Tradition!

Just a quick one to say: WOW! 2000 pageviews! Either my family check this a severely worrying amount, or I have a lot of sweet friends and strangers who drop by to see what's up in this humble blog.

Today we had 'Sunday' on Tuesday, and we were invited to dinner at Masha's. Dinner was lovely: chicken in a tomato, pepper and olive sauce with mash in a pseudo-Italian style, accompanied by beer, followed by offcuts from 'Day & Night' cake. Plain sponge is day, chocolate sponge is night - om nom nom.

Then Tamara's son/Masha's older brother showed up with a bottle of 'The Source of Life' That's a mineral water. But soon we found out that it was much less innocent, home-brewed vodka, of a greenish tint in colour. Lena egged us on, I suppose this being the 'cultural education' part of our Russian lessons with her. So we did a shot, and frankly it wasn't half bad. Much nicer than Jagermeister or such herbal spirits, or any vodka I've previously tried. Masha's bro took what looked like a tea-cupful which was what I should have expected but didn't believe would be a reality. We had a nibble of black bread after, but learned that you're not supposed to leave long between the first and second glassful, so found our glasses filled again. Oh dear. We chatted and had a good laugh with those around the table. Then after a while the guy insisted we have a third glassful. Needless to say, Nottingham Rocksoc has provided me with much in the way of useful training for such instances. However, after three glasses I felt rather red in the face and quite tired. Despite many protests, invitations for tea, it being insisted upon that we look at baby photos, and being told that we must have one for the road, we managed to get away unscathed having had a very merry evening.

It just wouldn't have been a trip to Russia without vodka, right?
Night folks! x