I confess - I've 'borrowed' the following text from the BBC - but it's worth posting because, as the saying goes, 'I was there!' (underneath it all). The statistics alone are incredible. Thousands of snow-clearing machines have been working to dig the Russian capital Moscow out of a record-breaking fall of 63cm (nearly 25 inches). After a weekend of heavy snow showers, the regional weather centre announced that the previous record of 62cm, set in 1966, had b...

I confess - I've 'borrowed' the following text from the BBC - but it's worth posting because, as the saying goes, 'I was there!' (underneath it all). The statistics alone are incredible. Thousands of snow-clearing machines have been working to dig the Russian capital Moscow out of a record-breaking fall of 63cm (nearly 25 inches). After a weekend of heavy snow showers, the regional weather centre announced that the previous record of 62cm, set in 1966, had b...

Despite a resolution to update my blog every week, I have broken that in spectacular fashion. As I lay this morning, knowing that I would (finally) have some time to write before going to church, I reflected on the phenomenon that is 'Moscow Time'. This is nothing to do with being GMT +3 but simply that it does take longer to get everything done here. Time gets nibbled away so that by the end of a day, you wonder where it has gone. For example: in the winter,...

It's been two weeks since I sat down to add anything to my blog. I really don't know where the time has gone. What I do know is that it is still b****y freezing out there - 'brass monkeys' as we say in Yorkshire - and there are plenty of their balls rolling around. When we bought our car last year, one of the main reasons that had always put me off driving in Moscow was driving around in the cold, snow and ice. I needn't have worried. Our little Peugeot - to...

One of the many books that we have about living and working in Russia says that a person should have a Plan A, a Plan B, and a contingency plan in case Plan A and Plan B don't work. I can personally vouch for this being the case, as it has happened to me many times, and it was very much true when trying to get my parents and sister out of the country. It is difficult enough trying to get into Russia, but I've never known it be so difficult to get out. Typing s...