Brass moneys would not like the weather this week!

This is such a good exercise for me! A weekly reminder of the ups and downs of living in Romania. It was funny - I watched a TV show today showing an Englishman completely out of his usual surroundings and trying to comprehend it all by living as Romanian peasant. The funny thing being, lots would be normal (like a bunch of locals just happening to have the right axes to slash through an impenetrable jungle, just so a tourist can clamber to the top!) and lots seem less likely, like an icy cold bath in a wooden barrel with a bunch of flowers thrown in for good measure! He left with a bottle of wine (which is nice) and a severely deranged, rather large rabbit, which was oddly tolerant of everyone holding it by its ears - apart from the Brit who tried to hold it in a nicer way)... quite what the airport authorities made of it, will never be known as the credits rolled up at this point.

The weather was suppose to drop to -27C in Bucharest - a really exciting time. The shops were cleared of anything edible - even the carrots were all bought up. I came home with 2 bags of frozen carrots - pleased with my fast thinking! Only to discover 'Frozen carrots' are not real food and so my wife could not think of what to use them for... I guess bumps and bruises! The only stall open was full of rather mangy carrots, so I bought 1kg of them on the safe side! These were more appreciated than my pristine, if rather frozen carrots!

In reality it dropped to -1C and then bobbed around - nothing too cold. I did get a day off school, as I prepared for the wild weather and enjoyed playing with my son who does not expect to see much of me in the week!

I have decided it is time to take the bull by the horns, and start to write decent Romanian language children books. I am starting by writing an alphabet book, listing different common words. I have found a great open source clip art site, and so can make the books. I think that in the future, I should be able to knock out one an evening - such as Romanian words for transport etc... then hopefully build up a side income, while also learning a lot more words on my own. I am however impressed at how many words I do already know!

I am also now the proud owner of 14 Amazon Kindles at school - which is really exciting. Think of all the photocopying I now can avoid! I can now give a simple pre-loaded book to every child and hey presto, I can now fully differentiate the work. I am excited as it will make my work a lot easier. The children really enjoy this new approach - though it needs to be added the lowest groups (such as Grade 1) are my keenest converts, while the Year 6's still need to work on getting everything done a lot faster.

Another bonus of the super cold weather is my wonderful great grandmother is trapped in Bucharest for a while longer. It is nice to see her and she has had time to enjoy little Victor (who will, I am sure appear in lots of Romanian story books soon, as I am planning to also co-write a series of children stories - I write in English, my friend writes in Romanian and there will be a space where the child will draw the picture to match!). I tried the idea with my Year 3 class and it was a really great success.

This week's excitement is from Tuesday to Thursday, I will have the parents coming and watching all my lessons to see what is the difference between a Romanian lesson and a British style lesson. It basically comes down to how much writing and how much hands-on fun the children get! Both systems work - and they work really well together.

Well I am also waiting as apparently another major super cold lots of snow session is heading for Bucharest and and I needing to see if the school is open tomorrow or not.

Oh - almost forgot - for those of you following the Romanian protests... for the worst weather, they moved indoors to protest via the TV. A local news station has decided its boss should be the next president, and so has given lots of coverage to people with banners looking very cold (and I hope well paid) to stand in the freezing weather and make a protest, while the other stations have moved on and are much more interested in the severe weather and latest driving tricks.

The latest winter trick is to ask someone without the right of way to move on in their journey. When they move you ram them and demand lots of money not to go to the police and report your accident... I love my little Dacia and the last thing I can imagine is willfully ramming it for 60 to 100 pounds... apparently they got caught quite quickly as a Romanian decided to ask them to join him and go to a police station rather than pay! Bravo!

Well I will keep you informed as to how the next week unfolds. This new weekly blog has helped to push my little Romanian site back up in numbers, and so thank you, everyone!

Don't forget my "100 Ways to please a Romanian woman" is a wonderful Valentine gift!

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