Day 44

I believe DHL now have competition from, and you may never have guessed it, Royal Mail. First we wish to thank Julie Burr and all the Burrs for sending through our bits and pieces, which made us excited; they arrived safely and pictures have gone up on the wall. We love you and miss you greatly. We also want to thank all our Life Group for their care packages, which arrived safely today. Fantastic goodies within, which made us all excited. To Richard & Ruth, Ally & Andrew, Hannah & Owain, Bex, Liz & Philip and Gail we love you and miss you greatly.

So, when comparing the delivery services Royal Mail took 16 days and DHL took 11 days. Royal Mail was about a quarter of the price to DHL. We also thank the lovely people at the Customs and Excise office down in Almaty for taking care of these packages and getting them to us quicker than expected. (Ali also wanted to thank the Customs people in Almaty for not removing any chocolate!)

Had our first monthly maintenance bill through for Riverside, which made us quite eager to move. Though we are not paying for actual rent, the maintenance (to encompass utility, services, satellite TV (tuned only to Russian channels) the existence of a phone line, oh and the broken toilet seat cover (my bad)) did seem quite steep. Nevertheless, we are not joining the revolution led by the expats who are refusing to pay until they get itemised bills.

The weather was getting warmer. Only minus 3 degrees today. But alas will drop to minus 25 tomorrow. Planning on visiting the Yamaha store to look at acoustic guitars and electric pianos tomorrow. Strangely the university has not yet found a music tutor that we could claim for on the home schooling budget. And slightly more strange is that they have not found a Russian tutor either.

Ray