Today, I am mostly...

...feeling a little bit sad that I'm not in London, to be honest.

I didn't expect it. I wish William and Kate all the best and everything, but really this whole Royal Wedding thing has pretty much washed over me.

Until today.

When I rolled up at the school with the kids in tow and saw the Principle dressed for a wedding whilst greeting the children at the main entrance to the school, I admit it all seemed a little over the top and I headed off to the supermarket without giving it a second thought.

But at a friend's house this afternoon, watching as William and Harry traveled to the cathedral, quite literally brothers in arms; seeing the crowds waving their Union Jacks and the London bobbies cheerfully shepherding them around; and anticipating the happy couple's first publicly married kiss, there's just one thought on my mind.

God, I would love to be Home right now.

Turns out I'm not dining on humbug today, after all.

Starting over...

Imagine this; you are asked to start a new blog. (Well, if I'm honest, you offer to start a new blog, but let's not split hairs). It seems like a great idea (it is a great idea) because it's simply an extension of what you do already, but here's the rub; essentially, you have to start from scratch.

Forget any rapport that you may have built up with your readers over the last 4 years or so, forget being able to take for granted that your audience knows roughly how old you and your kids are, what your cultural references are (British, Londoner, child of the 70's and 80's), and that when you call people 'sweetie' and 'darling' you are playing up to a stereotype and essentially taking the piss out of yourself - and that your readers know that.

Forget too the chance that the person reading posts on your new blog may have touched on any part of your journey from blogging as a stay at home mum struggling with the concept of not going back to work and having precious little control over their day to day routine with two small children in tow, through to being a relatively self-confident woman who knows that whilst her current job is part of what she is, it certainly isn't all she is.

And finally, forget any confidence in knowing who your readers actually are, since the new platform you'll be blogging on has precious little to do with that where your current blog lives.

OK, forgotten all that?

Then let's begin.

I've started writing a new - more Russia-centric - blog on The Moscow Times ('Russia's only English-language daily newspaper') website. You can see my first post there by clicking on the link above. It won't replace 'The Potty Diaries', but will live alongside it for as long as that's a mutually beneficial arrangement. If you choose to take a look you may recognise photographs, incidents and / or posts from the archives here (hey, I own the copyright, why not?), but there will also be unique content which I'll flag here when I post it there, in case anyone's interested.

And, can I just add? I am pretty damn proud of myself for making this happen.

(That's the self-confident woman who's busy extending her cv speaking, by the way...)

Springwatch; In which I resort to bribery to keep you coming back for more...

Go on; admit it. You thought I wasn't going to post today, didn't you? You thought, it's another week of bare earth and she's run out of things to do with lego figurines, so she's just going to bin the whole sorry experiment.

Well, I have to admit I thought about it.

But then... Look! LOOK!

What, you can't see it? It's there. There!

Oh, for Pete's sake. Click on the picture. Now can you see the new plants coming through? Amazing, isn't it?

OK, thanks for humouring me. Want to see some semi-clad army recruits that I photographed as I walked through a forest this morning, instead? You do?

Philistines, the lot of you...

(And I know you just clicked on that one too...)

The Gallery: Green

The prompt for Tara's Gallery this week was 'Green'. (Click here to see all the other wonderful entries).

Now, the snow has gone - finally - in Moscow, and the grass is growing, but I have to be honest, there isn't much in the way of green and growing things to show you just yet. Ask me to show you 'Green' next week and I expect it to be a whole different story, but right now? Not so much.

Instead then, here are two photographs I took recently on a trip to a city about 200km north of Moscow called Rostov Veliky (trans; Rostov The Great, as opposed to Rostov the not-so-great which I'm assured exists a little further away). The Kremlin there (for oh yes, Red Square doesn't have the monopoly on that word; it means 'fortress') is old and beautiful, but I'm not going to show you that this time around (been there, done that, for Silent Sunday).

So here are a couple of details - green, obviously - that caught my eye elsewhere in the town...

A tile on the side of a building, just because...

