Patrick took a field trip with colleagues from BG to NE Brazil. The area was much flatter than Rio and we saw many fields of sugar around Aracaju and Maceio. We went to a number of large cement quarries to look at carbonates. It was an interesting trip involving a 2hr flight and a 3hr bus ride between the two cities. Good to get some samples to work on!

Friday evening we went to the birthday of a new Dutch friend of Kate's and chatted with Dutch, French, Swedes and Brazilians - no prizes for guessing what language we had in common!! Patrick also did some DIY at the weekend - new varnished bar and cupboard doors - big improvement. Some new chairs arriving on Monday - fingers crossed. This place will start looking like home soon!

Kate now...well, the chairs have arrived but, true to form, they're not the ones we ordered. Right shape, wrong colour. The delivery man implied that we could keep these to be going on with and he'd go back to the shop and order the right ones. Somehow, I think we're likely to be stuck with the ones we've got. Another episode in the continuing saga of nothing ever working out quite right...
I've been on a cookery course today. One of the best things about it is that it was held in a really nice area of Rio called Santa Teresa. It's rather run-down but in a nice way and has a bohemian feel with winding cobbled streets and great views over Rio. There are already signs that it's moving upmarket as there are lots of nice old houses being done up and the odd trendy restaurant - as well as this cooking school of course.
It was a nice group of fellow european women I did the course with and we learnt how to make a number of Brazilian dishes. I think we all agreed that the Brazilians have things to learn in terms of healthy eating. They use lots of sugar, condensed milk, salt & frying and I can't believe I'm ever going
to be a huge fan of cassava which they seem to love. Meals often come with rice and potatoes and very rarely with a green vegetable.
I'm typing this listening to Late Junction on Radio 3. One of the pleasures of being four hours behind the UK is that we get a chance to hear great radio programmes that we'd normally be in bed for. And of course we remain eternally grateful that our Internet connection in this otherwise uninspiring flat enables us to tune in at all!