Welcome back

I have just had a lovely week in the UK, though it was odd not having Peter there. However, I did see lots of friends and seemed to do huge amounts of washing. Bought some really good boots from Next and had a really attractive leather thong put on my new necklace. Will try and  photograph at the weekend.

The flight home was a bit scary as it was really windy taking off and then as we came into land the pilot aborted and we went around again because of the wind. He earned himself a round of applause when we got down safely.

Yesterday Peter and I decided to make the most of the sunshine and head down to the Novodevichy Monastery and cemetery. The monastery was build to celebrate a famous victory at Smolensk in 1600 and something and was used for imprisoning interfering mothers by the Tsar. Here are some of the impressive buildings.



Entrance gate and chapel





The Smolensk cathedral with bell tower behind

Assumption church

Another gate and chapel

The cemetery next door is very interesting as all the great and the good for the last 100 years are buried there. The monuments are amazing. We looked for a few famous tombs but plan to go back as it was getting chilly by the end. Here are the ones we found or liked.

This is Raisa Gorbechov's grave. It is huge.

Tupalov was a famous aircraft designer

A cosmonaut but I don't know which one, but it was rather impressive.

Lots more to see but it was all looking a bit tired so I'll go again in the spring when it should look better. Still an interesting place to visit for our first weekend.