Hmm, my holiday starts on Thursday.

I made it through the stint at work on Saturday. Over the course of six hours, five people came in to be tested, of whom I tested a grand total of one. Which took me five minutes.

Have I mentioned the sudden and dramatic improvement in the weather? All the snow has melted, and it's getting up to about +15 in the day. Even at night it is only hovering around freezing.

This past winter in Russia was the most severe for a decade, according to the papers. As evidence of that, despite the recent sun, the riverboats are not running yet and the lakes are *still* frozen over. I wouldn't risk walking across them now, though Anthony said that the fishermen are still sitting out there on the ice, eskimo-stylee. Wonder if they ever catch anything in the Moscow waters?

My furby-loving 8 year-old brought a scooter to the lesson on Friday. I was quite tempted to mug him then sell it on at the Mitino dodgy goods market. But then, I thought, maybe he's carrying a blade.

Talking of 8 year-olds, the young learners workshop I mentioned earlier never happened. A good job really, as this week has been a bit mental. The only other full-time teacher at my centre, at least since the departure of Trevor the Canadian, has had to go back to the States for a couple of weeks because of a death in the family. It was all very sudden and sad.

As a result we are now seriously understaffed. Language Link have, however, quite helpfully been sending us some other random teachers to cover all the lessons that Anthony and I were unable to take on. My personal favourite random teacher is Ian the stereotypical northerner from Bridlington.

And Bridlington Ian had a great story to tell:

One of Ian's regular groups contains a very racist skinhead. After months of putting up with his small-mindedness and bigotry, Ian decided to take a little revenge. He told the student, quite innocently, that the verb 'to beat off' was a cool way to say 'to beat up'. Now the skinhead goes around telling anyone who understands, and I quote: "At weekends I like to go into the woods and beat off niggers." What a mental picture eh? Well, it made me laugh.

It's Saturday morning... and I'm at work! Yes! Our rota system has decreed that it is my turn to sit here in the central school at the weekend doing nothing. Someone has to be here in case any prospective students want to have their language level assessed.

I am 51 minutes into my six-hour stint so far and no-one has shown up. So this is thrilling. At least the internet is working, and there is one other teacher here with me. We also have a list of menial tasks to do, such as:
- clean the whiteboard
- put away the resource books
Er, actually, that's it. So we'll be hard-pushed to get it all done in time!

Briefly, went to a new church last Sunday. It was a New Frontiers International church - so like Bracknell Family Church, if you know it - in the far North East of Moscow, called Rosa. A bit of a trek from the metro but now the weather has suddenly and radically improved, it's not too much of a problem.

Someone from Bracknell Family Church came to preach here recently, which is how I found out about it, through a very pro-active friend.

Anyway, to help you get a picture. It's in a modern building with a large congregation. Russian language service. It even has an evening service which is quite handy... it might help my Russian improve anyway. The church seems quite active locally, and also friendly, so I think I will go here more often.

My knife-wielding 8 year-old has not yet brought any more weapons to the classroom, but we have had a singing furby, four laser-pens and something called a Bok-Rok. I'm not sure what it is or what it does, but we never had them when I was a kid.

I have just been co-erced into attending a Language Link 'young learners' workshop next week... should be barrels of fun. Actually, speaking of young learners, one of mine brought a stanley knife to the lesson yesterday. It went something a little like this:

8 year-old Nikita: James! I have knife!
Me: That's nice, Nikita. (he often makes outlandish claims - 'I have elephant! I am pink panther!')
Nikita: Look! (brandishes knife above head)
Me: Aargh!
Other students: Let's play game...
Me: Give me the knife, Nikita... (Nikita waves knife in my direction) No, no, the other end... (I disarm small child)

So, another potentially life-and-death situation brought under control by the cool-headed, quick-witted English teacher that I am. Workshops? I shouldn't be attending them, I should be running them.

As I write this, it's snowing. I'm really fed up with snow now, especially as it's well above freezing and shouldn't be snowing at all, it being April and everything. I even unsealed the balcony yesterday in the hope that it would persuade the weather to buck up, but it doesn't seem to have worked.

Anyway. Went to Obninsk at the weekend, as a friend from last year, Eugene, had his birthday. In true Russian style it was celebrated round his flat where his parents prepared a three-course meal for twenty-five people. And I saw a lot of people I hadn't seen for the best part of a year, so that was really great.

