My first notebook entry for a long time! This will be my first notebook entry for a long time! I haven't written anything in English since 2014. Wow, that's a long time! So, probably, there will be a lot of mistakes. Or, maybe, not. Anyway, it will be short and clumsy. Learning English! Each time you think about this process you can imagine different activities related to building your new skills of speaking or writing things in a foreign language. Recalling old times, I did a lot of writing. Moreover, I did it quickly and on paper. But when you do not have a goal to do so, you can just don't do it for fun. That's why I'd like to start writing again. What are my other challenges? I think I should do more speaking (I'm already doing so). Nonetheless, I feel the rust in my mouth. I feel like I'm not able to say something very smoothly. I feel like I have an accent that I haven't had before. Thus, I need to do something more. The best thing that will help me to practice in pronouncing words will be to read aloud. I know this technique for a long time, yet every time I had an excuse not to do so. In other words, the time has come, I must do it. I think it really doesn't matter what you are reading. The main goal is to read aloud. So.. wish me luck!

Agatha Christie and Catherine Coulter There are no important news; maybe, except the fact that we have a cat now. Her name is Agatha, because I'm fond of Agatha Christie's detective stories. She is kind and pretty, but very much curious about everything around and tries to play with it; especially she loves my flowers. :-) Meanwhile, we are in the middle of the Hercule Poirot series. The opportunity to watch it in English means very much to me, because the series is the part of my childhood. I remember how I watched it on my grandparent's black-and-white TV every summer. I like that nothing can be hidden from Poirot, he is very attentive and mindful about every detail. When I started to write this note, I thought to write about books. :-) I'm finishing to read a detective story about George Gently and this time I've decided to read a historical romance. It's called The Duke by Catherine Coulter. The author lives in Northern California and writes about Scotland. Hm, it sounds tempting to learn will it be a truthful story or not.

A photo album with old photos I'd like to shape my little project. One day I thought that I don't really know much about my ancestors and I was upset that almost everyone passed away from the mother's line including my mother, so I decided that there is no time to wait and I should learn everything about the father's line until there are people to ask. It's how my project started. Firstly, I visited my aunts and asked everything that they know about our family. To be more precise, while I was scanning old photos I wrote down the names of people, places where a photo was taken and other details. I spent a day there and scanned almost 300 photos. To understand the situation better I must say that I'm the youngest of my family. My aunts are 74, 72 and 68 years old. They could be my grandmothers. The oldest cousin is 50 years old. Because of that, they were surprised that I can take an electronic copy of a photo, it's like a miracle for them. When they were young they could only have several photos and attach them to a paper album. Although, people have electronic cameras now and can take millions of photos. The second step was drawing a scheme of our family. I called my aunts again and asked missed details. Then I made a plan of a photo album. There should have been my grandparents, their 4 children with descendants. Moreover, our big family includes relatives of the grandmother, because she had 8 brothers and sisters. And one of them has 7 children as well. Having sorted photos for groups according to the plan, I started to make an album. It took about 3 weeks to do so, because each page should have been unique. I didn't use patterns, I did each page design with thoughtfulness. I tried to use old newspapers, certificates and official documents memorize them better. I scanned and used all hand-written inscriptions. This project really helped to understand my family better, to learn a lot and to feel the spiritual power from my relatives. I didn't know them well or I didn't know most of them at all, but now I met them. I'm going to gift this album to aunts, I hope they will be happy to show it to their friends and other family members.

Public hearings about the local cinema future I'm an active person. Thus, when I saw a paper announcement at my house entrance that there would be public hearings about the local cinema future I decided to attend it. Honestly, I really care about my neighbor and my city. I was born here, I love my city and when I have an opportunity to take part in improvements I do so. I'm glad that we have a government-made website where I can post problems of my house (I live in an apartment building). Sometimes I prefer to shut myself up for my own safety, but I always have an opinion and I'm able to say it, especially when it regards to building the honest and fair society. I'm trying to start building it from myself. I bought food for a guy when he asked me to do so and I didn't say to him anything like: "where is your parents?", "go away", because I understand that he needed help and it's better if he asks to buy him food rather than steal it. I called for ambulance several times when other people might just pass by. I was shocked that at this public hearings were mostly old people and almost none from youth. Who is watching movies at the cinema? Our local cinema theatre with a glorious name "Victory" is going to shut down, but only retired people really care about it. Moreover, the cinema theatre is the soviet-style construction that was built in 1957. It has beautiful columns and bas-reliefs. Anyway, I took part in public hearings and I believe I helped as much as I could.

