Here in Berlin we are in the depths of autumn now with all its vibrant colour and drama; changing the trees opposite our apartment and across in the Berlin´s famous Grunewald from brilliant bright greens to vibrant reds, pale browns and dramatic golden yellows covering the ground with a shower of autumn leaves...and in the evening sun the paths glint as if covered by gold leaf.
On Friday we ventured out into the dark of Berlin´s Grunewald and after two hours of strolling around and deep discussions on internet strategy we came upon the state Autobahn and thus had to make our way to the forest restaurant...hunger was calling from tired feet and empty tummies. It was during those final few steps that we came across approximately 8 to 10 wild boar running through the undergrowth...they were making their escape; we had apparently startled them! 
The boys left on Saturday and we met up with a friend at one of Berlin´s famous Singaporean restaurants...the food was not as I remember while we were in Singapore but then neither was the weather. We ate and drank the delicately prepared dishes and were amazed at the preparation and presentation. The food was simply delicious.
The boys will certainly be irritated when I tell them that they missed the first weekends Christmas market. Potsdamer Platz was a beacon of exhilaration and enjoyment on that Friday, music spilling from the Alpine ski hut, the scent of apple and cinnamon, the famous sizzling Thuringian Bratwurst – all purely mouth watering. 
The centre piece of the Christmas market is 30 metre toboggan ride on rubber tyres on would you believe real snow.
Once you have taken one or two rides and your lower legs are soaked to the skin it’s time to warm off in the Après´ Ski lodge for a class or two of wonderfully warming Glühwein.
It is another world than that of 20 years ago. Germany then was not only divided by a wall but was divided by both a disfigured landscape and a nation separated by trepidation.
Now you have to watch the Michael Caine film, Funeral in Berlin, to get any kind of sense of how the city looked then...
...how the border troops of the DDR patrolled day and night around the 155km concrete barrier, watching, listening...waiting; with the command to shoot; Schießbefehl. In 1974, Erich Honecker, as Chairman of the GDR's National Defence Council, ordered: "Firearms are to be ruthlessly used in the event of attempts to break through the border, and the comrades who have successfully used their firearms are to be commended”.
The Berlin wall today gives viewers, tourists and residence no real concept of how it was only 20 years ago... 
...and certainly Potsdamer Platz and the Sony Centre bares very few scars of those times; then a grey bleak desolate corridor, intrusive watch towers, razor sharp barbed wire, machine guns, ferocious guard dogs and trigger happy border guards. No, Potsdamer Platz bears no resemblance at all to former times. 
At the age of 12 my mother and father took me to a see the East West German border close to the beautiful mountains of the Harz – then sliced in two by a dreadful tarnish on the landscape.
That memory of an old shattered stone bridge, its two sides like child´s building bricks; like hands reaching, painfully across to one another still haunts me. The ancient village, its windows bricked and boarded up, cut in half by the mine field; the concrete barrier walls standing around 3–4 metres high, electric fences, anti personal mines. The forest stretching far out to the north and south melting into the horizon, scarred with an almighty trench of fences, dog runs, mine fields, patrol roads...it was as though a huge giant had scraped his garden spade across the landscape turning the bright green and yellow valley into a grey brown slug that slowly crept through the beautiful rural countryside.
No birds sang that day, I just remember hearing the sharp crake of bolt as the border guard across the river loaded his weapon. I think he thought me and my 11 year old little sister were going to attempt to leap bridge and wade across the slowly flowing deep dark river to get across to his side of the border; never in a million years.
The border was not just a fence and wire with towers, but an almost 500 metre deep man-trap. Know locally as "The Death Strip"; then the most heavily fortified border in the world.
Yet this month / this week / this Day - here in Berlin, like many other cities across Germany, we are celebrating. It is a populous celebration; they are again a people; Wir sind das Volk, heralds the cry.
Curiously it is not just those who reside here in this great city who are celebrating; tourist and visitors from all over the world, Chinese, Americans, Italians, Spanish, Russians, the Brits, the French, the Japanese and Australians et al. They are all here. They are hungry and want to sample this - this feeling of freedom; to celebrate that delicious but delicate of flavours.
Freedom; too hot and it burns to cold and it freezes. It must be nourished or it is tasteless.
This is a month of global significance; the country likes its capital is slowly returning to become once again a global icon; a city standing proudly amongst its pears.
Angela Merkel, herself caged behind the East German iron curtain, walked through the Brandenburger Tor and across the Bornholmer Straß bridge to repeat the walk of twenty years ago, full of emotions, full of anticipation, like so many who had done the same and risked all on that day in 1989.
With her was ex Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev , Lech Walesa former Polish revolutionary and Prime Minister and along with many other international leaders they quietly chatted with those who were there 20 years ago and who had return to join the celebrations.
Surprisingly this was not one of those Olympic style events with huge bands, hundreds and thousands of Euros of fireworks, boring speeches and backdrops costing 10s of thousands. This was carried out with remarkable informality. Speaking easily and informally with eyewitness Ms Merkel made an unscheduled speech and in the rain the world was hushed as she said thank you to all those who had carried the flag of freedom that day.
A day when the whole world reached out to Germany to say thank you and to remind us of how delicate the fragrance of freedom is.
We prepared the locals, warned the neighbours, placed a few kegs of Germany´s finest on the balcony (its cooler now and it doubles as our second fridge...until the ice comes that is), alerted both the national and international media...had I forgotten anything I wondered? 
Along with many of our friends - the boys have been here many times before...
...and his guitar playing
...their comradeship
Mike arrived onto this planet weighing in at just under 2lBs 8oz. He spent a comfortable first evening afterwards spent the next 3 years in and out of hospital...his duodenum was not correctly attached to his pancreas...that was a liberating few years. 
Three major surgeries later and a full 17 years exposure to his world Mike is now one of thousands of young aspiring young adults gazing at the world at their feet...
They have the scope to change the world...how will they manage this dramatic of revolutions?
