On stuffing chestnuts.

So you are trotting through Hyde Park and you look down and realise you can settle another long running argu… discussion with your husband.
‘Those are the chestnuts you can eat. See, look, not conkers.’ Of which you just happen to have a few in your pocket. The Star likes conkers.
And when the flush of triumph [...]

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On another day in another place.

The gray sky hangs low, pressing you into the ground, opening out the horizon and forcing everything else to admit its insignificance.
Yet on this unpreposing canvas the reds and yellows of the trees glow. Green grass seems brighter. Buildings are whiter, and every little scrap of litter on the ground shines out in lurid [...]

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On Eurovision 2009.

About halfway through the results marathon for the Eurovision contest, Graham Norton, the UK’s new host for the event after Terry Wogan flounced off the show in disgust at the way that in 2008 the UK had come bottom again whilst the Eastern Europeans (and Finland) were having a run of good luck, mistily declared [...]

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On Merry New Year (Orthodox) Christmas.

It’s the 7th January.
If anyone wonders why you don’t, as a rule, get that Christmas tree up until the last possible moment before (British) Christmas, then the fact that in the Solnushka household you are still deep in the holiday season should be reason enough. The midwinter blowout won’t be over until Old New Year [...]

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On щи.

Today you spent fifteen whole minutes letting the Star push the door shut and then grasp the door handle to pull it open again.
Now there’s a game that doesn’t seem to get old.
Neither does Babushka playing with the light switch for his enjoyment. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. [...]

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On Bara Brith.

Sometime after you Grandma died, you took it into your head to make Bara Brith.
Now your Grandma wasn’t Welsh.
She didn’t even live in Wales.
She lived, in fact, about 100 metres from the Welsh border.
But her Bara Brith wasn’t an heirloom recipe or anything. She only moved into the borderlands about 25 years before she died.
It was [...]

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On Guy Fawkes Night

The fact that the 5th November went completely unmarked in Russia was always extremely disconcerting to you.
It’s always been a holiday you have celebratedwith vigour, and a trip to the local fireworks display, followed by baked potatoes and your Dad setting up a tray of sand at the far extreme of the garden so that [...]

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On inflation.

Being a Formula One fan in Russia was not easy.
They never seemed to conclude negotiations for the TV rights before the third race, which meant that not only did you miss the beginning of the season, but you had to surf the channels every Sunday from March until you found out who was showing it [...]

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On Halloween.

You managed to restrain yourself from kitting the Star out as either a pumpkin or a little red devil this Halloween. He is, after all, only four months old and it would have been pure self indulgence.
But only because you have promised yourself that you will buy not only a little reindeer suit, but also a [...]

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On чистота – чистоТайд.

Being without the Internet for twenty odd days as a result of the move to the new flat was bad, but being without a washing machine was far far worse.
This is because the washing machine is the single most useful invention ever.
It’s taken a while for you to realise this, of course.
When you were at [...]

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