5 brooches #36- Pins

This week's 5 Brooches all comes in one photo. It is quite popular to wear a selection of enamel pin-badges on ones' denim jacket so I decided to jazz up my £1 charity-shop denim shirt I've been throwing on as a cover-up since May.

All of these haven't featured on 5brooches so you might not have seen them.

The tooth is so cute and came from Topshop in the sale, as did the Rose.

The little squirrel was my souvenir from Triberg in Germany. Gretchen Joanna said that I might find a brooch in Germany and she was right. CBC and I always buy a red squirrel souvenir if we see a red squirrel.

The Drink Me bottle came in Punky Pin's new venture, Happy Flair's inaugural subscription box- I haven't had any more than the first box but I was pretty pleased with this sweet pin.

Lastly, I bought the duck from the RSPB Rainham marshes shop- it is one of those charity pins.

It's quite fun to wear a whole selection together.

Which one do you like best? Do you know any pins?

xx

Le Grand French and German camping trip- The Rollercoaster and Freiberg

On the day we left Lake Titisee after staying up a wonderful campsite with great facilities, a drying room for all our sopping belongings and wonderful showers.  We headed to a Rollercoaster which CBC had heard about where you basically control your own car and go down a hill/mountain yourself.

We drove to Todtnau to the Hasenhorn Coaster.
You pay 13 Euros for a ride up in the Ski Chairlift and then to drive yourself down the hill on the Rollercoaster.

I confess here, that I was not really in the mood for it. I don't like heights and I wasn't sure I wanted to be going on this so I decided to wait at the bottom and take photos.

CBC and WKWTTG set off in their chair lift

And waved me goodbye!

They phoned me when they reached the top to tell me I should come up as the views were really beautiful but I decided that it was too late and I would just wait so here are their views from the top.

The view

It does look idyllic up there

Ski-lift view

I wonder what this is like in the Skiing season?

It would have been nice to have walked down.

Nearer the town.

As I waited, I had to crane my eyes to see if CBC and WKWTTG were coming down?

Finally, I recognised WKWTTG who waved obligingly to confirm identity!

 CBC was rather more focused on his driving.

 As they stepped out of their cars, they were euphoric and longed to do it again.

 I was delighted to see a red squirrel bounding across the path.

 We then left to drive to France for the next part of our holiday to the Vosges region.

As we drove,we stopped to look at this gorgeous, verdant view.

 We planned to stop in the town of Freiburg for lunch on our way. This is a big University town which had many bikes around.
We found a tasty Mexican restaurant which had a 8,90 euro deal on Burritos.

 We had a quick look around the town and it looked very pleasant.

It seemed to have a very efficient tram system.

And some interesting graffiti on hoardings.

 There were some very pretty buildings.

Photo by WKWTTG

 I was struck by these two shops being next to each other. How very appropriate!

As we drove down the Autobahn towards France, we were mesmerised by this very shiny and reflective petrol tanker which transfixed us with its views of the motorway flying behind it!

 We reached our ecological campsite in Vangey in the Vosges region in France where we discovered we were the only campers and set up our tent, made a trip to the Super U supermarket and then cooked an epic pasta dinner on the trangea. (They made it, not me!)

 Chopping lots of wonderful vegetables!

 Cooking asparagus..

 And finally, a very tasty dinner was served!

 Very fluffy hair after some rain!

 Bon appetit!

More about the delightful campsite itself tomorrow and my first day of 30 days Wild

Have you ever visited any of these places?

xx

The House of 1000 Cuckoo clocks

For some bizarre reason, when I think of Cuckoo Clocks, for some reason, I didn't make the connection to Germany being the origin of them. Not sure why, but there you are.

When we visited Triberg in the Black Forest region, we saw that one of the starring attractions was the World's largest Cuckoo Clocks.

As we walked down the main road in Triburg, our eyes were drawn to the myriad wooden products available in the shops.  And then we saw the House of 1000 Clocks.  Not being able to resist, we went in.

Cuckoo clocks and clocks there were, a plenty. And a whole load of other tourist tat.
But I was amazed by what a roaring trade there was in Cuckoo clocks. The shop was teaming with tourists from Stateside and they were shipping back Cuckoo clocks galore! I don't know why I was so surprised.

Anyway, I shall leave you with the traditional, the more wacky, the contemporary and the downright scary examples of pictures that CBC took. My camera battery had died and my spare was in a suitcase somewhere..,
Enjoy...

Yuck, is the word that comes to mind...

We really were tempted to buy this...

Button Moon style..

Alpenhorn and Dirdnl-wearing dancing girl for anyone?

Hansel and Gretel plus the witch..

 We had been speculating about how the cuckoo clocks made their sound. I suggested that it was like a pipe-organ and this little interactive workshop at the back suggested I was right.

 The clockwork mechanism turns a cog which has a long part attached bellows which push air into the pipe.  This produces the sound.

 Oh look- trout again!

 Check out the scary-faced Pan-pipe player...

So...if you were in this shop, would you have bought one?  Which one if so??

We didn't make it to the World's Largest Cuckoo clock as it was a bit out of town and we forgot but I am sure you can google it..

xx