UK Ketchup Lake

Luda arrived safely this morning, and was waiting for us in the Arrivals Hall at Heathrow. It seems that these days visitors are made to jump through many more hoops (and incur more costs!) before their visa is issued, but the silver lining is that the immigration process at the UK airport is much quicker, as many of the checks tha used to be made then have already been made before the visa was issued. We deposited Luda at home at lunchtime so she could have a well-earned nap, given that she'd been awake all night at Ekaterinburg airport waiting for her 7am flight to Moscow. We've a large delivery coming from Tesco tonight, including six - yes, six - large bottles of Heinz ketchup. Russians love it on most things, and are not shy in squirting enough for a family of four onto their plate, half of which usually ends up down the plughole later. Luckily Tesco were doing a very good deal, a pound a bottle, so I have stocked up. We'll see how long it lasts. As a nod to a healthy lifestyle, I did opt for the Reduced Salt and Sugar variety, though...
It's time to go and get Lara now and spring the surprise on her. We've been telling her for days that Baba is coming to visit, but I don't think the penny has quite dropped yet.

The build up continues

Free HTML Countdown This weekend has been mostly spent getting the spare room ready for Luda's arrival on Tuesday. I've always been a great one for keeping things, including old wardrobes and a dismantled double bed. They've been living in the garage for, well, a while, but now they've been cleaned and they have all been restored to their rightful place. Everyone is still suffering with a cold, it's getting boring now. It's been three weeks for Lara, two for me and one for Olga. Hopefully the switch to BST will have a psychosomatic effect and we'll all instantly feel better! Despite remembering about the time change last night, we still forgot to change the clocks before bed. The clock in our bedroom is one of these radio-controlled things, so it changed automatically, making me think Lara was having a lie-in by getting me up at 8.20am, but as far as she was concerned it was 7.20. It was nice though when it was still nice and light at 7pm. Our usual pub retreat in High Wycombe - The Litten Tree - has been transformed into a Yates'. We didn't know this was going to happen, and only read about it in the local paper this week. We decided to check it out today, to make sure they still had the same child-friendly policy (they do) and good deals on food. The food was excellent, with a huge "child's" portion of jacket potato and beans for Lara, which would have been considered a normal main course in many places. She also got complimentary carrot and cucumber batons to nibble on whilst waiting for the food to arrive, and as a treat she had ice-cream for dessert while Olga & I shared a warmed blueberry muffin. OK, so I ate much of Lara's potato and ice-cream, but it was really nice.

Lara's talking in full sentences more frequently now. She came out with one earlier this week that made me laugh. We were coming downstairs one morning, and usually I'll hold one of her hands and she'll hold the bannister with the other, and after I asked if she wanted my help in coming downstairs, she replied "No, Papa, I don't want help, I'm a big girl".
So, one more day to go before things change around here...