Not sure how many UK papers featured pictures of Ipanema beach under a sea of umbrellas at the weekend (thanks Gwil!) but today's photo shows the same beach looking slightly less busy.. It certainly was crowded - and very hot - on both saturday and sunday & we retreated indoors after a few hours. It's also very noisy with a constant stream of vendors shouting their wares. One nice feature of staying so close to the beach is that Patrick can go down for a ...

A few days have passed & we've made some progress. We've been onto letting sites & viewed some properties. There was one we particularly liked that had stunning views but we don't know whether the formalities are going to hold us up. Patrick is due to visit BG tomorrow so will try to find out what happens next. We have also been trying to register with the police which took us on a wild goose chase ending up at the airport to be told that we needed to co...

This photo is of a flower that sprouted from a tree in today's rain. An interesting observation is that Brazilians don't appear to mind or to do/wear/own raincoats. The fact that we do makes us stick out more than ever. It's actually been ok as we know we're here to stay and it's enabled us to acclimatise and today we went and explored some alternative barrios we could live in. We walked miles through some rather rundown but previously grand neighbourhoods - if ...

Kate and I arrived after very easy flight from London (nearly messed up by an airbridge failure at Heathrow on arrival). BG had arranged for Carlos to meet us and at that time of night Ipanema is just a short car ride. Dull but warm day greeted me as I stepped out for a short run this morning. P

We had a very nice farewell party for friends, family and colleagues at Brazilian Sensations in Edinburgh.