We hadn’t originally planned to have a lot of friends over for Irina’s birthday this year, but quite a few turned up whilst we were at the in-laws’ house. Anyway, here we have a short clip of Anna and friends taken on the 31st of January. Anna behaved very well considering all the faces around her, and the attention she was given. We just hope she behaves as well back in Britain. Speaking of which, we’ll be in Istanbul in less than 24 hours now!
Feb 11 2010
Unfair Wimp Labelling
Despite me originally thinking that Lucky (of The District of Lucky and Lucky21842 fame) was simply a light weight former Almaty resident, who wouldn’t recognise a real snow storm if it held a sign up, after watching the following video, I concede that America did seem to get pretty hard, pretty quickly with its recent snow storm. I’m hoping that the renewed possibility of fresh snow in Britain quickly melts away – whilst pretty, it is a pain in the arse to drive around on, without winter tyres/snow chains…
Feb 11 2010
Fat Suitcases
It now looks as though Irina may manage to fit all the clothes etc. into one suitcase, rather than two. We will have more items coming back from Britain, but once we are actually there, we will know how much extra capacity we need, and can buy a new holdall/suitcase over there. 40kg for two people and a baby sounds like a decent amount, allowing for six weeks away from home, but by the time you allow for presents, new clothes for Anna, the weight of the suitcase (around 5kg) etc., it starts to dwindle very quickly. I’ve sometimes wondered whether airlines would take any notice of dieting at check in time… Arriving in this country I weighed x Kg, I’ve since lost 5Kg, so surely I’m allowed an extra five kilos in my luggage? Sadly this probably won’t hold much water with them, but it might be worth a try if we ever get really desperate. Just need to lose the weight whilst enjoying all the junk food I’ve missed from home in the last nine months!
Feb 07 2010
Just 4 days until we’re in Tur…
Just 4 days until we’re in Turkey,5 until we arrive in Britain.Thanks2those that have made contact re. meeting up.Hope2get car back on road.
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Feb 03 2010
Questions
If I do ever decide to modify our Xbox 360 (so we can play backups of legally purchased games of course!), how difficult will it be to write firewall rules in the router so that internal network traffic (such as media sharing) but ensure that it doesn’t contact Microsoft at all. (They recently banned the hardware IDs of a lot of consoles that had been modified).
Does the arrival of Apple’s iPad really spell the end for netbooks, or will it fall into the pit of forgotten gizmos like the Newton?
Can I really fit all we need (data wise) in Britain onto a 16Gb thumb drive (and therefore not have to worry about customs hinting at a bribe being needed again), or will I end up giving up and just taking both portable hard drives again? In case you’re interested, yes customs officials in Kazakhstan don’t care if you are carrying 1Tb of data on hard drives, memory cards or thumb drives with you. Have that same data on a DVD or CD though, and you’re supposed to get them pre-checked (and pay the fees) a few days before your flight.
Answers on a postcard to…
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Feb 03 2010
Lip Sync Doesn’t Matter!
Anna’s favourite thing to watch on telly right now has to be the Wheels On The Bus DVD that Mum bought for her back in Britain. Whether it is the bright colours, dancing adults or simple repetitive songs, I’m not sure, but Anna definitely perks up whenever we stick it on. I’ve already made an ISO of the disc, to take to Britain on a thumb drive (customs can give you hassle for optical media if they notice it), so we can burn a copy of it over there for her. The 14th of January saw her boogying away once more, so we took a photo and videos (see a post or two in advance of this one).
The Wheels On The Bus Make You Dance!
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Feb 03 2010
Cold, Mild And Unknown
In just over a week we will all be heading back to Britain, to visit friends and family that haven’t seen Anna in almost nine months! We are breaking our journey to the UK by staying overnight in Istanbul, in the hope that this will allow Anna to get some proper rest and fingers crossed she will feel less grumpy on the last leg of the flight.
We still need to do all the obvious things like packing, sorting out things for the kind friend who is flat and cat sitting for us, but also things like checking the average temperatures in Istanbul for this time of year. Leaving Kazakhstan is easy – thick fur winter coat, hat, scarf, gloves and winter boots. Britain is normally relatively easy to pack for – t-shirts backed up with jumpers or shirts. However we don’t yet know what to expect in Turkey. I’ll be looking forward to wearing my comfy old trainers that are actually as wide as my feet. The winter boots were the best fit we could find over here, and stability on ice trumps slight discomfort from squashed feet! Anyway, I’m off to check a few sources for those temperatures, and check what clothing we need to set aside for the day and night in Turkey.
Jan 18 2010
Christmas Day Meal
After saying goodbye to Walton we relaxed for a few hours at home with Anna, and then travelled over to JohnA’s for a delicious Christmas Day meal. This was the first year I wasn’t at home in Britain for Christmas with Mum et al, so I was really glad to be in a friendly and happy atmosphere with Anna and Irina. DanD and his family were there, as well as Innessa’s parents, which meant I wasn’t alone in toasting the day with vodka and beer, rather than wine 🙂 The food was great, and we even had some entertainment laid on – you’ll need to wait for the video to catch a clip of that…
Anna, DanD and a Dombra T-Shirt Model
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Jan 18 2010
Opening Presents With Anna
As previously mentioned this was Anna’ first Christmas, and so we wanted to make sure she had a good day, even if she was totally oblivious to the date 🙂 We had a couple of presents for her to open on the 25th, a few more on New Year’s Day (which is celebrated a lot more over here), and we’re hoping to have a mini-belated-Christmas again once we arrive in Britain.
Anyway, these videos concentrate on Anna opening one of her presents – a match the animal to their hole jigsaw type of thing. As expected the wrapping and gift card were initially of a lot more interest, and as Irina had wrapped it, it took Anna a while to break into the securely packaged gift 🙂
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Jan 18 2010
Christmas Day Morning With Anna
So, these photos of Anna were taken on the 25th of December… Something about that date rings a bell…
Oh well, sure it’ll come back to me. Walton had seen in the transition of 24th/25th with us, and wasn’t driving home straight away for once, meaning we could all have a few drinks together properly, for the first time in ages.
This was obviously Anna’s first Christmas, and although it isn’t really noticed/celebrated by locals over here, we had a great day, though it was sad Assel had to work both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day – we’re hoping we’ll manage to meet up with them once they return from their trip to America, before we head over to Britain.
Later on in the day we went to another friend who was hosting a proper Christmas Day dinner, but these photos are just from the morning, where we ate, drank a little and Anna opened her presents…
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- A Present For Anna
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- Jigsaw? Yeah, sure… nice. Can I eat this card though?
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- Its Christmas! (Screamed à la Noddy)
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- Walton At Breakfast Time
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- 10:20am And STILL Sober!
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- Anna Was Allowed More Than Crumbs For Her 1st Xmas Breakfast, We Promise!
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