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

Comments

Keepin' an Eye on the World Going By My Window . .

'The Nap at the Palace' by Jose Triado Mayol N ot much in the way of hobby-related activity happening here in the Grand Duchy lately. Sigh. And no surprise there really since there are only so many hours in the day, only so much mental and physical energy to spare, and you sometimes simply just have to give in and know when to say, um, "When!" A glass of wine and/or evening yoga by the hearth with the Grand Duchess (who has practiced for over 20 years), and then off into la-la land. Zzzzzzzzz. More immediately, I'm recovering, mentally speaking, from a grueling Friday in which I was involved with three (online) conference sessions, one right after the other, followed by a 90-minute meeting at the end of the day. Also virtual. My brain has been mush ever since, so an easy, completely unproductive Saturday watching intermittent snow fall outside (no accumulation however) and drinking coffee while the visiting handymen completed some repair work down h...

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!

And It's the End of September!!!

Saxony's Ploetz Cuirassiers, an illustration lifted from the Kronoskaf website, which has thus far guided my spectacularly glacial painting of 30 28mm Eureka Saxon cuirassiers purchased all the way back in October 2016. A gray, cool Saturday here in Mid-Michigan with rain in the forecast. The Grand Duchess is away at a conference, so it's just "The Boys" here at home. The Young Master (almost 15) has retreated to his room for something or other following breakfast while I have stolen back down here to Zum Stollenkeller (masquerading as my office) with a second mug of coffee and both cats comfortably ensconced nearby. Enjoying the late morning and still in my pajamas! Not much planned for today beyond designing a couple of promotional flyers for workshops my department is presenting (small parties we will throw?) in October and November. With maybe a bit of on the next podcast script. More important, I am toying with the idea of returning for an hour or...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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