Buying a new car in Kazakhstan?Be quick! RT @Kazakhstannews: “Russia,Belarus,Kazakhstan approve customs union documents http://ow.ly/Guw3“
Nov 20 2009
I Love Pills
So, today found me combing through the contents of our bathroom cupboard, trying to translate Russian pharmacological terms into English, and creating a stockpile of ‘goodies’. Why? Just trying to fend off the worst of the cold symptoms (note I didn’t use the word flu or even man-flu – I know what the flu is like, and a simple head cold for a few days isn’t the same as being unable to get out of bed and feeling like death warmed up). I was sure we had a few different remedies, and in conjunction with the lemsip like powder Ira’s mum gave us, I seem to be over the worst of it by a long shot. Luckily Anna and Irina don’t seem to have picked up my bug, and after this afternoon’s vodka and ground pepper (I was feeling cold after taking Anna for a walk in the park) everything seemed rosy. Now I am sober, so thought I should get back to posting.
There, managed the whole post without referring to Smart-Es or ludes 🙂
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Nov 15 2009
Anna had the last of her swimm…
Anna had the last of her swimming lessons(for now)today.I appear to have a cold.Watched a Russian film last night.The 3 aren’t connected 🙂
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Nov 07 2009
A Football, Ring, Babushka & Anna
This time we’ll have the videos first, and the photos later. I was previously posting both media types in the same post, where appropriate. However, this caused problems with duplications on Anna’s site, so they’ll now be split – whenever practical. Anyway, this was shot on the 13th of September 2009, at Irina’s parents’ house.
The first couple are of Anna playing with one of her teething rings and a ball.
The next is of Anna playing pass the ball with Babushka (her Babushka being Irina’s Mum. Babushka is grandma in Russian).
The last two are of Anna playing/rolling on the floor, on the same day.
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 31 2009
Arrrrrrrrrrrgh. Oh, you’re not dressed for Halloween?
So we have just returned from a tasty meal at Sligo, with Walton and Assel. We realised that the last time we had visited the Irish-pub themed location here in Astana, Kazakhstan was just over a year ago, which was another Halloween themed event. Today the fire steak (yes, that was indeed a steak that arrived at the table on fire), chocolate dessert (currently only displayed on their Russian language menu) and vodka were all lovely. Anyway, when we arrived the male waiters had already changed into their themed costumes – scars/pirate paraphernalia were abound. For some reason the female waitress’s costume changes didn’t occur until later on, and were comparatively weak – a ‘bloodied’ bandage around one neck, and a witch’s hat on top of the other lady’s head. I then spotted a woman who caught my eye. I spent a few seconds trying to discern the inspiration for her costume, before realising there was none – she was just a (slightly older than) middle aged woman in tight jeans and a top. Given that I gave the ‘pub’ a plug in my recent guide to Astana, I don’t feel too guilty in calling out her dubious choice of fashion (she is thought to have been the owner), I just wish she’d dressed either more conservatively, or gone the whole hog and added some accessories to her otherwise scary outfit! Anyway, this time there were no signs in the bathroom warning people not to fish in the toilet bowl, which is good, as I’d forgotten our proper camera, and despite the band being worthy of a few shots, as I’d forgotten our real camera (the camera phone couldn’t handle the low lighting), I wasn’t overly upset at the lack of humorous text in the washroom.
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Oct 30 2009
RT @arlenarlenarlen: “Apparent…
RT @arlenarlenarlen: “Apparently,men don’t pierce ears in Kazakhstan.Train attendant asked if I was gay/trans.”A few russians do. +Me. L&R=8
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Oct 25 2009
1st proper snow of the Winter/…
1st proper snow of the Winter/Autumn.Discovered where last night’s data loss originated.Ctrl+S doesn’t equal SAVE in Russian Word.Shift+F12?
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