Travelog for: TobiHH

Hello friends,

I am so excited. After staying home for a long time I said goodbye to Dicker Kumpel.



Our guest HelmutBluepant travelled home today.



And because his parcel was so big, he invited me to come with him.
Great idea! The others gave me a big hug.



Then we jumped into the parcel.



Hopefully we will have a fast and safe trip.

Bye
TobiHH

Hello Mum,

today me and HelmutBluepant came to Remscheid and Charlotte and Oink gave us a very warm welcome


He had me in his rolling-stone-bag when Lotte welcomed him like a hurrican


Then he introduced me to Lotte and Oink.


Lotte gave me a big hug


But the first thing I wanted to do was writing a postcard to You


The plushies helped me very nice


Then we showed our presents and gifts


Helmut is so thankful and very proud about Dicker Kumpels gift: a handsome shovel for his gardening

Charlotte and Oink were very pleased about the yummie cookies from Switzerland and thanked us a lot


And both were very impressed by the wonderful cards from the nice Hotel in Zermatt, the tickets from the railways and the great map



The it was time for dinner: Oink and Lotte had prepared a lentil stew, Helmuts favourite meal





Then Helmut whispered to me, what do I think about a little party?

For dessert we had nice little chocolate covered marshmallow


And then the party started






Helmut and me, look, we had Hugo to drink, very tasty

Lotte and me, we also had Hugo


Helmut and Oink started a strawberry-dance


And I did the dance as well



Here together with Lotte



Lotte... tried to dive after a strawberry that felt into her glass


What a great welcome-party


But then it was very late and we were happy to find sleep alltogether in the comfort plushie-bag

That was it for my first day here and I like it here very much, Mum, I´m glad that You let me travel with Helmut to this crazy people here.

Good night, give You hugs and kisses
Love and see You Mum
Yours TobiHH

Hello Mum,

today I made a little walk through the garden around the house


Here I found some huge digitalis

A beautiful Delphinum in pink and yellow


Look, me at the lillies


Theese columbine [Aquelia] are two-coloured



And this rosebush is very old


The very first blossoms of ox-eye daisy [Buphthalmum salicifolium]

Bumblebee and butterfly love it

Blue and yellow corydalis


Some more columbine


And a small red-leafed japanese acer


Now we are at the pond

The main plant there is the water soldier [Stratiotes aloides], Helmut told me, that the larvas of the dragonfly use it for coming out of the water after some years of growing and hang themselfs at the leaf tips to hatch out in some weeks. It has mall nice white flowers, only one per plant.


A single rose

it even has a wonderful fragrance

This is the honeysuckle or woodbine [Lonicera]

It has a beatiful fragrance mainly in the evening


The little white flowers of the wormwood


Here we are in the part with some apple trees

And I sit inbetween the apples


Behind the small astilbs are still some late peonies

This would be the right one for PinkyHH

I dont´t know if I like the pink or the white one more

But in comparison the white one could be the right one for me


A lot of blackberries for jam

But at the moment they are still blooming, the berries need some weeks to grow

And columbine again


In different colours and shapes

And this is a columbine meadow-rue [Thalictrum aquilegiifolium] in yellow


But the funniest and everlasting flower in the garden is a huge potted poppy

Lotte told me that it is hers and helmuts favourite place, the poppy blooms and brings colour in the garden, even when every other flower is faded

Here together with Oink I enjoy chilling in the poppy, what a funny idea able to sit in a flower


Back in the house Helmut showed me his newest leaf-cacti blooming, the Epiphyllum


And after this he invited me tot he higher terrace up to the roof where the warmhouses are placed


A very blue plumbago


And a yellow „princess of the night“

Also a epiphyllum

Like this red ones


At last a blooming strelitzia


That was my walk around the garden and the house and I saw some nice flowers and plants

Love to You Mum

Hello Mum,

today we went to an old but interesting place in Remscheid: The Steffenshammer, a very old smithy that is now a little Museum and still funcionable today and shows the visitor, how the people in the Bergisch Land formed irontools with using water as energie.

The place is called Clemenshammer, but the old smithy is called Steffenshammer


Behind me You can see a huge wheel for transmission

This is the entrance to the little half-timbered house and until the 1930s a widow with 6 children lived.

The house is very very small, you can see it at the windows.

This is the entrance

Behind me are the narrow stairs up to the first floor but this is closed for public

Here in the main room the association that promotes the Clemenshammer, shows what tools the smithy produced in the old times and wich tools they needed and how hard and difficult the circumstances of living and working were in the so called "good old times...





And this is the smithy itself


Lets have a look inside


Here I am on a funny chair, it hangs from the ceiling.

