Heike and Barbara and two of the loudest in complaining that I closed my private web page in January 2008 and concentrated on this blog as the main medium of communication between friends and family. Okay, I have noted the complaints but shall decide at the end of this year if I close this and return to a private web page.

Both complained at the absence of information about birthdays on my blog - so here goes.

BIRTHDAYS AND THINGS IN SEPTEMBER 2008

Charlotte will be 17 on Saturday 6 September. She is Adrian and Tanja's first child and born in Kreuzberg, Berlin. She is also my godchild. She speaks German even though she and her brother have lived in London for a number of years.

On the same day, Nevand will be 4 years old. She is the daughter of Sven and Milka. I must see them more often. Sven was in one of my advanced classes and I remember him talking about Milka when they first met. A classic love story, and now they have Nevand.

On the 7th September I shall be posting eltabb ETMs (magazines) with Marg and David. I shall get a bottle of sekt and Gordon's Gin with Schweppes Tonic to revive them after the work. Should be fun!

Liebe Andrea will be 23 on Monday 8 September. She is Jan's little sister with a TALL boyfriend called Ken. She is a wonderful example of someone brimming with life and talent who only needs the chance to 'bloom' and show what talent she has. She also studies very hard but still manages to smile and enjoy life!

Saturday 13th September. I am going to a 'Grill Party' at Waldemar and Nina's summer 'Schloss' in Spandau. Waldemar was in my first Mugglesee Group the members of which have always kept in contact. I shall no doubt post a report and pics of this nice event to this blog.

15th September - 2004 - was the day of Birgit's funeral and a day I shall never forget. At 3.00pm on this day I have my first appointment with my Allergy Doctor to start the 4 months of injections and treatment for my allergies. This is year 2 of 3 that I have to have injections.

Sunday 21st September. I am meeting Ziya, Marianne and Franziska to go to the Eberswalde Heberwerke almost on the Polish border. I have been there before but it really is a technical wonder. It is a machine to transfer ships from low to high ground and so enable water transport. Of course, when it was built the areas to the east were part of Germany and so facilitated inland trade. Now it allows trade in coal from Poland to the power stations in Berlin.

Monday 22 September. My nephew Stephen Gooding will be 38. Wow, but how time flies. Have a great day with your lovely wife, Stephen.

Robert Gast will be 30 on Tuesday 23rd September. Have a nice birthday Robert and try to show your face to me and your aunts when we meet to celebrate you dear mothers life.

Sylvana will be 48 on Thursday 25th September. Have a great day with Mathias and tell us all how you manage to keep fit and still look like you are 31!

Saturday and Lew has his birthday. In case you don't know he is Stephen's father and there is something of a secret about his real age. He recently took early retirement so I am guessing he is either 61 or 62!

Monday 29th September. My nephew Jefferson will be celebrating his 35th birthday with his wife and daughter and having a nice family time.

The month ends on the 3oth --- and it would have been dear Birgit's birthday. It is also the day on which my father died aged 92 in 2004.

Interesting things in September. If you have comments or news about September then add them to this post - it is open so you can add what you want!

Leaving Birgit's grave and our coffee and cake break, we went on the S-Bahn and ended up at the huge exhibition centre to visit the IFA. This is the world's largest exhibition of consumer electronics. Heike works in the wonderful world of computers and all things electronically associated including printers and cameras - her pet interests!

I had never been to an IFA before so I found it like Pandora's Box = a treasure in each hall. I can imagine spending three days there just to see all the halls and presentation. I saw the new LG netbook which comes onto the market at the end of the month. I had seen this in a 'techie' review a few days before and wanted to see it. Heike was particularly interested in cameras and mobile phones and what they could now do as well as different functions offered by printers.

I use an old but good HP laser printer in black and white with a smaller back up in the cellar in case of problems, but I was most impressed with the much smaller multi-function machines offering colour and all kinds of things. Perhaps I should update my printer sometime, but at the moment it does everything I want of it.

It was nice to spend the day with Heike and Burkhard and more than once I thought that Birgit would have enjoyed the time with us - even though she was not a 'techie' person! But then she had a good computer system and used computers and the internet in her teaching, so perhaps she would have been the biggest 'techie' of all had she been with us. Pity she wasn't!

Saturday 30th August 2008. I went to S-Bahn Friedrichsfelde Ost and met Heike (Birgit's sister) and Burkhard. Birgit Fedor was on the Ostsee (Baltic Sea) and couldn't join us. Marita has long ago disappeared into post-cancer operation isolation and has no contact with any of us. We fear the reason is to continue into the spiral of smoking and the bottle alone!

