Playing Lord of the Manor

You have no idea of the joy we had by, not only staying at the Manor (admittedly just an old converted barn) but also meeting the Laird himself. 

They say truth is always stranger than fiction ....and it's true; The owner was so open, warm, friendly and full of character, but that was just being himself.  He was quite happy to share his challenges with us, and would with you ,  if you were prepared to pay the exorbitant cost of his accommodation; not really!

We got what we paid for,  including a soft deep valley bed ( One that brings you together even though you were fighting late in the day over who was the worst driver or navigator in the world) complete with cloud nine doona covers (20 cm deep )  tennis courts, automatic entry doors and hire of the rackets. 

Such a kind man in so many ways, he inspired me powerfully in that fond hope I had coming here to Europe to PERHAPS to see ;

Lords put into a nicer light than they often are by our own house of new lords -the half baked Marxist media representing the downtrodden disadvantaged Aussie wingers.  (see later posts where it seems to be true of others through history) 

This Laird reminded me that my reticence about Lairds and the rich landowner was far too prejudiced.
Don't feel too jealous; our time ran out very quickly but we did see deer and pheasants on the property as we drove around.  

Lords don't all come out of a box and this old bachelor ( until recently; he now has a lovely wife and baby daughter) was part of Neuvo rich set that love to take residence and squat on the lovely old mansion estates. As he said "The Old money" can no longer afford to maintain their grand designs - let alone keep warm in them. 
I too now,  find myself amongst "The pretenders  

Not only did our host make us feel very welcome with wine and chocolates, but he offered to do our washing ( We had already been in the country a week)
We were both so surprised at this , that when he offered to sort colored's from non-colored's we thought
" save this God send of a man more work ", that we agreed " don't worry "and he didn't.

Chris then was really shocked when the huge pile came back looking decidedly dirty.( my white singlets were grey). 
We had forgotten that I had bought two new black shirts and trousers from Rivers that leached a whole lot of black into everything.
Chris was quite shocked that she now had black laced underwear, but I was quite pleased.


The early morning frost was wonderful to walk in with many birds busy twittering away, 

Can't tell you all about this clever inventor, but in me talking about the recent obscene death duty taxes to be put on farms here and in Australia, he mentioned that he had just paid over $100000 dollars is this years land tax.
To be fair, this humble but rich bloke owns a lot of land.
These really desperate political moves by ignorant leaders was a big talking point with many people over here,

Farmers always have to own a huge capital asset, What poorly educated dependants  who get fed by them  do not know is never in the history of time do family farms earn more than 4% on their capital ; If that often hard sought capital base is threatened,   so is the incentive to keep the farm; and so completely .Victoria and Australia  abandoned death duties soon after my farming father died and my mother had to pay the huge tax. The British PM is threatening at tax of 20% on the capital value of farms as is our Victorian Premier.
 




We are going to The Spreewald in Germany later next month to see whether the German Lord of the Manor was a terror to my serf ancestors ,  Modras spent at least 250 years with a Lord family who were in 1850s called Schoenfeldts.