Der Stollen 2024 Ist Da!!!

A placeholder photograph borrowed from Wikipedia until I can get my own photo up here in its place.

Guess what? Yes, I am enjoying the first two slices of this year's stollen with hot coffee right now, and it is delicious! As soon as the Grand Duchess sends me the photographs I took with her iPhone a few moments ago, I'll share a picture here. Of course, I misplaced my own phone after photographing the candles late yesterday evening. Argh!!!

Longtime visitors to the Grand Duchy might recall that the territory and its immediate neighbors were first conceived way back in early December 2005 once Saturday afternoon as the Grand Duchess baked a small stollen to share with her German students at the time during their final exams. My home office at the time was across the hallway in our old apartment, the much missed Purple Room, where I sat enjoying the aroma of baking as I tried to come up with a catchy name for a new semi-fictitious mid-18th century campaign.

And, as I have written here before, the Grand Duchy of Stollen hit me like a bolt from the blue! Like that, the Grand Duchy of Stollen was born! Somewhere east of the sun and west of the moon in the general vicinity of that nebulous region batted back and forth between Prussia, Austria, Poland-Lituania, the Grand Duchy of Courland, and Russia, Stollen finally disappeared from maps with the third partition of Poland in 1795 and has been largely forgotten given is relative insignificance.

But fear not! The Grand Duchy and its terminally befuddled ruler, Grand Duke Irwin-Amadeus II, a kind of Bertie Wooster in a powdered wig, live on here courtesy of the Grand Duchy of Stollen Blog,which will turn 19 years old in late August or September 2025.

-- Stokes

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Here's an RSM Painting Update

Here's a picture illustrating my (S-L-O-W) progress with the second company of Stollen's Leib (Grand Duchess Sonja's Own) Grenadiers. You can see I'm doing things a bit differently this time, altering the painting process to keep it interesting basically. This evening, I'll do the white gaiters and, if that goes reasonably quickly, and time allows, the red breeches. Still lots to do, but I like the way these fine fellows are shaping up along side the completed 1st company that's standing in formation just off camera, to the left here. Until tonight then!

Presenting the Anspach-Bayreuth Kuirassiere!!!

Here they are, with the rearmost nine figures still drying, three squadrons of the Anspach-Bayreuth Kuirassiere, now in the service of the Grand Duchy of Stollen. And now, it's onto that artillery!

Having a "No Day". . .

F or the almost 20 years that she lived in Mexico, one of my late mother's Irish friends frequently mentioned having a "No Day." A day with no social obligations, chores, tasks, or other work that interfered with whatever personal interests took one's fancy on the day in question. Since today -- a gray and chilly Saturday -- is Mom's birthday, the Grand Duchess is out with friends, and the Young Master is ensconced on the sofa in the TV room with a cold, yours truly is taking his own such No Day. I think Mom would approve of my decision to make the world go away, as the old Eddie Arnold song intoned, even if only for a little while. So, I will spend Saturday afternoon focused on that first squadron and small regimental staff of Eureka Saxon cuirassiers. These have stood waiting untouched over on the painting table for almost three weeks while we skied and otherwise gadded about with snowy, winter outdoor activities. I hope to share a painting update Sunday...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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