İyiki doğdun Kate

Most importantly today is daughter Kate's birthday and we managed a phone call as well as lots of WhatsApp messages amongst the family.

Kate living in the Irish Republic and close to the Northern Ireland border with a British passport, Irish husband and children is going through similar thoughts and dilemmas as I am. While all the tests and documents I need for German citizenship do cost a bit, it is a bargain in comparison to getting Irish citizenship.

Today a letter arrived from the German Department for Migration and Refugees, signed by a person with a double barrelled name, the second half being "Smith". I suspect he or she had pity on me and enclosed a certificate to show I had passed with 32 out of the 33 questions  I had taken in a test on 20th June.

The one wrong answer still annoys me. A score of 17/33 would have also resulted in a pass and certificate but the mistake was so unnecessary. One German friend who I persuaded to do the test on the online practice version, got 28/33 and I can ask any German at least one of the questions and they will get it wrong.

The final hurdle, a speech/language test has yet to be arranged and it's unlikely to be until December time, too late to vote in Germany's national elections. And still the UK Government doesn't allow many of us ex-Pats to vote in UK elections - even so called democratic states such as Turkey give their citizens abroad that right and here in Germany even set up polling stations! - Now there's a thought.......