And this is where the old window frames which I photographed in glorious situ last September, go to to die... (or, to be sold on to gullible Muscovites at vastly inflated prices. Whichever happens first.)

Dear So and So - UPDATED

This post is inspired by Kat at Three Bedroom Bungalow

Dear Wills & Kate,

On behalf of all your subjects living in countries other than Great Britain, I would like to thank you for making it legal this Friday. Not because I believe the union of marriage to be any superior to any of the alternatives, (although I have to say it is, mainly because well, I'm married myself and don't want to rock the boat), but because you have given a certain expat school in far-away Moscow the opportunity to celebrate alongside you. Even if you didn't plan it that way.

Our school, which is made up of no more than 20% Brits (discounting all those Russian citizens who just happen to have British passports that is), is throwing itself into this event as if you were both honoured alumni of our establishment. Who could have foreseen that it would be a good use of the PTO's funds & organisational time to buy each and every child in the Elementary section a cookie decorated with a crown to eat precisely at the time of your wedding? Who would have known that each and every child in the entire school aged up to 18 would be given the opportunity to dress up as if they too were going to the Royal Wedding? (And bearing in mind the cultural differences in what is deemed as 'dressing up', this Friday should be an interesting day indeed, especially for the teachers in our secondary school establishment.)

What brilliance it was to create a day when wedding cake would be on sale outside the school cafeteria at break-time to raise funds for... well, actually, I have to say I had somewhat tuned out at this stage of the announcement process, so I don't actually know what for. I have to admit I'm not sure that the inclusion of a 'groom's cake' (whatever the hell that is) as an alternative to the traditional white-iced cake is something you would approve of, but I'll go with that. Despite the fact that the purist in me believes offering an alternative to the love-it or hate-it fruit cake is a bit of a cop out, but then of course other nations aren't as hardened to dried fruit as we British are...

I'm sure that the last thing you envisaged was a display outside our secondary school library in downtown Moscow featuring a somewhat dated wedding dress and morning suit, and inviting all the students to share in your nuptial celebrations, but there you go, that's just one of the wonders of our global society, I suppose. And I for one can't wait for all the students to toast you in a mixture of apple juice and sparkling water at the moment that you take your vows.

So, all the best on Friday. There's an expat population in Moscow rooting for you, that's for sure. As well as a certain blogger who is wondering if perhaps the celebrations over here might be just a little excessive...

Yours, fondly and of course reverently,

Potty Mummy

PS; Would it be too much, do you think, for me to storm the school offices after a few glasses of Pimms, dressed in full garden party attire, to commandeer the PA system to play 'God Save The Queen' whilst eating cucumber sandwiches?

Update, same evening...

Dear Wills and Kate,

OK, I admit it. I know when I'm beaten. I have just spoken to my sister and it appears that a full-scale garden-party-clad assault on the school offices just isn't up to par compared to what's going on at her elementary school. I'm sure you know all about it as no doubt similar festivities are happening at schools across the Kingdom, but just in case not here's a brief summary to warm your hearts...

Not only is there a full scale party planned (I guess on Thursday, since none of the children will be in school on Friday), but...

Names were pulled out of a hat and 1 girl and 1 boy were selected to represent you at the school. It is a complete coincidence that their names just happen to be Will and Kate in real life, apparently. Personally, if I were the mum of a disappointed Jemima and Peter, I would be asking to check the rest of the tickets to make sure no dirty tricks were being played on this one - but then perhaps I've been in Russia too long...

The lucky couple will dress up for the festivities, when (it gets better)...

...the local priest has been co-opted to 'marry' them.

One of the parents (who, arguably, might be getting a bit carried away by the whole thing) has sourced a miniature coach for the lucky pair to arrive in...(here comes the coup de grace)...

...and has also supplied 2 horse outfits for two other lucky poppets to dress up in to pull it, Wills and Kate, across the playground to their wedding destination in the school hall.

Anyone else able to top that?

A little bit of light relief...

If you live in the UK I'm sure you've seen this (as have I, sometime ago, but my father just reminded me of it). If not though, enjoy...

Silent Sunday