La Beet

Ever since we got a fixed address, we’ve been busy checking schools on the Internet and phoning good schools in the area (and outside the area). We’ve based out search on the so-called Ofsted Reports and on word-of-mouth. A member of the family is a school teacher herself, which has helped an awful lot. But [...]

After not having had a home since September 2007 it felt a real luxury to invite some of the family over for Sunday lunch yesterday. As you non-English readers may or may not know, Sunday lunch is still an established thing over here. Not everybody does it and not every Sunday, but the butchers and [...]

or is it? I’ve always believed firmly in the so-called Easterlin paradox (although never really knowing what it was called). It’s an economic term named after the man who first wrote about it. (Some) statistics can be read in a way that indicates that, until you’ve reached a basic level of economic security, you get [...]

A phrase usually heard from school children, but something quite similar applies to most of us. This little post is just to appologise for my post including the Letter to America. Allthough still every bit as funny, it just turns out that John Cleese had nothing to do with it. Read here how it came [...]

Amidst our below mentioned circumstances, we went to the opera in our new local theatre in Woking. Most of the repertoire doesn’t really appeal to us that much, but I find La Traviata quite irresistible. The quintessence of opera, really! I was not quite sure what to expect from the Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Company [...]

Up early, all eager and happy. Arrive at new flat in excellent mood and lovely sunshine with son and helpful sister-in-law. Get call from movers that they can’t get through gate. Look like big questionmark – gate is very wide, removals lorries, delivery vans etc. drive in and out every day. Appears they‘ve used a [...]

now all that’s missing is the furniture, which should supposedly arrive Thursday or Friday this week (cross your fingers, would you?). We just can’t wait – having vivid dreams of sleeping in our own bed again with our own duvets etc. Oh, what luxury! Our flat (rented) is in a converted convent. On the pictures [...]