der Herbst

Autumn means der Herbst in German. Note that the word is masculine. We then go to autumn season and discover that in German it is die Herbstsaison which is feminine. It has suddenly changed sex! Not really for the second word is saison and that is feminine. German is famous for sticking lots of words together to create horrors of 70 or more letters. I jest not!

The joys of learning German. I was reminded of this last Tuesday when I listened to a group of refugees trying to understand German. They smiled a lot and I smiled back and just told them not to question anything but just accept such things as they are. Life gets easier when we come to autumnal which means herbstlich in German. It is an adjective and much easier to learn :-)

I've had a 'getting back into routine' week. Very interesting and mixed. I had time for relaxing, reading and going to my local SPD Oldie Kaffee und Kuchen meeting. That was on Tuesday after my smiley session with the new German learners. This morning I helped Daniel try to sort out how to understand and construct conditional sentences in English. I told him not to worry if he made mistakes for most Brexiters, and USA speakers, can't get it right :-((

I spent hours this afternoon on websites claiming to help refugees. I also telephoned four and only got through to one of them! I now have an appointment next week to get advice about policy/politics regarding refugees from Afghanistan.  The latest reports were not good. I then picked up an e-mail from Holger with news of his family. He also said he liked the blog post about a 14th birthday and that he and Gabi are collecting clothes for the family. Nice.

Meanwhile, the seasons change and we are now clearly into autumn in Berlin. I took these pics in my garden. Clear signs of the advance into winter. Not my favourite seasons.