The best thing about living in Berlin so long and getting better with my German again is I can really enjoy people. Quite often, Berliners are just sweethearts. Today I phoned the handmade brush and broom shop that stands not so far away, in a leafy street I covet and run by the man whose […]

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We came today to a small town in West Germany to stay with family, my out-laws, who are champion collectors. Outside the door stands the Christmas tree, an actual tree cut at the throat and still wrapped in its net bedding, because as mother-out-law promised, “We left it for you both to decorate the tree.” […]

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Christmas can be excruciating. All this talk of love and family throws heartache, loss and loneliness into relief. A woman I used to know killed herself this week, from sheer isolation it seems. In German it’s called self-murder. It happens sometimes that the people we love are not within reach, or they have died, or […]