An interesting bit of war-related trivia. Chechnyan representatives (they don't have a government as such), have actually come out strongly in favour of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. They're probably the only Muslim state to have done so, at least so enthusiastically.

Why, you may ask... simple. The Russian government are 'anti' the war, so the Chechnyans are just being contrary to irritate them. This seems to be how they decide all their policies. It's pretty understandable.

Sorry I haven't posted for a long time, but the internet connection at our central school has been down and I couldn't be bothered to go to an internet cafe. Actually, central Moscow has the largest internet cafe in the whole of Europe, it's more like an internet warehouse. But I still couldn't be bothered.

So I only had myself to blame, then, when I was confronted today with the message: 'You have 28 new e-mails'. Pah. Lesson learnt.

Waeather still unpleasant here. We had a couple more hours of snow yesterday, and it's fairly windy as well. Incidentally, I have decided that the town of Mitino, where I teach some of the time, was actually a secret Soviet experiment to build the world's biggest wind tunnel. I can confidently report that the experiment was a success.

Okay, I won't mention the war.

The weather here is surprisingly terrible. We had a full 24 hours of snow and now we have freezing winds and sub-zero temperatures. It's nearly April!

Started a new group of students this week, upper-intermediate level, which I inherited from our departed Canadian. The only phrasal verb they know is 'fuck off'...

My flatmate is convinced his new girlfriend is a spy. I think he may be right. So there is a general air of paranoia in our flat...

The first post for over a week, I'm sorry, our network has been down.

Last Saturday I went with a few other teachers to a club at Ulitsa 1905 Goda called Tochka, to celebrate, yes, St. Patricks Day. This is fast becoming a very important Russian holiday, though I'm not quite sure why.

Tochka is a big club that looks like a converted barn, though I'm sure it's not as you don't find many barns in central Moscow. And as with most Moscow clubs, it took us an hour to queue up to get in, another half an hour to put our coats in the cloak room, and then when we entered the club itself it was only half-full. Get a system, people.

Anyway. The main attraction of the evening was, and I quote, a number of 'Keltski Rock' bands playing. Keltski rock, if you are wondering, sounds a lot like the lead singer from Rammstein backed with the population of Summer Isle from the Wicker Man. Or death metal with fiddles, as you prefer.

Also, very bizarrely, ran into five of my old students from Obninsk. This is now the second time that this has happened, and while it does make me look very popular - every time I go clubbing I get jumped on by gangs of teenage girls, often literally - it is quite disconcerting. As was meeting a girl who went to uni with my brother, which I don't think has ever happened before.

It's snowing here, for the first time in two weeks. So it doesn't really feel like spring! At least it's not cold, somewhat above freezing.

Another four-day week... ho-hum.

Went to a party on Friday, hosted by Kostya and held in his one-bedroom flat. He managed to fit around 25 people in it which is quite impressive, as only eight people live in this flat usually! Yes, eight! Only!

Anyway, turned up late as I had been working in Mitino, while Kostya lives in Vykhino (check the map, it's a long way). Trust me, bursting in on a room of 25 Russians who have already been drinking for four hours, on a holiday weekend, is an interesting experience.

Woke up next to a fat, snoring Russian with no idea of where I was, or who he was, another interesting experience. The next thing I knew, some girl was offering me chocolates, something I still find quite inexplicable.

On Saturday went to a restaurant called Yolki-Palki, which is the Russian equivalent of a Harvester, if you can imagine such a thing. It's not at all bad, and they are popping up everywhere. Can't complain.

Sunday, Monday, did nothing. Knackered.

Another three-day weekend this weekend, as it's International Women's Day. All these days off are really disrupting my timetable... life is hard. But... International Women's Day - which other countries celebrate it? I'd love to know. Probably the Ukraine, and Georgia, and that's about it.

Talking of disrupted timetables, my groups are changing around a lot at the moment as Trevor the Canadian has gone back to Canada. Also Jamie is ill so it's only really me and Anthony holding down the fort in our little corner of Moscow.

Lots of adminy stuff too recently. We have just had a quality control exercise, which I seem to have made it through. And next week I'm getting observed, just to check I'm not a totally duff teacher. So if I'm back in England in a week's time you'll know why! No, I'm not too worried.

