Learning English can be so much fun, but those pesky little prepositions are often very tricky. They may be small and seem like no big deal to look at, but they can get on your nerves, get you into trouble and can mean the difference between: going with your friend for lunch or having your friend for lunch! Yuck!

At company meetings and conferences you often meet new people. When these people introduce themselves to you, you have to concentrate on their names and try to remember them. At least, this is how it should work. In reality it’s quite a challenge for many people to link all those new faces and their accompanying names together.

Today I spent ages preparing a pie chart for college. And when I say “ages” I mean  ages. I followed the text book, but at times it said ‘Ask Excel Help’ – if I tell you that the instructions take up pages 139-181 you will have some idea of how complicated this can be. It was boring and frustrating, and it wasn’t helped by the fact that my husband is trying to put on a new door for our wet room right next door.  Lunch tasted all the better when both jobs were done.

There is an old fairy story, from France I think, about a princess who kisses a frog and he turns out to be a handsome prince. Out of this has developed the adage, 'You have to kiss a lot of frogs, before you find your prince'. In other words you will get what you want if you persist, but getting there might not be that pleasant.

No one could call me a clock watcher, but I seem to be surrounded by clocks, they are everywhere: one on the computer screen, another on the microwave, and the stove, as well as a wall clock, and one which is very decorative, but which is only correct twice a day as it stopped working long ago. All this in only one room. Even our new washing machine has a clock so that you can set it ahead in order to make use of cheaper night time electricity.

When it comes to the last croissant we would probably share, or at least offer to do so, but there are other things that it is harder to share – a favourite sweet perhaps, the last square of chocolate.

I remember years ago in college there was only one slice of ham on the plate and eight people. All but one had had enough, but one person was still to take her second slice. She was Swiss and newly engaged, and as she reached out I couldn’t help teasing her ‘They say in England that if you take the last piece of food from the table you will never marry.’ She hesitated just for a moment and then declared ‘Oh, such nonsense.’ before taking the first bite-full.