It is four years since Birgit's early death, which is still a shock to most of us, and we wanted to meet to share some time at her grave and just talk about what a wonderful women she was.

We left flowers and had a little discussion about the words on the grave. Heike said it was her father's request that these words appeared on his/her/family grave. I commented that the writer was an athiest and so we had a short discussion about that.

Later we had coffee and cake before moving onto the IFA. There are a few pics of our meeting to celebrate the life of Birgit Gast - and to still wonder at the gap she has left in our lives.

After leaving the 'Oldie Bash', I cycled along the river Spree in a southerly direction and finally arrived at 'The Clipper' which is a boat on the river and is famous for its smoked fish dishes.

The reason was the August Stammtisch of the English Language Teachers' Association Berlin, Brandenburg (eltabb). It is not too far from my place and in fact I was there with Hans a few weeks earlier. It is a place to relax and eat when it is summer, so we had the monthly meeting there before the snow sets in!

Fifteen members gathered to chat, exchange teaching tips, gossip and generally relax. I enjoyed being in an English speaking environment again and listening to all kinds of teaching tips and experences. A very nice evening.

The close up pics are of David who is also an opera singer when not teaching and of Sue, who I have known since we met when the British Council opened many years ago in Treptower Park. Also in close up is Marg who looks rather sad. She helps me to post the associations magazines each quarter - but then she smiles! The next posting is in exactly one week. See you then Marg.

I had an interesting afternoon on Friday 29th August.

Ziya is a member of a Multi-Cultural Centre in Kreuzberg. He invited me to their late summer 'Oldie Bash'. It started with grilling all kinds of meats and sausages, and then led to lots of dancing. There was a group of musicians from Greece and after the food, they hit the music and the 'oldies' hit the dance floor. You can see something of the atmosphere from the pics.

I was surprised by the number of 'oldie' women who smoked - not in the building, of course, but in the entrance. It was also the grill area. Apart from me, there were 84 'oldies' present, which was 40 less than the last Christmas 'bash'.

While there, I enrolled on a'Learn Photoshop' course, which starts next Thursday at 3.30pm. At least you will know where I am at that time until Christmas. I use 'Paint Shop Pro' on my Asus with Windows XP but have 'Photoshop Elements for Mac' on my iMac, which is a new programme, so it will be good for me to learn something about this programme.

All the pics you have seen so far have gone through my PaintShopPro programme, but soon you will get them from my Photoshop Elements programme. It is just a matter of which programme you are used to using.

And so what is there to do the rest of this week?
Tomorrow afternoon I am going to a 'Multi-Kulti' Centre in Kreuzberg. Ziya is a member and invited me to their 'grill party' in the afternoon. Perhaps Annemarie and Franziska will be there. I think I went to this event last year - they even had 'gypsy' singers and dancers if I remember right!

In the evening I am going to the eltabb 'stammtisch'. It is a monthly meeting of teachers and tomorrow it is being held on a restaurant-ship moored on the banks of the River Spree in Treptower Park. Should be interesting to meet other members and find out what they have been doing over summer.

On Saturday, I am meeting Heike and taking flowers to Birgit's grave. Heike wants to eat in the little Bömisch restaurant near my place and after we are going to the IFA in Berlin. It is an international exhibition of all things to do with electrical consumer things - including computers. Heike works in the 'computer area' so she is interested and I have never been before so am interested in a new experience.

On Sunday I have no plans so perhaps I shall settle down to read some of the books I brought back from my recent visit to the UK. If the weather is good then I shall leave the books and cycle somewhere. Perhaps one of the 'oldies' will call me and so come along. Have a nice weekend wherever you are and whatever you do.

It is Thursday 28th August 2008. It is Jan's 25th birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAN!

It is now 5.oo pm in Berlin so I calculate it is 9.00 am in New York. He will have landed late last night and either still be sleeping at Norman's flat with the others, or be groping his way into the kitchen and fridge to see what is for breakfast. Try a burger and beer Jan - it's your birthday and great for wind!

Talking of which. On his recent visit he had to use my toilet and opening the window and using fresh air spray didn't help much - as you can see from the photo. Even the mice came out of the room waving a white flag!! Happy Birthday in New York, Stinker!

Wednesday 27 August. Jan left Berlin for Dusseldorf and then to New York. It was also the 4th anniversary of Birgit Gast's death. Still sadly missed. I am meeting her sister, Heike, on Saturday to put some flowers on her grave.

This was also the day I met dear Nicole to celebrate her birthday. We used to work in the same language department - she teaches French. She and Stipo are now back in Berlin after spending some time in her 'Heimat' of France, where they stayed with Peter and Hannelore at their house in Claviers, a village of 600 souls in the south of France.