Found a great electronics market in the west of Moscow called Gorbushka. Actually, it was recommended to me but it really is colossal, 1200 little shops and stalls (it's indoors) full of pirate CDs and just random stuff. You can even buy English-language NMEs... well, I know this will interest precisely no-one, it doesn't even count as an anecdote but I felt I should write something.

Went to Yaroslavl this weekend, as it was Anthony's birthday, the day after pay-day, and we had Monday off (Men's Day).

Actually we had meant to go to Nizhy Novgorod but that didn't happen. Although the city has been called Nizhy Novgorod for a decade, no-one has told the Russian train network which still refers to it as Gorky, its old Soviet name. So what with that and Anthony getting temporarily detained by the police for having an out-of-date visa (not true, but at least this time it was a genuine mistake not an attempt to swindle money out of us), our chances of catching the Nizhy train were slim.

By the way, Anthony has since shaved off his beard so he looks slightly less like a Chechen terrorist. Hopefully this will reduce the number of times the police stop him - he's well into double figures now. The other day he stopped and asked a policeman for directions - big mistake. Can I see your papers? Are you carrying any knives? Could you accompany me to the police station? Could you pay me a bribe?

So, anyway, we caught the first coach out of Moscow, which, four and a half hours later, dropped us in Yaroslavl. Capital of, obviously, Yaroslavl region. Not bad for a random destination as it is a historic city (part of the 'Golden Ring', with almost no Soviet blocks of flats, and it's by the (currently frozen) river Volga. Plus provincial prices which saw us paying the equivalent of 7 quid per person per night for a hotel room. Maybe they were ripping us off for being foreigners, I don't know.

This was also the first mild weekend of the year, with the temperature reaching a positively tropical +3 degrees. Phew, better get the sun tan lotion.

Caught the train back. I think we bought the wrong tickets as we ended up on the sleeper train, in a little compartment, with our own beds. This for a four-hour train journey! A little excessive.

I forgot to mention that I went to an Anglican church here in Moscow the other Sunday. It might be interesting for some people to hear about that. If it's not for you, then don't read this entry!

I don't know what I was expecting. I had got the details from the internet so come Sunday morning I was walking round Moscow city centre with map in hand. I managed to find the turning I needed, into a quiet backstreet in an exclusive part of the city, only a stroll away from Red Square. I walked down the road for about five minutes, turned the corner, and suddenly was faced with this whopping great 19th century mock-gothic structure - like a parish church on steroids. Well, I certainly hadn't been expecting that.

Moscow as a city has relatively few genuine old churches, apart from in the Kremlin, because Stalin ordered a lot of them to be destroyed. But apparently this Anglican church was used as a recording studio during Communist times (good acoustics!), which was why it was spared. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the church building was (eventually) given back to the Church. It still needs a lot of reconstruction work as it has been neglected for a long time, but that is underway at least.

As for the service, it was quite a high church (formal) service, lots of incense and things. That's not necessarily bad, but it might take me some time to get used to. Don't get me wrong, it was a typical CofE service with all that that brings to mind. Most of all, it was great to take communion for the first time in over a month.

The congregation were mixed, the majority English and American, but also a high number of African people, and also Russian. The minister was English, but most of the rest of the church workers were Russian, I think. So that was interesting.

Oh yes - I also met my boss, sorry, DOS. She's based in Zelenograd which is a couple of hours to the north-west of Moscow on the train, which is why she isn't around very often. I think that's also a good thing. We have a monthly team meeting which alternates between Zelenograd and Moscow. So in about six weeks I'll have to make a trip to Zelengrad... well, that should be interesting.

Met a couple of new teachers - new in that they have been here less time than me. It's nice to know that I'm not the newbie any more. One of the new teachers is on work-study; he's called Hugh which is unfortunate as his name is only one dipthong away from the rudest word in the Russian language.

Also met a teacher who was at Uni with me in Nottingham. He was in the year below me so I didn't know him at all, but we were in halls at the same time and we know a few of the same people. It's a small world.

I have been given a new group to teach so I'm up to my contractual maximum now, of something-or-other astronomical hours. They are, incidentally, teenagers at FCE level. So quite capable.

Having a full schedule is a good thing as it means I won't get any of those early morning phone calls asking me to cover for an ill teacher in the other side of the city.

Coincidentally, I taught one of my new students at the summer camp in Obninsk last year! I don't remember her - they just bussed the kids in and out - but she remembers me.