Pause for thought...

It's very easy to get caught up in daily life here, just like one does wherever you live.

The school run might consist of pulling a sledge along snowy tracks rather than jumping in the car and driving through the bijoux streets of Chelsea, but it's still, when all's said and done, the school run. A trip to the supermarket may involve a taxi ride along busy roads to the biggest hypermarket in Europe (more of which another time), and leaps of faith once you get there as to whether the tin of tuna you're buying is in brine or oil, or whether the bread you're purchasing is going to taste like cardboard, but you're still doing the weekly shop. Petty frustrations such as having nowhere to hang your coats or dry your laundry are solved by the same ubiquitous solution - an Ikea trip - that you might resort to back home.

But every now and again, the enormity of how our lives have changed hits me.

For example, as this morning, when I was walking through clouds of glitter as the humidity in the air was transformed by the freezing temperature into sparkling ice crystals (oh-so-pretty, but very drying for the skin, sweetie). As at the Parent Teacher Organisation (henceforth to be referred to as the PTO, because something tells me this may not be the last time I mention them) coffee morning I attended for parents new to the school, where everyone in the room introduced themselves and I was one of only 2 or 3 new parents who was an expat for the first time. Lists of previous postings as long as your arm were trotted out and nobody batted an eyelid. Or as when I climbed into a taxi with the boys and, after helping them knock their feet together to get rid of the snow (taxi drivers understandably prefer that you don't bring it in to their car with you), listened to them wish the taxi driver 'good morning' in Russian.

It's not all great, of course. I'm bored with not having curtains upstairs and having to get dressed and showered in the dark until that situation's sorted, and with not having an iron yet, which means that my already limited wardrobe is restricted to whatever doesn't look too creased. (Oh, alright; same old same old on that one, really).

I miss having my family close at hand and long conversations on the phone with my mum and my sis (although skype should sort that out). I miss the easy camaraderie and the chatty coffees with my 'mum friends' that I used to have pre-school pick-up in Baker & Spice or Paul's. I miss my girlfriends, who I've known for so long that we can use short-hand in conversation and know immediately what we're on about when we refer to the packet of chewing gum one of them always used to take with her on nights out at the student union.

I miss the ease and convenience of my London life (the supermarket round the corner, the two tube station 5 minutes walk away, the 4 Starbucks at each point of the compass, and the streets and shortcuts that I know like the back of my hand).

But all of that will still be there, waiting, when we finally head home (whenever that may be). There will be new friends, and new shared histories, to add to the old ones. Maybe I'll even manage to break myself of my addiction to Starbucks' hot chocolate.

And in the meantime I am determined to make this adventure - living in Moscow - as real as possible. Athough maybe not quite so real that we actually eat the bread that tastes like cardboard...