Spring is in the air or We are paddling

We had a major network failure over the weekend and it took until Monday to be sorted out.

Following our rather soggy walk on Tuesday we decided to take the tram for a ride to new pastures. The longest took us from Belaruskaya to Ulitsa Podbelskogo on the red line. First the tram had moved from where we were expecting it to be due to building works. It took a bit of a walk but we found it in the end and set off (having looked at Belaruskaya station and found the airport express for Sheremetyava airport for when Philippa comes). It took rather a long time as we twice had to wait for traffic incidents to be sorted out. At one point there were 10 trams trapped in a queue. We saw all sorts of places to back to explore in the summer. We finished at a large terminus near the outer ring road with a market. We slipped and slid our way around before catching the metro home. We tried to catch the local tram from Sokol but roadworks have moved it so we gave up and caught the metro one more stop.

The circus on Friday was super. Sadly no photographs of the performance but I took some in the auditorium during the interval. This is the Nikulin circus which is older than the Moscow State circus so the space is quite small. The tumblers took up the whole diameter plus the entrance and exit. I loved the aeriel acts but was not sure about the animals. The dogs, seal lions and rabbits seemed happy enough, but not the tigers. It is part of Moscow life and I am happy I went.

We had spend Saturday morning at home for the plumbers to fix a new shower tray ( a long story not worth telling) so I went for a walk over the railway bridge to do some shopping. I finally found a post office just down the road and much nearer than Voykovskaya. Most useful.

On Sunday I went to church and then met Peter at the next stop up on our Metro. He walked through the park. We found another indoor market area which was interesting. Suddenly we heard an voice asking us if we were English. It is an area where there are not many English and the man is a chef in Moscow and was surprised to hear English voices. We trudged home through the park.

Moscow is not at it's best at the moment. The thaw has started so there are huge puddles, mountains for filthy snow, areas of black ice and lovely clear pavements. Snow keeps being threatened but I just want it all to go.

Back to school on Monday. Today we took the children to the cosmanauts museum. The children thoughly enjoyed it, talking to the guides and translating for Peter and me. They explained we are an English school. They were great.

So I am up to date once more.