If you hadn’t noticed - may is a fantastic month because it is riddled with long weekends. The latest being “Victory Day” commemorating the end of WWII in Eastern Europe. This time we decided to head for London to take advantage of the last weeks of Dasha’s UK visa.

We didn’t have too many plans other than shopping and catching up with Anna and Mike. We managed to succeed with one and failed with Mike and Anna - even though we stayed at their place!

On Friday night Anna had arranged a cute little French restaurant for dinner, while Mike surprised us all with tickets to a show at the Hippodrome (an eclectic circus). Dinner was typically French but the show was spectacular - after St Petersburg, this was definitely unusual. Amazing feats of strength, flexibility, double-jointedness and humour in a fast and snappy format. Totally recommended - http://www.lacliquelondon.com/

The big bonus was catching up with Paul, Em, Josh and Sam - and being surprised to see Russ, Cath, Mikaela and Stefan in town as well! I made the big introduction of Dasha to the guys and we had a great catchup after not seeing each other for some long. All the kids are big and we even had a game of touch with them.. scary but great at the same time. We finished the afternoon with a few beers, a BBQ and a big discussion of the merit of moving back to NZ. Paul and Em are heading back to take the plunge on life in NZ so it was good to get the low down from Russ on the situation there. I have to say it was a great feeling to be around friends and a kiwi accent after so long.

.. something to think about.

p.s. no photo’s from london so here is one I took at the botanical gardens.