And now to the last of my reports about my time in England. On my last day I visited Ilkley where my mother and her mother were born and later buried in the family grave. I wanted to spend some time alone seeing things I had seen many, many years ago and think back to some happy times. I even went to a very nice tea shop my mother always went to. In the evening, Nicholas picked me up and took me to his home and family.

Who is Nicholas? He is the second son of my second oldest friend! My oldest friend is Alan (married to Lynne) and Nicholas' father is called Ian and we met when I was 18 and started my first job. He was 16 then but we soon became good friends. He fell in love with a very intelligent and clever lady called Dianne. They later had three sons and Nicholas was always my favourite - I told his parents I would take him away and adopt him. He is funny, clever, intelligent, open, broadminded, tolerant - in fact all the qualities I like.

He met and married Julie and they had a daughter, Laura now 12, and a son, Matthew now 8, and we kept in touch. He speaks business German and French and they have been to Berlin a few times. Julie really likes Berlin and says she could live here. Laura likes German and is now learning French at school. I know the children are very technical so I gave them a problem to solve on my English mobile phone. Laura solved the problem in a few minutes in the restaurant where we started the evening.

I was interested in seeing how far they could solve problems and with another language, so when we returned to their home I gave Laura and Matthew my 'Baby' Ausus to play with. Laura had no problem because she can read German and just opened it and used it. Amazing how quickly children learn. When she was tired of that she gave it to her little brother and although he can't read German he just worked out how to use it from the symbols and logic of a computer system. Adults could never do that! Julie is also a teacher in a Kindergarten so she was interested how her children could use a German 'Baby' computer!

I had a super evening with them and so here are a few pics for you to enjoy .........


Nice photo of father and son and they look alike.

So, that was my last evening with a little family with a big mult-kulti interest and languages.

Next day, Frances and Geoff drove me over the mountains to the airport at Liverpool and I flew back to Berlin. They drove to Barry and Pam's house and had a nice rest of the day with them. And that is where I started my story = arriving at Barry and Pam's house.

I hope you have enjoyed meeting some of the people in my other life in England. There are others but meeting them must wait until 2009, when I can send another England report. I have enjoyed sharing the story and pictures with you.