Russian dancing and devil children

You know me, I never like to refuse hospitality especially when there's food and wine involved, so I played the role of friendly English teacher lodger when my landlady invited me to join her and her friends at their celebrations yesterday. We had barbeque (although it was indoor obviously) and salad and wine. I tried to understand their blabbling Russian and actually managed to pick up a few words, my understanding of the spoken language is quite astute I do think. The conversation went a little like this: blav vlad mlavva chkavva mavva INTERNET pllava cllavvsmoshika hitttalaski mavva blavva haavva COMPUTER. Just like the Fast Show. I explained to my hosts that I had to be leaving shortly to attend the Russian dancing show at the theatre, I nipped to the loo and when I returned there was half a brandy glass of Armenian cognac waiting for me, from the Ararat mountains I do believe. So, not wanting to appear rude I did the done thing and drank to the womens day, hoorah to women. Clink Clink.

So off I trotted merrily on my way to the theatre and watched the dancing, it was very impressive. The first half was dances from all over the world and the second was a Russian and Ukranian dance based on a story of a man who gets drunk and taken into the forest by devils and witches. Very good indeed, and there was me thinking that the Russians lacked culture.

So, with a weary head this morning I realised that it was Thursday and the dark cloud roaming above my head was there not because of the mixing of the grain last night but because Thursday means Devil Children day. Aaaargh. It was the usual fiasco of me frantically trying to stop them hurting themselves and each other while sporadically verbally throwing English words at them. We played Bingo which actually turned out to be quite a civilised affair and they even learnt and used the word 'WAIT'. Only 5 more lessons with the little buggers, that's 3 hours and 45 mins, not a minute more!