"Do you like your work?"

When I visited my aunt in Berlin recently, this was a question she asked a few times: "Do you like your work?" ("Magst du deine Arbeit?") I thought it was strange that she asked it more than once. It was as though she couldn't believe that anyone could actually like what they do for a living. Her dream job was kindergarten teacher, but she decided to go for the security of being a 'Beamte', a civil servant. It's a position that is almost impossible to be fired from and you end up with a good pension.

Anyway, I reassured her that translation was something I had dreamed of doing since my first French lesson at the age of 11 and I realised that translation was a thing. I also like teaching English. 

"Is there anything else you would like to have done?" she asked.

Here's the list of jobs I have thought of doing since childhood onwards:

- farmer

- zoo keeper

- following in Gerald Durrell's footsteps

- bare-back rider in the circus (thanks to Enid Blyton's Galliano's Circus books)

- explorer

- jewel thief (after seeing Cary Grant play one - only the thought of women's prisons prevented me from starting a life of crime)

- cancer researcher

- pathologist (I watched a lot of Quincy)

- saviour of the world (I knew all the answers at the age of 14)

- detective (I like finding things out)

- teacher of German (I teach English instead)

- translator

- working for a publishing company

- working for the secret services (I like finding things out)

- gardener/landscaper

- restaurant owner/cook

- information broker (I like finding things out)

- nutritionist

- textile restorer (6 years at Cologne university!!)

- doing the props for films

- radio actor (the BBC used to have their own acting company for the radio)

- doing the make-up and special effects for films

- having my own radio show on BBC Radio 2

- children's author...

I think that's it.

The nearest I get to being a detective is tracking down the right word and spelling for the texts I translate. 

The nearest I get to writing is translating. 

The nearest I get to being a children's author is reading stories on the first Saturday of the month for the toddlers at the English Library. 

The nearest I get to being an explorer is leading walks for my walking group. 

The nearest I shall get to having my own radio show is the singalong that I hope to hold on the second Tuesday of every month. The first session will be at 7 p.m. on Tuesday 8 February. I'm scared but excited.

Wordle, the new daily word game

Thanks to my reading of some UK newspapers online, the new daily word game called Wordle has come to my intention. A German student of mine also told me about it.

Before I forget, there is the link to play it in English: https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/

and in German: https://wordle.at/.

Basically, you have to guess a five-letter word. I always use 'earth' to start in English and (thanks to an online tip) 'adieu' to start in German.

If you get a correct letter in the correct position, the letter is shown on a green background. If it's a correct letter but in the wrong place, it's on a yellow background. Today, I got both words in four guesses. Once, I guessed the correct English word in two guesses. So far, I've not lost a game. (Having said that, I shall probably lose both games tomorrow.)

Beware, however, that you can have two letters the same in one word and the game uses American spelling, so something like 'color' is possible.

Have fun!

B for Berlin

Here in Germany, you can tell where a car comes from - either the specific town or the general area - simply by reading the first letter or letter on the vehicle registration plate (or 'number plate' as the British would say).

D = Düsseldorf, E = Essen, F = Frankfurt, K = Cologne, MTK = Main-Taunus-Kreis (district), and ME = the town and district of Mettmann.

B, therefore, stands for big, beautiful, buoyant, breezy, bustling Berlin.

With 3.3 million people in Berlin, it's definitely big. However, it's not so big now that I know I can walk from my aunt's flat in the leafy south district of Steglitz to Bahnhof Zoo in one hour. Incredible. When you're on the underground - whose yellow carriages I love ...you hurtle through the tunnels and it seems that there are many kilometres between each station. 

Beautiful - oh, the lovely old apartment buildings. The German town where I live has some old Jugendstil buildings. Jugendstil is Art Nouveau/Art Deco. However, since 70% of this town was flattened in World War II, there aren't that many of them left over. Shame. But in Berlin....if you offered me an Altbauwohnung (a flat in one of these old buildings), I might be tempted. If only the surrounding countryside was as interesting as it is where I live.

Buoyant - the people here are definitely upbeat there. Very helpful. Very pleasant. 

Breezy - when my German aunts from Berlin visit North Wales, even in the summer, they complain about how windy it is and walk around with cotton wool sticking out of their ears. Well, it would be wind there, wouldn't it? It's right next to the sea. You should always expect breezes and strong winds when you live next to so much open water. Well, Berlin was just as bad. My lips dried out - and I often wore a face mask in the street just to protect my face.