That has the reason that the smith can move for and back when the iron gets longer and longer during the process of smithering

There You can see the hammer powerd by waterenergie and the anvil, where the sun shines through. It was very dark there, only the light from outside and the fire in the oven lightend the room

Lets have a look outside again and see how the water turns the huge wheel





Huiii. I like the water that sprinkled very powerful, what an energy, what a noise it makes...

In the garden was a small summer-party and they showed how to smith


And it was funny to see how they bake wafels here





Hmm, yummie, of course we had one

There was a wheel of fortune


I won a little sheep that was happy to join out troops

And a dixie-band played nice music





We were allowed to sit in the shadow of the big bass-tuba

Nice summerparty and we recreated a little moment sitting on this bank



Then we were invited to visit an astonishing park: The "Unicat of Gardens"


The man told us that is the official smallest park







What a nice and interesting place this was

The last for today shows a typical Bergisch House with ist green shutters

Ähh..By the way Mom..its for sale...wouldn´t You like the idea of living in the Bergisch Land??

Love and greeting and many hugs
Yours TobiHH

Hello Mum,

today was a fine and sunny day and we went to the Gruga-Park in Essen

With about 65ha is the Gruga one of the largest Parks in Germany


Look at the fantastic four fountains


And we were welcomed by a nice but shy pelicane

Here are the first views into the landscape of the park


And everywhere you find some more or less nice sculptures

Everywhere are nice and coloured flowers in large flowerbeds


And look at the bassin with water lilies

From a bridge You can see the "Hundertwasserhouse"

It is in the area of the park but not open for public, because its a temporary home for children who are very ill to recreate here together with their parents

And this Giant Reedwood is sooo huge that it needs 3 Photos

to show You

how large

it is to the top

Now we come nearer to the tropical houses

Look at the nice Agapanthus

And the Angel trumpet (Brugmansia or Datura) is even huge

Nice salmon clour it has

Now we are in the entrance of the tropical houses

It is a feeling like in a jungle but colder than outside at the moment

Oupps, I have forgotten the name of this nice blue blossom-plant

Have You ever seen such a mixture between blue and violet?

Me on a huge leaf strong enough to hold me

The smaller examples You often find in living rooms, could be Monstera

And look, I made it to balance on a banana leaf

But theese are smaller bananas without any fruit

Me under a palm tree

not one coconut I was able to find

This was the most exotic tree I have ever seen

A silk floss tree (Ceiba or Chorisia speciosus)

Theese friendly parrots were very silent

What a pity that they are not allowed to fly free in the house...

Now we are in the cactus house

A golden barrel cactus (Echinocactus grusonii). Some people call it also "seat of mother in law"

Nice flower of a fig cactus

But no fruit was ready to eat

Now we change to the bonsai area





I like the small trees in our size

Now we change again the area and move to the farmers and the perennial gardens



Pink fuchsias

Orange lillies


My favourite for today is this royal knight's-spur (Consolida)

it has exactly the same blue colour as my heart I am sitting on

This small pink and white mixture is nice

Its called yarrow (Achillea)

Another very different part of the park


a huge rondel with mixed flowers surroundend by a huger old round hornbeam hedge

Now we change again and walk trough an area similar to a half-desert or maccia


Yucca gloriosa can be left outside in the winter here

I was overhelmed when I saw this flower bed


California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) in so many different colours

I love them

Here I play hide and seek in the huge leaf of a Gunnera


Here we are at a lake with black swans



impressive birds and very angry...

Geese on the green


In the far You can see the Gruga-Tower and we want to go on the top of it


It´s quite huge, isn´t it?

Now we are on the top and the view is incredible





Don´t forget, we are still in the middle of a City in the Ruhr-Area, Essen

And what an additional surprise, we saw a zeppelin


...O.K., it was very far away....

Now we are on our way back to the entrance an we saw these two nice bronce horses


Red and blue, nice idea to mix these two colours

Do You see the bronce desert lion in the background?

I wanted to meet him


And he allowed us all to sit on his neck, very nice and kind cat

This was our day at the Gruga in Essen, I liked it there very much and hope, You saw how nice it was for me being here

Love and kisses to You Mum and all the others at home
See You soon
Yours TobiHH

Today we gave the little skunk Mefito a warm welcome.


We introduced each other and talked a lot about travelling around the world


He is a very kind, but litte shy boy, but look what eyes he made when he met Oink the first time

Hi Mum,

Great news: Today our holiday to the Northern Sea will start!

