Previous post in this Bucharest series – Bucharest – 24th – 28th March Sunday 29th March We’ve spent one full week in Bucharest, Romania. Our Accommodation Yesterday we asked the agent who rented us this apartment if we could stay another 30 days after our original booking ends on 4th

Previous post in this series – The First Days in Bucharest It’s the evening of Saturday, 28th March as I’m writing this. In another 5 hours we’ll have been here for 7 days. It seems so long ago that we arrived with just our suitcases and couldn’t find our hotel!

I’ve been wanting to write about Cheburashka for a long time.  Now, although I’m no longer in Russia, I have time to tell you about this little guy who is loved so much by millions of children, their parents, and their grandparents, in Russia and the former Soviet Union countries.

Previous post – Bucharest, our arrival Sunday, 22nd March On Sunday morning, 22nd March, we woke up in the hotel earlier than we had planned.  Our alarms hadn’t even gone off.  It was before 10am, and checkout was at 12.00. We took showers, checked messages and emails.  We ate the

Part 2 of our exit from Russia. At check-in at Sheremetyvo airport in Moscow, the woman told us that I would have to have 14 days self-isolation upon arrival in Bucharest.  No problem, as long as we can get on the plane together.  Olivier, being French and European, had no

The plan 2020 was going to be our year of new adventures.  At 51 and 53, Olivier and I had decided to leave Moscow, where we’d lived for more than 10 years together, and we were going to travel the world for 6 months or more with no other plans

Do you remember when you were a teenager and couldn’t wait to wear makeup?  I was about 13 years old when I started trying out things to put on my face.  I didn’t have much, but maybe some eye shadow, and some lipstick in colours that absolutely did not suit

What were children’s playgrounds like when you were growing up?  Of course, your answer will depend on how old you are and where you grew up. Playground nostalgia I remember Australian playgrounds in the 1970s – metal slides which burned your skin on hot sunny days.  There were swings, too.