Its Sad

When after a over a year the man who you and your little girl think an awful lot about turns around and says well I don't like you enough to stay with you - dumped and not very happy :(

Austria

Me and E on top of mountain!
Me and E Skiing!

S Skiing

E on cable car

E playing in the snow!

Better late than never - was checking to make sure that what I posted last night had actually come through this time and it has! Then I noticed that the Austrian Ski Blog I posted I forgot to redo as AOl kept playing up half way through publishing last time so here goes with some belated pics :)

Russia Pics

Ok ok just prove I was working he he. We did take 32 kids out there with us and we did perform 3 concerts which were great and hmm hmm interesting some of them!

I also went into the school pictured here to teach 3 lessons of English. It really puts this country to shame when the Russian kids all learn English and Russian which incidentally is the hardest language I have ever tried to learn! And they performed Romeo and Juliet for us in English.

Other things I did apart from visiting the places below was to go to a Rock Opera in Russian and had a tour around the Uni which put the musical on which was real interesting - such good facilities.

Obviously drank my fair share of Vodka - would have been rude not to!

The people are lovely when you know them but can come across and really standoffish if you don't. No one has a car of their own as they are so expensive and so your mode of transport is either bus, tram, train or underground - again impossible to find your way around unless you speak and read Russian so host kinda handy here! however the public transport is so efficient and so cheap - I think it worked out about £3.50 for the whole week! And as for the underground my god - if you think the underground in London is deep think again!

Other than that - the food is great and to live like a Russian it is really cheap however if you want western things it is very very expensive! Well worth a visit just for the history, art and architecture.

Its late at night when writing this so probably am not doing Russia justice so may write some more later.

All for now!

Fx

Russia Pics...

The Hermitage is a very insteresting place with loads of works of art however our guide was eager to point out the piece of art below which is both male and female!

Boy? You may need to enlarge pic to see!

Woman?

St Petersburg Centre at night

Peterhof

Canal at Peterhof (Frozen eeek!)
The Church of Spilt Blood, St Petersburg
The Catherine Palace (Summer Palace)

Russia Pics...

Another thing about Russia - it does not matter how old you are if you are staying with a host they will not let you do anything yourself - you are not allowed more than 15 feet away as we found out - bless her - but all I wanted was to wander he he!

Hmmmm the snow just came!

Me and my Russian host - It was bloody freezing!
View from my Host's apartment towards the end of the week!
I was lulled into a false sense of security weather wise when I first arrived hmmmm - this is the view from my Host's flat!

Russia Pics ......

When you go into anyones home in Russia you are immediately ordered to either wash your hands or take a shower! oh and god forbid if you don't wear slippers hmm hmm!

Home - The thing about Russia is that everyone lives the same - in flats - no houses at all! I was lucky and was staying with a lovely lady in a really nice apartment - small but nice and certainly makes you appreciate what you have here at home! I am never going to complain I don't have enough space again!

OMG

I put together a 12 ft trampoline all by myself today - followed by wine of course as a reward :)

F x

That time of year again....

When mummy becomes a murderer!!!!

I got the question today before mowing the lawn for the firt time this year - "Mummy what have the dasies done to upset you, why are you killing them!" - My guilty concious let E pick them all before I started!

OMG!!!! I'm going soft!

F x

From Russia With Love :)

Ok 35 hour stright and 2 hours sleep - needless to say the update will wait but thought I'd keep a promise of an update for once.... Oh and Russia was great and very interesting! Will post pics later xx

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz