Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

I was out to dinner last night with a couple of BBFs. It was really great to eat someone else's food for a change. She had cooked a roast chicken with lovely roast potatoes, and we had profiteroles for dessert. (Plus we consumed a bottle of Tesco's finest Cava!) Of course I had to give my Student dinner before I went out - can't neglect my duties, and he polished off his minced beef and mash like lightning. When I was talking about him over our dinner, my old Advertising Friend (BBF's husband) reliably informed me that the Swiss/Germans were the really hard-line Nazis in the War. (He is just about old enough to remember the War, and grew up in the East End of London.) This puts an entirely new complexion on my Student's behaviour: maybe he feels he is dealing with an inferior race, and therefore doesn't see the need to communicate with me. I must be careful with the gas...

Our conversation last night ranged over Foreign Students I have known, Death and Religion! The last two being most the incendiary subjects. My BBF's dear Mum is so very ill, and may not live to see Christmas. It's extraordinary how serious, terminal illness and the prospect of death scares people away. BBF was saying that many of her Mum's friends, and even family members, have disappeared, presumably because they can't face the prospect of Death touching them - they think it's catching. This was exactly my experience when my Brain Tumour was diagnosed. Many of my closest friends, and family, just couldn't cope with it and simply vanished. It was incredibly hurtful, especially since all you really want is someone to sit there and hold your hand while you get through the worst bits. Luckily, I did get through and have lived to tell the tale. BBFs husband was quite fierce about both Death and Religion (something I can't see the point of). He is a late convert to Catholicism, and does wave the flag a bit. It's interesting, though, that he is obviously just as terrified of Death as anyone else. His Religion doesn't seem to be giving him much comfort there.

Over breakfast this morning, I was trying to explain to my Student that I was doing some Advertising work, but - again - his blank expression showed that he didn't understand. I showed him some ads in a magazine to enlighten him. It turns out that Advertising in German is "Werbung". This made me laugh - and I'm positive that I have never heard the word before. Not surprising, I guess, since I can't recall a single memorable Advertising Campaign from Germany - there's "Vorsprung durch Technik" of course, but that was used by an English Agency for obvious reasons: Germans are good at the "technik", but not so hot on the imagination...