The Moscow Brewery This image reminds me about the IELTS listening part where you should quickly understand the process and write the missed words. Oh, I did that so many times! Lucky me, this time it was an excursion to the brewery. Firstly, we were picked up near a metro station. It took about 20 minutes to drive to a plant. After a registration we were given a guide who told us everything about the brewery, showed almost all plant workshops, a laboratory and bottling lines. Then we were invited to taste beer. Everything was organized well. I'm always curious to learn how things work, so I felt like I was in the right place. Moreover, when we visited Ireland we thought to have a tour to the Guiness brewery, but we didn't have enough time. The most important moment of this story that the excursion was free. :) So if you are visiting Moscow and you'd like to taste local beer, you are always invited to visit the Moscow brewery. :)

Slava Polunin's Colourful Kingdoms at the Garden in Moscow This cold Sunday evening I can think only about last weekend. There was a day of Moscow, so there were huge celebrations. Moscow reached the 867-th year. It isn't a jubilee, but the last two years there were vast improvements in the Moscow people environment. We have a lot of renovated streets with beautiful lampposts and without wires above your head. We have marvelous pedestrian areas, paid parking and absolutely clean parks with benches. Thus, it was decided to show people a new beauty. Of course, there were concerts, fireworks, festivals, walking tours and carnivals. Everything was for free. By the way, the first weekend of September is the best time to visit Moscow. It's still warm and each year it's a day of Moscow. Talking about us, we spent two days at the Bauman Garden, which transformed into a magic place with Colorful Kingdoms. The author of this performance is a well-known Russian clown Slava Polinin. He did the same show in Saint-Petersburg, but people paid for entrance. In Moscow it was for free. I'm curious, whether Slava Polunin is a worldwide-known person or not. He emigrated to London at the end of 80's, won something at the Edinburgh theatre festival several times and he's living in Paris now. He is on the left on my photo. I have been to his famous Snow Show and I'd love to visit again. I like what he is doing, because I think he is a wise man. He is trying to save people from their own mind boundaries. One of the inscriptions at his Colourful Kingdoms read: "Coming back to a real world, try to save a magic inside you". This garden had an alluring attraction, because you could dress like any character, you could be another person or you could understand yourself better. Moreover, you could feel safe and warm like you were at a fairytale. I will miss Slava Polunin's heartwarming place.

3Doodler that can draw plastic models Friday post! This is a gift from my husband to our wedding anniversary. What do you present to your spouses? We like interesting devises, so this time I had a 3Doodler that can make everything from plastic. It works like a pen, you should feed it with plastic sticks and draw parts of your imaginable model. Then you can combine separate details and voila! You have a 3D model of something. Look at my Eiffel Tower! My 64-old father asked me where I bought it. :D It took me about two hours to make it. The next time I plan to make a Shukhov Tower. :)

The Concert in Moscow (Bi-2) Meanwhile, there was a free concert of a pretty popular music group. I'd like to say that I know how to be in the right place at the right time, but my friend told me about the other event that was related to this concert and I ordered a couple of tickets for me and my husband. The truth is, it was a day of celebrations for one of the Moscow universities, so there were a lot of young people. As you can see, we had good "seats". We saw everything clearly. I almost can say that this is a group of my youth, so we sang songs with singers. The sound of music and light effects were great! I really enjoyed last evening.

The Lutheran Cathedral in Moscow and Organs From all diversity of music instruments I have fidelity to wind ones. Only trumpets, saxophones, bagpipes and organs count for me. Thus, we visited an organ concert in the Lutheran Cathedral in Moscow on the last Sunday of August. It was my first time there. The Cathedral is a nice and cozy place, but I wasn't appalled by its interior after churches in England and France. Anyway, the concert was great. I guess they have the oldest organ in Moscow, it was built in the end of the 19th century. My favourite place for organ music is the International Music House in Moscow. Firstly, it isn't far from my home. And secondly, they built a special hall for organ concerts with a special care for acoustics. Yes, the organ there is new, but I rely on modern technology even more, so I don't think that old means better. I'm deeply committed to the International Music House, I love to be there. I hope nobody will condemn me that I praise modern methods of making music instruments, I believe they sound more accurate. Speaking about churches, I was really impressed by one of them in Paris. It wasn't Notre Dam de Paris, I don't know its name, we just passed it and got in. We spent there about an hour. My husband was sleeping and I was thinking. I felt a little bit devastated at that time, so this quiet place helped me to gain energy. I can say that it was a meditation. I was considering walls and ceiling and thought how many people saw them, how they lived, what problems they had and how many years ago they passed away. It is a really old dark church with zero renovation. I felt like I was in Medieval times. And it was great. I'm looking for this kind of places everywhere. It should be a calm and old place. I find them sometimes.