I know of no lawful impediment...

I have just returned from a weekend in Frankfurt. What a great time!  Frankfurt is a decent enough city - it's no London (but then, no German city comes anywhere near to the size of London), but there are the usual things one would expect from a city: the cramped, rundown areas; the tree-lined avenues; the pedestrian zone with all the cheaper shops; the posh shops on the roads leading away from the old Opera; the business district with the skyscrapers, etc.; the underground (U-Bahn) stations; and this INCREDIBLE covered market...

Anyway, while Frankfurt is the most likely location of any job that I am to find (any ideas or offers?  Feel free to let me know), J lives in Bad Homburg.
Bad Homburg is, technically, a city in its own right, however, it is about a third of the size of Norwich (the nearest city to where I currently reside) and that is not a particularly large place. Despite its size and questionable claim to city status, Bad Homburg is a beautiful city. Located just a dozen or so kilometres north of Frankfurt, it has the most stunning parks and a breathtaking cemetery (I know that sounds weird, but it is an absolute "must see" if you go to Bad Homburg). Over the years that Frankfurt has been known as a centre of finance, the richest of those in that area of work have gone looking for homes in Bad Homburg. The city feels affluent.

I am rambling on. I was intending to tell you about developments re. getting married to a German. I phoned the German embassy, in London, the other day, because J informed me that the magistrate (or someone of equivalent role in Germany) needed a variety of documents from me when we officially register to marry (in August - that is when we register, by the way, not marry). There is the expected birth certificate and passport but there are also 2 other documents. The first is a "certificate of no impediment" - nothing particularly unusual about that except... I'll tell you in a bit. The second is a 'meldebescheinigung" which is, essentially, a registration card.

I phoned the embassy because I wasn't exactly sure what a meldebescheinigung was or how it might be acquired. A very friendly gentleman on the phone reassured me that this was not a problem - the UK doesn't have such a system. The closest we have to a 'register of citizens' is the electoral roll. The man at the embassy said that explaining that the UK does not have such a system should be enough for the 'magistrate' but that, if necessary, I should encourage him/her to contact the embassy in London for confirmation - he said it is something that they have to deal with from time to time.

So that stress out of the way, I started looking into the certificate of no impediment. Not a problem, you would think, since it is also a requirement in UK marriages (not that I would know, being a resolute bachelor, up until now). However, if you look up "certificate of no impediment" on google, this is the sort of thing that you find...

You will notice that this certificate is for 2 people; the 2 people to be married. Now I am not marrying in the UK, and my beautiful fiancée is not a resident in the UK. You would think that obtaining the certificate so that it pertains to me only would not be a big deal... apparently not. Anyway, I am (hopefully) going to get this sorted on Wednesday.  J is not in the UK again for another 9 days, so she will not be present to say who she is. Surely I can just get this filled out for me, can't I?  I will let you know how I get on.

And so it begins...

So maybe I was a little presumptuous in setting up this blog before I had actually asked J to marry me. Fortunately, at about 11pm on Friday 23rd June, 2017, she said "yes". And it was "yes", not "ja". I thought that, if I were to ask her to marry me in her mother tongue, I would probably mess it up. And so a precedent was set for our married life (maybe). English is definitely the way forward. I cannot help but feel that this will become a recurring theme in this blog.