Bustling - lots of people out and about. Even tourists. As someone pointed out to me, it's a global city, one of the best in the world. Thanks to the very wide streets, though, people were able to keep their distance - something that is so important in this pandemic.

Berlin is definitely worth a visit. 

My new monthly reading challenge

Last year, it was a case of 'a Dickens a month'. The year before that, "a Trollope a month".

This year, I have decided to read 12 books recommended by my students. I did ask the 6 students of my Thursday group to recommend 2 books each, but not all have done so.

One of them, however, kindly lent me 4 books when we met up for breakfast one morning shortly before Christmas.

I started the first one on New Year's Day - and finished it on the same evening. It was The Second Coming by John J. Niven. In it, God comes back from a brief holiday only to find utter chaos on earth, so he sends his son down to earth again. Not a book for those who faint at profanity. God, Jesus and the angels...their swearing would shock you. A good story, amusing, but the ending is highly predictable. As I like to think, if Jesus were alive today - he'd be crucified. People just don't like that kind of 'do-gooder'. 

The next day, I started (and finished) Ready, Player One by Ernest Cline. My student was afraid I'd not get all the references to the 1980s, especially all the video games, films, etc. It is set in 2045 and it's a pretty horrible world. The hero tries to find the answers to clues set by a man who created an entire virtual world that has a lot of users. The man has died and whoever can solve all the clues and find the Easter egg inherits his estate. It was pretty exciting. A page-turner. I enjoyed it.

The third book, which I finished on 8 January (after finishing one non-fiction book and listening to a few audiobooks while cross-stitching) was How to Stop Time by Matt Haig. Another unusual premise: that there are some people who stop ageing normally in their teens and then live for centuries. It was okay. A bit of a love story, a bit of a search for a long-lost relative, and a journey through time and various locations. I liked, for example, his time with William Shakespeare. I particularly like fiction that weaves famous historical characters into the story, such as the Oscar Wilde Mysteries, in which Oscar Wilde plays the role of the detective. The author is Gyles Brandreth.

Now, there is a huge difference between these three books and those of Dickens. One thing is that they are all science-fiction, all based on a 'what if' idea. But for me the main difference is that the modern books are very much plot-driven and the books from the 19th century are not only plot driven but character-driven, too. In fact, the characters drive the plot forward, whereas these modern books have plots that force the characters to go with them. It is as though the story is a stream and the characters have to 'go with the flow'.

And you can see the difference in that it took me a couple of weeks to get through a book by Dickens, whereas I could 'kill' these books in a day. I am a fast reader (you have to be if you study literature twice), but 19th century books don't allow you to read as fast as these modern-day books.

It'll be interesting to see what other student recommendations come my way. I'm currently reading the fourth recommendation from this student: A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby, the film of which I have already seen. As with How to Stop Time and Ready, Player One, the story is told by various people in the first person. And I'm a sucker for first-person narrative.

My year of reading Dickens

I don't make New Year's resolutions any more; instead, I give myself 'challenges'. 

In 2019 and 2020, one of my reading challenges was 'a Trollope a month'. Anthony Trollope was a major writer in the 19th century. 

2021 was the year for 'a Dickens a month'. Charles Dickens is much better known than Anthony Trollope. I was fortunate to find a useful website (https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/index.html) that allowed me to download out-of-copyright books to my (now sadly defunct) Kindle. Fortunate, because last year, the libraries were shut for a long time.

Anyway, these were the books I read. I had already read David Copperfield (in Class 7 of primary school - I had run out of all other books), Oliver Twist (because I had to help two Japanese girls at the local International School to understand it), Little Dorrit (after the 2009 BBC series) and The Pickwick Papers.

January            Nicholas Nickleby
February          Barnaby Rudge
March              The Old Curiosity Shop

April                The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit

May                 The Cricket on the Hearth (very short)

June                 Dombey and Son

July                  Bleak House

August             Hard Times

September        A Tale of Two Cities

October            Great Expectations
November        Our Mutual Friend

December        The Mystery of Edwin Drood (unfinished book)

What was my experience?

Well, the only book I failed to find anything to enjoy in was A Tale of Two Cities, despite it being one of the most filmed books by Charles Dickens. Not a character in it that I felt anything for. I was glad to finish it.

Nicholas Nickleby was a good, solid start to the year. An enjoyable book. I loved the minor character of Newman Noggs.

Barnaby Rudge was a book I knew nothing about. I enjoyed it and I came to appreciate how well Dickens can describe large crowds. Fantastic. You feel you are among the crowds. 