We arranged to meet at Savigny Platz, which is one of Nicole's favourite areas for restaurants and shops selling interesting and often unusual, but expensive, things. We found a good restaurant near the S-Bahn offering a set meal a la French style - which got the thumbs up from Nicole! Very good and could happily go there again. Pity there is nothing like it where I live!

We caught up on all the gossip and she told me I really should go to visit Peter and Hannelore. The problem is transport. I could get an easyJet flight to Nice but that is 100klms from their house and there is no bus service in the village. Mmmmh ... first I'll call them and find out if they will be at home in October then I'll sort out the transport problem.

We agreed to meet more often given P and H have moved to France and we ususally met through them. A happy time and you can see that in her smile.

After the day exploring Einstein's summers in Caputh, I met Max in Karlshorst. He has just graduated from his college where he studied computer based design and drawing. He is now working for a design company on a three month introductory contract. I am sure it will be okay and he will get a regular job with them - he got the second highest marks in the class. Well done, Max!

We met many years ago on a library project and I supported him in applying to study. A good move which also included meeting Jana. They live happily together near to where Micha lives. Max also takes care of my business web page and my business cards so I asked to meet him to discuss some issues relating to that - and also treat him to a meal to celebrate his success. He is a big pasta fan - as you can see!

Day in Caputh, Tuesday 26 August.

Caputh is a small town on the south side of two adjoining lakes 6 klm south of Potsdam. It is mainly famous for being selected by Albert Einstein to have a summer house built there. It is also famous for it's architectural style, being made of wood and sits on a wooded hill side overlooking the town and the lakes (Templiner See and Schwielow See). He had a boat there. It was given to him by colleagues to celebrate his 50th birthday. Now those are the kind of colleagues to have! He only spent the three summers from 1930 to 1932 there. He was in the USA in 1933 when the NS came to power and he decided not to return to Germany.

The town also has 'Schloss Caputh' in the centre, in a park facing the south of Templiner See. The rulers of Brandenburg used to live there in summer. It has been renovated but sadly a lot of the furnishings are missing. A pleasant place to visit and relax on a sunny summer day.

I went with Oldie Hermann and three nice ladies from the Bauhaus museum where he works. I met two of the women when we went on a trip to Leipzig earlier this year. We plan to have more Ausflüge before winter arrives.

And so it cameth to patheth that Jan arriveth for his lasteth visiteth of 2008.

Monday 25 August and our hero arrived punklich at 15.00 Uhr as agreed. He was under a lot of stress to help out at home. finalise arrangements for his study year in the USA and see friends to say goodbye. It was, as always, really nice to see him walk through the door. We caught up on lots of news, plans and hopes for the next year.

He wanted to do a lot of work on the
internet, so I had set up my Asus on the balcony table next to my workdesk with the iMac. He quickly settled down to running both computers at once and I left him to it. Just a few pics to show him at work in the most popular corner of my living room.

As you can see, with regular calls both out - and in, from friends to wish him good luck. He was able to finalise everything and so a more relaxed Jan left to drive into town to meet a group of friends, and I galloped off to relax in the musical company of Angelika.

It was better for me in that I didn't sit at home alone and worry about his flight and think how long it would be before we met in person. At least we can meet over Skype which we both used when he was in Grenoble and in BS. A nice afternoon leaving nice memories - and I even had the chance to speak to Arancha!

Monday 25 August. My day started with Hans. He was not ready when I arrived but had smoked 9 cigarettes in 80 minutes - work that one out and you will know why he usually gets through 4 packets a day! Very slow and I had to push him into showering and cleaning up his room. He also didn't want to go on an outing - just to a local restaurant. At least he liked that.

In the evening, I went to a village near to Lake Mugglesee (Berlin's largest lake) to celebrate Angelika's birthday. She is an ex-student and she plays viola in the Komische Oper orchestra. As usual, an entertaining mix of family and musical friends. Very tasty homemade food and I was one of the last to leave.

It ended a very interesting day for me, which included a visit from Jan in the afternoon.




Next year I shall bring a pork pie, as promised, Angelika. Thanks for a great evening!

And so to a relaxing day in Warnemunde with Ziya, Annemarie and Franziska. Ziya drove us there in Annemarie's car. The weather was not the best but it stayed fine until late afternoon when we all got wet through in a sudden downpour.

I liked the centre with the long garden and the tour we took around the harbour. There were two huge new cruise ships in the harbour taking on passengers for a cruise. The really looked like floating blocks of flats.

We had fresh fish in a local restaurant and the mandatory coffee and cakes later in the day. A relaxing day out and we plan to have another one soon - but I have no idea where.