So we all packed our things we need there and Strunki cared that we have a safe seat


Well, that´s quite o.k. for a photo, but she convinced us that we would have a better view out of the car when we turn around 

O.K., let´s start our way to Büsum 

Now we have done the most of the journey and drive to direction Hamburg


There we we see the first views of Hamburg, Helmut is so happy to see the town again, he told me he liked it being there with You and the other plushies





But we want to go further so we have to drive trough the Elbtunnel




Woow, that tunnel is quite amazing

During the travel we had a lot of fun together






The we passed the Channel that connects the Northern and the Baltic sea


Now its not so far anymore and the rest of the way is done very fast





This windmill looks great

Now we are in Büsum and had a late dinner there under the sky


And we are very happy and tired enough to have a nice place in the sleeping-bag

That was our first day of the holiday and more will follow

Love You Mum and give hugs to the others at home
Yours TobiHH

Hi Mum,

today the weather was not as sunny as the days before, the people told us...
So Helmut had to wait until he can put his shovel into the sand...

But we spent a nice day at the harbour of Büsum and saw a lot of ships

Most of them are shrimp boats, because Büsum is famous for shrimpfishing

but some other nice ships are here as well in the old harbour part





Here is a ship at the wharf

Nice to see people working when you are on holiday

But we didn´t only see ships there

This is an old light-fire

And here are some tons and nets from older times


And here You can see the modern lighthouse of Büsum


In the centre a nice clock


And a train for tourists



Some ships came in


and some came out of the harbour

But we also saw some animals, can You see the little hatchlings of the black-headed gull [Larus ridibundus]?



Then we drove bicycle and bought some shrimps

Here I am with Helmut, he has fun all the time here



What a nice first full day


That´s it for the day, love You Mum
Yours TobiHH

Hi Mum,

today we spent the complete day on the beach of Büsum: The new Pearl Lagoon. Altough heaven was very cloudy, it wasn´t very cold...until the wind came...

There is a dam in the middle where You can walk on to the sandy beach

This is the view from the other side

And here to the sea itself

A lot of colurful tents with shops are there


The first we did was playing in the sand

Helmut with his shovel filled a bucket with sand together with me


There we built a little castle of sand

He is sooo happy about his blue shovel from You and Dicker Kumpel

Then we had fun on the water






After Swimming we chilled in a huge circle swing



That was a lot of fun for us all

In the afternoon we heard a shanty choire singing

Helmut an me knew most of the songs and we sang the whole time.

Together with Helmut I swayed to the music 

That was it for today, tomorrow we plan to drive to Friederchskoog and want to visit the seal-station

Love and hugs
from Your TobiHH

Hello Mum,

today we visited the Sealstation in Friedrichskoog, founded in the early 80thies to hatch baby seals lost their mothers

There is a large tower to climb on and You have a wonderful view all over the landscape and I found a lot of my colleagues there

At first we learned the difference between a common seal or harbour seal and a grey seal


Then we climbed on the tower to have a first view from above




There You can see a building formed as a whale, it´s an indoor-playground for children

In the pools are a lot of small baby seals to hatch



They have been found on the beaches at the northern sea without their mothers and brought here to take care of them until they are old enough



But You can also watch adult seals.

The huge dark one is a grey seal

and this is a harbour seal


They are not able to live on their own because they were ill as babys

Can You see me on the largest seal I have ever seen?


Here I am with a real seal


At the end alltogether we donated an amount for the station


What a nice and informative place

In the afternoon we vistited Meldorf, a very old town with an impressive dome, almost a cathedral.

The first we did was drinking koffee at the nice "Dome-Café" at the market, it was a very good advice by mcdaniels who knows the place very well, and, Meldorf is also the birthplace of Soeren, her funny elk.


See us plushies having coffee, strawberry-cake and a huge portion of curd with honey and crunchies

Then we saw some nice old houses there around the market



The dome was still open in the afternoon



So we went into the dome and saw the impressive interiour there





Light was a little bit difficult, Strunki apologizes for that

Before we went home we saw this nice blooming rosebush at a house

I loved it to take a bath in theese wonderful roses


That was a nice sunday here in the North

See You soon, give You lots of kisses and hugs, love You Mum
Yours
TobiHH

Hi Mum,

today we drove to the Eidersperrwerk, that is a huge protection building against storm tides and connects Dithmarschen in the south and Eiderstedt in the north


It was built between 1967 and 1973 and has its 40th anniversary this year

It is almost 250m long and about 15m high

There You can see the huge double portals to close or to open up and down

Here we are on the top, you can walk above and the cars drive under the way


There is a bridge that can be opened for ships


From the top You have a beautiful view on the river Eider



But we want to go on by car and so we drove the tunnel



That was exciting!