Four day weekend

Bliss a four day weekend. Thursday was Defenders of the Fatherland Day and a bank holiday. As a result we also had Friday off. We have got to pay it back by working on Saturday this week.

Sadly the weather was not as good as it could have been but we did get out. There was a walk given in Moscow News visiting places connected with the UK in the past or present to celebrate the British Film Festival going on at the moment. We  have done some of it but there were bits for us to see so on Friday we set off. We started off near the Kremlin in Kitai Gorod at the first British Embassy when Elizabeth 1 sent an envoy to the court of Ivan the Terrible.

 We missed out the next bit as we had done most of it before and headed off to Novy Arbat where we had lunch in an Irish bar, Molly Gwynne. Then we moved to the river and the British Embassy. Outside near the river are Sherlock Holmes and Docotor Watson, both popular characters here.

Around the corner by the main entance are tablets with British and Russian poetry on them. Here are a couple in English.

 From there we went over the river, looking back to the new Embassy building.

Just over the bridge we found these statues.

We finished the walk in the biggest shopping mal in Moscow at Kievskaya. Each zone is named after a city with Moscow in the centre and London, Paris and Rome in the corners. On the ground floor of London was a post box and red phone bix but they were rather squashed in and not very special. However, the suchi restaurant in the middle based round Moscow looked pretty spectacular with a clock set in the floor.

The red lights show the time, so it is 4:29 pm and 20seconds. Very clever.

The day finished with a Church council meeting as the Arch Deacon was visiting from Vienna and then we had supper in the parsonage afterwards. I put Peter in the kitchen with Laura Ames while the meeting was going on.

The rest of the weekend was spent at choir and church and doing general duties. Tracey came for dinner last evening which made a lovely end to the weekend.

And so Christmas looms. A new child arrived today. At least he speaks English which helps.

Till next time.