The basis of our bilingual project was intergenerational living - ie how to tackle the 21st century problems of an ageing population, single parents, impoverished students, loneliness etc. Long before our arrival in Bad Kreuznach the indefatigable Frau Glanzmann had emailed the relevant people - twice. We decided to postpone our visit to the next week as this would fit better with our plans, so Frau Glanzmann telephoned and spoke to all concerned. Unsurprisingly, we turned up on the appointed day - and no-one was expecting us!! It would seem that Germany is not immune from the common British syndrome of the right hand not knowing what the left hand's doing - however, this presented no problem whatsoever: residents of the Mehrgenerationenhaus conferred together briefly, then one lady spontaneously invited all of us (12 Brits plus 2 teachers) to join her in the residents' communal kitchen and proceeded to give us the best introduction to the pros and cons of intergenerational living that we could ever have expected. We were allowed to ask some very probing questions, financial & architectural details were gone over in detail, and our new friend explained just why she really enjoyed living there. To top it all, she than allowed all of us to view her own beautiful flat, admiring the large SW-facing balcony. This very frank discussion gave us plenty of food for thought, allowing us to consider how and where such new forms of communal living might best succeed, and & what pitfalls should be avoided.. Today's photo shows us outside the colourful Mehrgenerationenhaus just after our visit.
One thing I haven't mentioned - Alex's weekend. He didn't get up to anything unduly wicked ( as far as I know) but had a great time; on the Saturday his Gastfamilie took him to Heidelberg where he visited the romantic castle. The next day he visited the ZDF television studios and later watched Mainz play Stuttgart - obviously Mainz won - a good preparation for our visit to Mainz, a city that everyone loves and where everyone would like to live.