Random Russian phone notes

The White Lake, from Kirilov

I was pottering about on my phone the other day - the sort of thing you do while sitting on the ferry - and discovered the notes I'd made randomly during our Russian trip. As the notes were made on the hoof, as it were, they are necessarily brief, and some of them so obscure that they fail as prompts. But I thought in a last roundup before I finish off a possible slide show for the new year, I'd recall a few of them.

The first one reminds me that in St Petersburg they can expect to see 20 - 30 sunny days per year. How lucky were we, then, to have sun on three consecutive days of our stay there? Let alone that early October sun being warm enough for me to sit on my balcony for an hour with a book?  And I was told that St Petersburg stands on no fewer than 42 islands; I suppose a close look at the map would have helped me there, but it's a lot of islands - and a lot of inland waterways and bridges. Later, presumably in a restaurant, I was told how to say "Just a little" in Russian - it's  чуть-чуть, pronounced choo-choot.

On another day, another note, in Yaroslavl, I was shown the church of St John Chrysostom, where the congregation are Old Believers. You can read a daunting history of that schism here, but briefly it seems to have arisen over the influence of Greek Orthodoxy and the Latinising favoured by Peter the Great which the schismatics disapproved of. I think. We also heard of how during the siege of Leningrad cats from Yaroslavl were sent to hunt the Leningrad rats, and their descendants now live a privileged life in the Hermitage.

I dare say that I could spend time reading history and guide books, but at this stage I have found that the stimulus of being there and having odd bits of information drip-fed in situ makes a far more lasting impression. I have a suspicion that this may always be the case. It would certainly transform history lessons.

As a result of the phone revelations, I have revised my post about Julia, our little onboard guide. On the last day of sailing, when some of the young interpreters told us about their lives, she revealed that she was a Kalmyk. There was never quite enough time to take it all in - but I'm catching up.

No, I shall never forget Russia.

It's life, Jim ...

Can't I prowl in peace?
Originally uploaded by Mac44.

The bird table continues to be a source of fascination as this frozen winter comes to an end. The latest mix of seeds (Bill Oddie's no mess mix!) is obviously infinitely preferable to the last lot and is hoovered up relentlessly every day - for the most part by a blackbird pair, who are becoming a permanent fixture. Mrs B is the biggest glutton - can she be eating for two yet? I don't know how these things work in bird circles - and seems to be more or less omnivorous.

Trouble is, I long to intervene. There are several chaffinches, a robin and a host of tits lurking in the bushes nearby, occasionally darting in at the table before a stern look from Mrs B (and this is not me, for once!) sends them packing again. As for the wee brown jobs with the delicate speckles on their backs and the funny wee tuft on top of their heads, forget it. They bounce gently on the willow branches beside the window, but rarely seem to get peace to eat - though I have noted one devouring something under the berberis near the table.

And this, of course, brings me to the mog in the photo. It has taken to visiting, and if you follow the link on the pic you will find more photos of its attempts to get close to the bird table - I've only chosen this photo because it gives such a good picture of its indignant expression if we stare at it. I worry, you see, for these wee brown birds on the ground - and shall be deeply sad if we are brought any Easter offerings. Intervention so far has been limited to encouraging the cat to move on - but I can't be there 24/7, and nature, red in tooth and claw and all that, has to take its course. Doesn't it?

The mouse's tale

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. And if you're old enough to remember where that opening comes from, I trust you're enjoying retirement. But à nos moutons - or in this case, nos souris.

Once upon a time, there was a small mouse. He - or was it a she? - might have been called a church mouse, except that he never made it to the church. No, this little mouse lived in the Rectory, in a small room under the stairs that had once been referred to as The Bishop's Bedroom but had, since the days when the hapless Bishop indeed slept there, become a dump. As the person who lived in the house gradually dumped more and more in the way of unwanted debris in this room, the little mouse found it a refuge, though there was always the dread, the flaring fear, induced by the Rectory Cat.

The joyful day dawned, however, when the Rectory Cat set off with its owner to live in a rather less damp environment, and the little mouse was free to roam and to breed and to enjoy the crumbs left by the parishioners who had returned to using the house as a hub for social activities. Free, that is, until it became apparent that the old junk was going to have to go, to make way for the junk of the next incumbent - or even, Heaven forfend, a visiting bishop. And so it came about that a hard-working and selfless couple turned up one dreary day and put all the junk in their car and took it to the tip.

A few days later, the selfless lady noticed that a packet of biscuits, left in the car against a peckish moment, had been nibbled at. Her equally selfless husband denied any snack attacks, and their suspicions grew. Eventually they found a tiny nest in a corner of the car, under a seat where no-one would look. They did not, however, find the mouse.

Several suggestions have surfaced among the faithful as to how to deal with this phenomenon. It was thought that a cat in the car could be messy, and might damage the upholstery; poison or a trap seemed likewise messy and distasteful. To date the most enterprising seems to be a trip in said car to the incumbency of the former inhabitant and the former Rectory cat.

After all, it is their mouse.

Day off

One of the joys of an activity holiday such as this is The Day Off. Today, in temperatures of 20 Celsius or so, we've been almost as idle as these delightful cats, who roam the gardens unhindered (presumably they are useful) and curl up on the lobby sofas in the evening. Tomorrow we shall be walking again - one can take only so much leisure!

Handy reminders

This is the rather splendid crest of Clan Mackintosh, into which, give or take a few spelling changes, I married more years ago than I care to remember. The motto, in plain English, means "Don't touch the cat without wearing a glove", and I have always taken it to mean that Mackintoshes are prickly sorts who need careful handling. Not today. Today, I was on Molly duty. Molly, as some of my readers will understand, is the Rectory cat, and she was requiring to be fed while her human was away. To cut a longish story painfully short, she bit me. I admit it was probably an instinctive move on both sides - I moved too quickly to rescue some papers she had skited to the floor, and she moved even more quickly to defend her territory. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you ....

As a result of this mishap, I have had my tetanus shot updated. They asked at the surgery how long it had been. "More than five years," I replied, airily. Turned out I last had a shot in 1989. Tempus fugit an' that. And they don't just give you a tetanus jab now - it's combined with diphtheria and polio inoculations. But I was glad to take precautions - I have a dear friend currently suffering from septicaemia as a result of a gardening injury to a finger. I imagine he wasn't wearing gloves either.

And another finger story - this time of amazing dexterity. I knew the days of questioning the use of mobile phones in education were numbered when my pupil whipped out her phone today to call her dad. She can touch-text. I've never seen someone text as quickly as I can type while conducting a conversation and looking at me, not the phone. I was dead impressed. I just hope her thumb can stand the pace.