The Old Curiosity Shop was satisfying, but, oh, the perils of gambling!

Martin Chuzzlewit was good, too. I liked the scenes in America. You get a bit of the feel of life over there in that era.

The Cricket on the Hearth - schmaltzy and sentimental.

Dombey and Son was a book I was dreading. I had seen two episodes of a BBC dramatisation of this book and broke off after the second episode. Bo-ring! But, by heck, was this a good book. The problem with dramatisations - whether on TV or on the radio - is that you don't get the descriptions of the appearance and thoughts of the characters and sarcastic, critical comments of the author. 

Bleak House was another book I thought would be deadly dull, but how wrong I was. I knew that a long and involved legal case was at the heart of the story, but that storyline didn't take up so much of the narrative. What delighted me was the fact that many of the chapters were in the voice of a young woman.

Hard Times was fairly short and a bit heavy - no light scenes as in other books, which have comical characters for light relief. But at least the father sees sense in the end. As he did in Dombey and Son.

Great Expectations was a book I'd seen a filmed version of. It was okay. Personally, I think he was a bit of a drip over Estelle.

Our Mutual Friend reminded me somewhat of The Pickwick Papers in that it was chaotic, but fun.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood was Dickens' last novel. He died about halfway through writing it and I think a bit of revision would have helped.

So...what did I enjoy most? I think if I had to choose one only it would be Bleak House. A close runner-up: Dombey and Son.

Others, however, would include Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge,  and Our Mutual Friend.

I would not bother re-reading A Tale of Two Cities or The Cricket on the Hearth.

What I liked best about the books overall is that Dickens always has good characters in his books. Some people say he always had an 'angel' in his books, and, yes, it is true that there is usually one 'saint' in the form of a young woman. However, there also some good and upright older men, too.

In a world like ours, it is very comforting and satisfying to read about people who are not evil, spiteful and out for what they can get. 

What's more, besides enjoying his descriptions, I really enjoyed the humour of Dickens, which is evident in his descriptions of the characters and his sarcastic, throwaway remarks.

Yes, I enjoyed my year of reading Dickens.

My cheap night out at a student pub

I was a student back in the days when students were paid to study. That is to say, I got a grant. It wasn't that generous, so, on the rare occasions I did find myself in the pub with someone, I would always order a half pint of Guinness. I found the stuff tasted absolutely foul and in the three years of my degree, I never acquired a taste for it. But by heck it was good for eking out over an hour or two.

These days, I've still not acquired a taste for anything alcoholic. One glass of wine and I'm sliding under the table already. Given a choice between beer and wine, I'd nearly always go for coffee.

The peripatetic Christmas card

Having grown up in Britain, I tend to send a lot of Christmas cards. Never fewer than 50 every year.

Last year, I even wrote Christmas cards to six of my neighbours. This year, however, I decided to write one card wishing all my neighbours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and stick it up next to the letterboxes in our entrance hall. 

The day after putting it up, I came down to find it stuffed halfway in and out of my own letterbox. I put it back to the place on the wall I had originally put it on.

The day after that, I found it stuck on the window of the door leading to the street. I put it back to where I had decided to place it.

After Christmas Day, I went down and found it was no longer there at all. Someone had got rid of it entirely. I had wanted to leave it up until the New Year.

Now, tell me, what was so offensive about my Christmas card? It had no pictures on it, just 'Merry Christmas' in various languages, seeing as how we have three Russian speakers and an Albanian-speaking family in our building.

(By the way, 'peripatetic' means 'umherwandernd'.)

Someone was determined to put 2021 behind them

It's been years since I saw the New Year in at midnight on 31 December. I am normally so exhausted by the past year that I crawl into bed early, put the earplugs in and am out like a light within minutes. And this was the case this year, too.

Oh, I do hear when midnight rolls round, despite the earplugs, but I just shove them in more firmly and fall right back to sleep again.

Not this year though. This year, there weren't just a few minor explosions. Oh, no. Someone was very determined to put 2021 behind them and the noise went on and on and on. For at least eight minutes. I know, because I was awake all that time. 

The reason people make noise at the stroke of midnight on the last day of the old year is to frighten away any evil spirits so that the new year starts all clean and fresh and full of hope. 

Let us hope, then, that this person's plan of making so much noise for so long worked and that 2022 will be the year we can finally chase away the evil spirit of this pandemic once and for all.

Happy New Year!