So Christmas is drawing near, and this will be the first year we won’t be back in Britain for the celebrations. Although I have mixed feelings on the subject, our finances meant that a trip home to Anna’s Nana, Dad (Welsh word) Kav, Grandad, Nick and Roz etc. will have to wait for a few more months. On the plus side, we’re hoping to meet up with some friends over here, both at the crossover point of Christmas Eve into Christmas Day, and also for Christmas Day itself, where Anna can play with (or at least alongside 🙂 ) some other children.
Irina is planning to bake a couple more Death By Chocolate cakes, so we have no need to try importing some Mr Kipling treats. There are apparently some vodka bottles in the freezer that need finishing off, I’ve recently managed to convince myself that beer isn’t so bad after all, and Inessa seems to have a lovely meal planned. Despite the fact that three families with children will be combining forces for Christmas Day dinner, I think we’re all relaxed enough to fit in with each other’s plans and/or traditions, and as one of the men already put it, “relax, get drunk and eat too much” seems to be the order of the day anyway 🙂
Dec 14 2009
No Travel, A Lot Of Food And Drink
Dec 10 2009
Foreign Tastes In A Foreign Land
OK, as promised, I’m going to try and catch up with posting some of the Lucky videos before he leaves.
This one is on an American ex-pat tastes in Almaty – from beer to instant coffee, and vitamins to the gym. No vodka or brandy mentioned though? I’ve not been to a gym or done any serious circuit/endurance training in a long time (wow, 1/2 a life time TBH!), and my appetite for good food and long movies has meant that my days of a 28″ waist line are well and truly gone…
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Dec 05 2009
Spent evening w/ Walton. Good …
Spent evening w/ Walton. Good food,drink & company.Assel back tomorrow.Then had skype videocall with lucky re. Wales being a country or not.
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Nov 14 2009
In a random Turkish cafe in As…
In a random Turkish cafe in Astana. Music, food, drink and smoking allowed 🙂 cafe Istanbul ?
Nov 09 2009
I Left It Around Here Somewhere?
Shot three days later than the last photo (making it the 16th September 2009 when it was shot), this shot makes me wonder whether Anna or Ira and I enjoy her trying new foods more. We try not to take a picture each and every time she makes us laugh or smile, but this one showed Anna at her most playful with the pasta, and we couldn’t resist. She understands the concept of picking the food up from the table into her hand, and from there putting the food into her mouth, but the accuracy isn’t always spot on. She just looks a little confused here, as to where exactly it had gone!
Spag Bol Minus The Bol
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Nov 09 2009
AntiSceptic’s Xbox – Nov 8 2009
I told AntiSceptic ‘Don’t make me hurt you!’ and the threat worked because he decided to show up yesterday. A gamer score of 2,870 is in our back pocket. That is a gain of 25 points over last time! He rallied Burnout Paradise picking up 1 achievement, and then AntiSceptic went to get some food. I told him to bring me back something but I got seriously dissed.
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Nov 03 2009
KFC In Astana!
Yes, there is indeed a branch of Kentucky Fried Chicken here in Astana, in the Mega shopping centre to be precise. For any doubters out there, below is a photo taken on the 7th of September 2009, with Anna sat in her pushchair.
Anna In Mega
Ooops, just re-checked the picture, and the yellow lighting of the fast food outlet sort of drowns out the KFC symbol. I tried playing with it in Photoshop, but to no avail. Anyway, the store is there, but no Burger King or McDonalds stores in Astana just yet, to the best of my knowledge.
Nov 01 2009
Anna Update – Early November
So, with more pictures of Anna coming in the week, how is her progress right now?
Last week she managed to co-ordinate crawling forward. She has obviously been happy crawling backwards for months, but until now never seemed particularly bothered about moving head first. Rolling from tummy to back to tummy again, combined with backwards crawling had got her everywhere she wanted to go, but now (especially with a remote control on the floor as the motivation) she’ll often choose crawling normally instead.
Food and drink – most purée flavours have been tried, as well as creating our own from the fruit and vegetables stored from the in-laws’ garden. To be honest, Anna is only really interested in the purée if it is sweet – she’ll eat other types, but if there is a high fruit content, Anna will be found with her mouth open, asking for more straight away! We are trying to make sure the store-bought ones don’t have any added salt or sugar, which can take a while with having to read all the ingredients. (Anyone who knows my cooking/Russian reading skills we’ll realise the ‘we’ part is in fact Irina.)
Although still wearing nappies and pull-up-training pants, Anna is now happy using the potty, although being only 8 months old, we’re not at all worried when she does just let go in her nappy, as opposed to waiting for the potty. Without going into too much detail, you can definitely now tell she is eating solid food!
In the coming weeks, Anna is going to be trying out both yoga (for mothers and babies), and swimming (with an instructor) which should be interesting. I’ve got about 10 Anna photos to post, and then I need to finally crack out the firewire cable and put the (very limited amount of) video on the camcorder onto YouTube and this blog. I think it may just be a few minutes from around the time when Anna was born, back in Britain.
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Oct 25 2009
AntiSceptic’s Xbox – Oct 24 2009
AntiSceptic came to represent the gaming world. 2,785 points and counting! He rallied Burnout Paradise, Call Of Duty 3, Zuma, and then AntiSceptic went to get some food. I told him to bring me back something but I got seriously dissed.
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Oct 13 2009
Vodka And Cat Food?
We haven’t yet made another order with Dostavlyika (the home shopping service here in Astana), though if the supermarket they use has some Orange Drive (a soda and vodka drink) in stock, I’m tempted to order a box or two. They also hadn’t (as of the last time I checked) added cat food to their site, or sorted the difficulties involved in locating similar products that are described in different ways. I noticed they were using Drupal, meaning that even if the original designer isn’t able to fine tune the site, it should be easy enough for other people to come along and improve it. Maybe DanD should wait a few months and then offer his services?
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