 words. That should keep us out of mischief for a month at least, but nevertheless it was quite impressive.

Tomorrow I have this car coming and I’m not feeling much like it, but I’ll have to fix it, I suppose. And I know exactly how it’s going to turn out because of past experience. But if I’m this depressed about the thing before I’ve started, whatever will I be like tomorrow eveing?

I shudder to think.

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Sunday 19th July 2015 – SUNDAY IS A DAY OF REST …

… so when I rolled over to see the time and it was 07:20, I said “sod this for a game of soldiers” and went back to sleep. 09:20 – that’s much more like it.

And quite right too because I was thoroughly exhausted after what went on during the night. I’d been imitating John Belushi and his mates in Animal House, causing mayhem at a school graduation ceremony by doing all kinds of things, and a girls’ school at that, to be precise, and everyone was looking for me.

In the end I had some of the girls lined up in the quad posing for me while I was taking photos of them with the camera on my phone. I was seen by the principal who came running after me with his cohorts, and I made good my escape by simply leaping over the precipice and sliding down the cliff, knowing full well that they wouldn’t follow me. By the time they had returned to their car, driven down the road and round to the foot of the cliff, I’d be miles away.

Strangely enough, when I was at Colditz just now,we had been discussing an escape that had taken place just like that.

But to return to the plot, I found myself in a flat by the seaside and we were pretty crowded in there and it was overwhelmed with small black flies like there are in Canada. And from there I was wandering about and encountered a young girl – with a lot of very pale blond hair, glasses, a blue sweater and pink jeans (or was it the other way round?). I was quite attracted to her and was keen to have a long opportunity to chat to her, but each time I tried to speak to her, she was quite keen but it was always about something that I couldn’t do, such as “go you have ten one-pound coins for a ten pound note?” and when I couldn’t help he rout she’s run off and ask other people. And then she’d be back to chat and ask for something else that I couldn’t do, so she’d be gone again. This was all becoming quite frustrating.

So it’s not surprising that I was totally exhausted when I awoke. I’ve had probably the quietest day ever, done nothing at all, and ask me if I care

And now I’m off to bedfor an early night, and i don’t care about that either.

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Monday 11th May 2015 – LAST NIGHT WAS ANOTHER …

motorway rest area autobahn leipzig germany may 2015… one of those nights where a bomb could have gone off in the vicinity and I wouldn’t have paid it the slightest moment of attention.

Here on this rest area on the autobahn towards Leipzig, I slept the sleep of the dead until the alarm went off at 07:30 and it was a struggle to rise up and make breakfast.

Back on the road though, with a nice hot coffee, I carried on heading south. And it didn’t take too long to arrive at my destination.

schloss colditz castle germany may 2015Here I am at Colditz Castle, and this is another one of my lifetime ambitions fulfilled. Brought up on a diet of RAF stories and PoW escape books, I’ve been wanting to come here for years.

Visits to the castle under the Communist regime were strictly discouraged and in fact most of the prisoner artefacts that were still here in 1955 had long gone by the time the Communists left.

remains of french escape tunnel schloss colditz castle germany may 2015Nevertheless, there were still plenty of surprises to come.

A digger working up on one of the courtyards suddenly disappeared from view as the courtyard collapsed underneath it. Closer inspection revealed the remains of an escape tunnel (a French one, as it happens) that the Germans had failed to uncover. Its discovery certainly took everyone, especially the digger driver, quite by surprise.

secret hidden radio installation schloss colditz castle germany may 2015Another surprise was sprung on the roofers.

When they lifted off some of the tiles to replace the roof, they found a hidden alcove with a radio receiving set from World War II still in it. This was one of the four secret radio rooms operated by the prisoners, and the only one that remained undiscovered.

french clock tower escape tunnel schloss colditz castle germany may 2015Mind you, a great deal was already known about the history of the escape plans and it just remained to actually track them down.

Perhaps the most famous tunnel was the one that involved sliding down the weight chamber of the tower clock and digging out from the cellar. This had been filled in after the Germans had discovered it, but some of it has been unfilled as you can see.

Strawberry Moose is quite interested in giving them a hand, and maybe himself escaping from the castle.

The guided tour was quite expensive, but it was worth every penny and I really enjoyed my visit.

From here I headed south and crossed into the Czech Republic. Years since I’ve been here and Caliburn has never been here at all, and you may remember from last year that I’m trying to expand Caliburn’s sphere of operations.

hotel cerny orel zatec czech republic may 2015I’ve ended up in a town called Zatec, not too far from Plzen. I was doing a tour of the town when I came across a hotel right in the centre. I couldn’t say fairer than that.

I know that I’m supposed to be sleeping in Caliburn as much as possible, but east of where the Iron Curtain used to be, the police sometimes still have attitude issues and it’s not as if the cost of living is expensive here.

town square zatec czech republic may 2015The town itself is gorgeous, although there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that the post-Communist economic miracle has not quite penetrated thoroughly into the region.

Mind you, this is the Sudetenland and the inhabitants, mostly of German origin, were ethnically cleansed out of the region in 1945-46. This might account for some of the issues here, although there’s nothing that I have seen that can detract from the beauty of the place.

There’s a fast food place across the road from the hotel so I resolved to call in on my way back from my walk so that I could pick up a plate of chips. But you can guess what has happened.

You would think that I would be used to this by now.

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