I think this dates from December some time. Apologies for the delay in typing it up. "Crack-Your-Arse", where we forgot that "plunge" is not generally understood in common parlance, at least not the way the Russians use it. Lucy fell down a manhole. It was Philly's fault really. They were playing with snow, Lucy was running away, and I was hiding at a safe distance. Having felt rather silly walking around manhole covers the whole time we'v...

Early November A trip to the gulag Sillies that we are, Rosie, Anna, Lucy and I agreed to spend last weekend in a gulag. It was actually an English language immersion course, but it was in a "holiday camp" which retained a strong Soviet influence. I would never have imagined that 30 Russians would be so delighted to spend a weekend in a mock-up of a labour camp, simply because there were 4 native English speakers in their midst. Ok I give in, we must be pretty ...

Russia didn't allow me on the internet for the best part of 2 months, but I have all the blog entries from that time span, so now I can enjoy a typing marathon, and they all go up at once... Roughly mid-October, I think. Siberia, where winter is a myth made up to keep annoying foreigners away Nickles (even after this long, his hostess still can't pronounce Nicholas or even Nick) has run away from hospital. Even after a week, they still produced no diagnosis (w...

Well Rosy & co are back in Kras after two absolutely awful journeys in 3rd class railways carriages, and having also found it very difficult to get enough to eat while they were staying at Lake Baikal. "The msot comic holiday from hell ever" It was between seasons, so a lot of places and trips they had hoped to visit were shut, and service in restaurants was surly and slow everywhere. It sounds as though Rosy did all the talking and did a grand jo...

Rosy has asked me, her mother, to bring her blog up to date as she has been unable to get onto the internet for weeks so we've been having long talks on Skype to mobile.Mostly she seems quite happy, though has been a bit homesick when there wasn't enough to keep her busy; she has mostly been very well. All the members of the group continue to look after one-another which is lovely and very reassuring. Communications and casinosI'm not quite sure what the problem...