..... OK, no food talk in this post. Promise.

When I haven't been accidentally locking my Russian family out of the house, forcing them to spend the night in a hotel (yes I am a heavy sleeper and no I wasn't drunk), I have been exchanging stories of the natives with my two new friends. We are now regular faces around town and like me they are oddly drawn to the summer tents, where spectacles such as bad dancing to bad karaoke singing can be witnessed. This strange ritual we merely observe from a distance, not yet ready to indulge whole heartedly in the culture of our adopted home, but captivated nonetheless.

TV news update – the soap opera about the ugly woman is still running but ugly woman has had a makeover thus transforming her into a not quite so ugly woman.... the Russian version of The Upper Hand is now repeating the episodes from January and February owing to the lack of ideas maybe (this programme, unlike our version which was shown once a week, is aired every day – so they're obviously struggling to find original scenarios for the characters to experience after 1 million episodes and only 2 real characters, as they seem to have missed out the Honor Blackman character, perhaps the concept of a glam babushka is far too foreign for the Russians to accept. Although wasn't there a Russian Bond girl, I'm sure they could draft her in for some extra work).

The little devils are no more but they have been replaced with another challenging class.... adult starters, that's adults who have no English knowledge, a bit like me learning Russian, only I get taught by someone who speaks both languages.... so the challenge is to make a lesson last for a whole hour without running out of ideas to keep them interested. Despite the lack of head banging against tables and throwing of crayons it has the same effect on my nerves as teaching the little devils.