Halfway Sunday!

Today, unbelievably, marks our time in Russia as being halfway through already! So naturally this led us to wanting to celebrate, and so we have bought a few kinds of strange-looking beer, some odd flavoured crisps, some of the squishy meringue things, something called ‘Choco Pie’, which claims to be healthy, as it has vitamins and minerals in it, and some ice cream, despite the fact that it is now pretty cold over here. The other night both of our boilers broke down due to a power cut, and we were reduced to huddling in our duvets with thermal socks on, attempting to keep warm. We found out that it was minus three that night! And just to make things even worse that day, we couldn’t shower because there was no hot water. Luckily they have been fixed now, and we are toasty warm again! (So hot in fact, that we’ve had to turn off one of the radiators in our room….)

This week also marks the end of our ‘lessons’ with the kindergarten. They could not behave themselves, even though they knew that this was their ‘examined’ week, and Katya decided that this experiment must come to an end. She has instead given us classes with the first form, which is made up of Sonia and Dariona, who hopefully will be able to learn from us. With Nastiya and Danya in the same room with them, it was impossible to teach them. Danya was ill for a few days, and so Nastiya took to copying the example set by the two older children, and actually learnt a few words, but as soon as Danya returned, she began fighting with him at every possible moment once again. After Lois and I suffering many near heart attacks, we are very relieved that we won’t have to go through that again..!

Sadly Starsik, the really adorable dog who was the size of a small bear, had to be put down this week. It turns out he was Sasha’s dog, who came with her when she moved to the village, so it was especially sad for her. He was very docile, and even let one of the kittens cuddle up to him when it was raining a few weeks ago.

We are off to Moscow on Wednesday! Sergei is taking us, and will show us around, and take us to the good souvenir buying places, so that’s exciting!

Last night, Maxim and Vika invited us to play the Game of Thrones game again with them, which was really nice of them, and it was extra good because we sort of understand the rules now! And I earned some respect from Maxim for finishing in second place behind him (I still have no real clue how that happened…)
Galia has been driving us mad with her terrible kitchen hygiene. We’ve seen raw meat left out, things covered in flies, and cats walking through the open kitchen door and helping themselves. We’ve been trying to get her to put the things away after breakfast, but she claims she has no time, despite the fact that there are four hours between breakfast and lunch… I’m surprised we haven’t all got food poisoning yet…!

Now to enjoy my 6 weeks left in Russia!