Hitting The Wall

I wrote this post yesterday and considered not using it today as things now seem much brighter. However, I decided to as; a) waste not want not, and b) I want this blog to record the low points of our time in Russia as well as the skating and the snow scenes...

So all the books and websites on becoming an expat tell me that I will probably hit 'the wall' around 3 months in to our relocation to Moscow. 'The Wall' that is, as in wondering what the hell I'm doing here, despairing at the fact that I am, and desperately wanting to go home.

Well, I do hate to be late for things. And since we have now been here for just under 9 weeks (I know, because I just counted back in my diary), I thought I might as well get the whole 'wall' thing over and done with at around 2pm this afternoon.

Today was never going to be a good day.

It's our first day back in Russia after a week spent at home catching up with friends and family in temperatures of over -15degC, and our next scheduled trip to do so isn't before July. (JULY!) Add to that the fact that the Potski family was tired after a 12 hour journey yesterday combined with 3 hour time difference (it doesn't seem much, but you try telling that to two small boys who's body clocks are telling them when you wake them in the dark for school that it's only 4am), that the Monday morning traffic was particularly bad today after a short week last week for the Muscovites, that the car was running out of petrol (again), and the cow on the sat nav was sulking and had stopped talking to me.

Then there was an accident I couldn't navigate around (because there is literally no other road out of little haven in Moscow) that put me an hour behind schedule on my run to pick-up Boy #2 from nursery, and the minor issue that my mobile was running out of juice (one place you really don't want to be is on the road in Moscow without access to a phone in the case of a delay, incident with the traffic police or the possibility of speaking to your son's nursery to inform that you're going to be seriously late). Toss in a little detour through Moscow's hellish one-way systems as a result of trying to be clever and then taking the wrong turn, adding yet more time onto your journey, and what do you get?

Me, whimpering on the side of the road, and unsure if I was ever going to be able to get my car out of the snow-drift I was forced to park in. (Because even Moscow's admirably efficient street-cleaning team haven't been able to completely remove the evidence of the 60cm of snow that fell in one day whilst we were away last week). I couldn't even call anyone with the last sparks of power in my mobile (other than poor Husband who had already had born the brunt of it) because I was scared that if I opened my mouth to speak all that would come out would be a long wail along the lines 'I want to go hoooommmmeeeee!'

But.

Tomorrow is another day.

All together now, repeat after me; This is An Adventure!