FIVE HUNDRED!

Not quite how I planned this, but I've cunningly left a couple of days out, so that I can at least have my 500th Blip on the day...if that makes sense.

Well, it's been a while! I've been in Moscow for nearly three weeks and this is the first time I've blipped in weeks. I've been without my laptop - a colleague returning from the UK brought it back on Friday, complete with new hard-drive, keyboard and track-pad after it kind of died a few weeks ago. Attempts to recover the lost photos before I left the UK failed and so I had to very reluctantly come without it while it went back to Apple for surgery.

But it's back, I'm back and this is my 500th Blip! I'm not sure what the building is, it's not in my guide-book but I walked past it on my way to the Ritz Carlton (daaahling) for Sunday brunch today. It was the nicest weather I've had since I've been here, so the camera got a dusting off and came too. I've back-blipped a couple of days from the UK, (here and here and this one of Red Square that I got when I went out for my first explore!

So far so good though - I'm in a nice flat, an easy fifteen-minute walk from work - although I'm not sure if I'll say it's as easy when it's snowing/icy! The weather is cold, but that's cold in my terms, I'm going to know what really cold is soon enough! I've not been out and about that much. It's pretty dark in the mornings and evenings as I go to and from work, but with the clocks going back last night - that'll be even more noticeable now. Socially it's ok - I've been out a couple of nights but being the most expensive city in the world - I'll be taking it easy. She says! The language is a problem - I've learned maybe two thirds of the cyrillic alphabet, so I can kind of transliterate stuff - but still don't know what the words mean - however, it helps when it comes to sussing out the Metro system because there are few English signs. All good fun!

Anyway - I'm waffling. I need to get this posted because I've got photos to sort. Daily Post, bless his cotton socks, managed to recover a good number of my missing photos from the corrupted hard-drive. I was overjoyed to see my photos from Japan back - there are others - it's just a matter of going through them and re-importing them. A lesson learned there for sure: I will be backing up on a much more regular basis now.

And just before I go, thanks for the kind comments you left last month after my Grandmother passed away - difficult at the time - another reason for limited blips -but the kindest outcome at the end of the day...

Do I get a red balloon?