
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
If ever you want to loose the rest of your family when out somewhere, then plodding around very slowly behind them on crutches is a very successful way to do it.
Himself and the kids are generally done and dusted with seeing all that there is to see long before I am a fraction of the way around a place or exhibition and our visit to Burg Satvey Castle in Mechernich, Germany, was no exception.
I did not have a mobile phone with me since at the time I did not own one then (shock horror! in this day and age I know) but I knew where the car was so made my way there to wait for the rest of the family to turn up.
There was a wide, low wall in the shade by the car opposite ours, and since my walking comes at the price of pain, I quickly decide that sitting with my leg and foot up would be a wise idea.
I took more pain relief and sat waiting, and waiting, and waiting. About half an hour later I was wondering where on earth they were, and debating going back into the castle grounds to look for them, a thought that I was not encouraging at all. Fortunately, whilst I was sitting thinking of ways to contact them, they turned up behind me, not via the main entrance to the parking area but via a small path at the end of it.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)
Apparently they had been waiting for me for some forty minutes and the kids, growing restless with waiting, had naturally looked for something to do.
They had been creative with a metal grate used to keep the steps in a non-slip state in wet weather. Little patches of moss had grown in the squares of the grate and the kids has removed some of these in order to generate some artistic creations.
I was dragged up the path to see their endeavours and admire their artworks.
Himself explained that Kiwi Daughter and Little Mr had begun to have multiple “brother and sister moments” in the latter half of the day, so he separated them on the steps, Little Mr and Guest completing one set of faces together and Kiwi Daughter doing her own thing on the opposite side.
Whatever their mood had been with one another, harmony had apparently been restored with separation because three little green smiley faces beamed out at me from the steps.
Whilst I’d been waiting earlier I had already been taking photographs of the Tudor style buildings nearby, so I added the buildings up this path and then, as usual, was last to make it back to the car.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)
The low, wide wall in the next photograph was my welcome waiting point. Little did I know that the rest of the family and our guest were just a few metres away up the path behind me…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)
Some photographs insist on turning themselves around, no matter how many times I turn them back…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)
Burg Satzvey Castle / Mechernich / Germany