Well here we are back in (not very sunny today) Rio after a 3 week trip back to Europe. Patrick had teaching to do at Heriot-Watt and then for Repsol in Madrid so our paths diverged at Heathrow. I went to Brighton, Dorset and London before joining Patrick briefly in Edinburgh and briefly in Madrid. It was a wonderful opportunity to catch up with friends and family who were as generous as usual in offering hospitality while we were back. It's reassuring how easy it is to slot back into our former lives and being away makes us value you all all the more - home will always be where the heart is.

I finally got to see the Smith's house in Brighton and made memorable trips to Charleston and Great Dixter with Pat - Brits rule OK so far as arts and crafts/gardens & Bohemia are concerned - and enjoyed walks, catch-ups and meals with family & friends in Worth, London and Edinburgh. I saw where Will is living in Crouch End, my elderly aunt in Hitchin and in Edinburgh we even managed to coincide with the Ewart's 60th birthday celebrations - where we caught up with old Roseburn friends - and to see Alexander James McCallum who was born to our 108 flatsitters while we were over. Our spare room makes a great nursery!

We even managed a trip out to the Borders on our 32nd wedding anniversary and had a walk by the Tweed followed by a great lunch at Ally's (after my visit to the dentist in Peebles....) and saw Milo McGrath after his first haircut before going on to visit other good friends in West Linton. The Borders will always be special to us.

Madrid's growing on me or maybe it's just that I appreciate Europe's sophistication more now that I've got something to compare it with. I love the cafes where you're served tapas & boacadillos at the bar by elderly gents who've been there forever.....
We stayed in a nice hotel (thank you Repsol!) by Atocha station so Patrick could get out to Mosteles each morning and flew back via Lisbon on TAP this time which made a pleasant change.

We've found Rio hot since we got back - mid 30's several days last week, with the prospect that this is only spring...
I had an interesting day learning more about the methodology used at the Uere-Mello school in an unpacified favela in the Zona Norte and plan to visit next week. I joined Jill & Tanya on wednesday for our english class at
Botafogo where we're waiting for some
input from the co-ordinator regarding certain issues we've got.

We expect some of you will be watching the Michael Palin series about Brazil on the BBC at the moment (it started the evening we left Europe..) and would welcome visitors who it inspires to come and see Brazil for themselves.

It's a bank holiday here today - the first of three in November.(Dream on, you bank-holiday-less Brits who don't get a break between August and Christmas...sorry Will!)

Over to Patrick now...who had a most productive week arriving back in Rio. The guilt of leaving classes of nice students "behind" in Edinburgh and Madrid soon passed when faced with the job at hand - which remains daunting. I followed Graca Forster who is Petrobras's CEO with a lecture to SPE students at UFRJ - drawn from all over Brazil. I was taken by her obvious warmth with the students - Petrobras is the most popular company to work for in Brazil where it is Massive! My own lecture was a more subdued affair - slotted in between lunchtime dancing and a Schlumberger short course!!

This was the week that BG handed a fully signed contract over to UFRJ having sorted out various issues with ANP - the government agency managing and authorizing the levy spend that is paying for my time here. So HWU and UFRJ can finally get paid. We also now have a project team - Ana, Bernardo and Rafael - working on our project (more on that in a later blog) so work has really begun. To cap it all, I finally got internet banking sorted out with HSBC. So this long weekend loose ends are being tidied up and we can catch breath. We went to the market yesterday and I got to cook fish (Linguado) for supper!

One weird thing happened this week - we were woken by the porteiro phoning to say our flat door had blown open! (How did they know?) We then noticed lights in the sky - weird clusters of lights falling and sparkling from a point source that moved across the sky. No-one could shed any light on the mystery - luckily we both saw it. Skyfall???

Also Felipe gave me a Liverpool shirt - the first one I have had since I was ca 13! Better do better against Newcastle!