Ballet And Rat Tale

Hi everybody. How are you? What’s your attitude towards Mondays? Hope my Rat Tale will cheer you up and now prepare to hear what little I have to tell you about our ballet and theatres.

We do have theatres and ballets, it’s fact. There are theatres and a ballet in Izhevsk too. The Bolshoi ballet is famous world over and you know it. Err… Now. God, how embarrassing. I have never been a big fan of either theatre or ballet. Not to the extent where you know all the important names. Here. I have said it.

But maybe there is still something interesting I can tell you about. You might know that there is a dessert called Pavlova. You might also know that it was so called in honour of Anna Pavlova, the famous Russian ballet dancer. The dessert was created by an Australian chef who described it as being airy like Pavlova. But it is not at all the only thing named after her. Chocolates, perfume, soap, special types of roses were all parts of the obsession with naming things after this ballerina. She might have made ballet look effortless but being in training for ballet is never easy and it wasn’t easy in the Imperial Ballet Boarding School she studied at. She was winning hearts all over the world and once she even gave her performance at a bullfight stadium in Mexico. She wanted to dance everywhere and for everybody. It is considered that it wasn’t her perfect technique that made her famous, but that it was her charm and ability to “live” during her performances. Is anybody reading this blog acquainted with a ballerina or a ballet dancer? If so, then you are luckier than me.

In her blog “Challenge Anastasia!!” Trudi challenged me to write a couple of paragraphs including the rat expressions/idioms she gave. Let’s see how I fared :)

… It was midnight by the time he had made it to the front door of Mr. Rabbit’s house. He knocked twice but no answer followed. He could hear parts of a lively discussion that had obviously been going on for some time. He knocked again but this time with more force. The voices suddenly hushed.
“Who is there?” asked a worried voice.
“It’s me, Mr. Badger”, he replied.
He walked in past nervous-looking Mr. Rabbit and looked around at the assembled company. There was everybody: Mr. Pine Marten, Mr. Rat and Mr. Rabbit, and they were all staring at him, aghast.
“Where on earth have you been and why are you looking like a drowned rat?!” Mr. Pine Marten was the first to react.
“I had to spend hours sitting under Mr. Wolf’s window in the rain but at least I managed to get a hold of some very important information. Apparently, Mr. Fox has got very tired of his life in The City and has decided to quit the rat race. Personally, I think that somebody ratted on him about his dark affairs downtown and now he is trying to save his hide. He is moving back to The Forest in a couple of days.”
“Oh rats! Not now when we have got lots of other things on our plate!” Mr. Pine Marten exclaimed both with fright and annoyance in his voice.
“Mr. Badger, you aren’t in the know yet but this ratbag Mrs. Owl has introduced a new law today in accordance with which all small rodents living in The Forest must give away half of their winter stock to Hares. Hares are all panicky, they say that it is all part of Mrs. Owl’s cunning plan to make them fatter to the enjoyment of other Owls, Wolves and Foxes,” said Mr. Rat.
“I agree with Hares. Now Mr. Fox’s return makes all sense. And when they knock off all the Hares they will switch to Rabbits!” said Mr. Rabbit.
“Shut up, Rabbit. We are now talking about the safety of our winter stocks!” said Mr. Pine Marten.
“Mr. Pine Marten, Mr. Rabbit is out mutual friend and his safety is just as important. We are all having are nerves on edge at the moment but it is no reason to work off your ratty mood on poor Mr. Rabbit”, Mr. Badger pointed out wisely.
“I smell a rat”, said Mr. Rabbit.
Everybody turned to face Mr. Rat, who immediately became red about his ears.
“Not that kind of rat. I think Mrs. Owl has been bribed by other Owls”, continued Mr. Rabbit.
Mr. Rat relaxed visibly. He knew that he had taken a shower this morning…

Hope you like my Rat Tale :) I quite liked making up a story with the expressions you gave, Trudi. I played them in my mind so many times that I will not forget them soon, if ever.

How was your weekend? I spent mine meeting up with my friends and my relatives. A friend of mine had a baby recently so now my friends and I spend at least one evening a week at hers enjoying her and baby Alexander’s company. So far I have only seen Alexander in three states. When he is not asleep, he is being breast-fed, when he is not being breast-fed, he is crying, when he is not crying, he is asleep. This sequence of events has been repeating itself since October when he was born. We all look forward to the time when he starts smiling, gurgling and laughing. By the way, baby Alexander is my fiancé’s namesake. Thank you for all the guesses you made; I am still smiling at how most of you think that he is the second guy from the right. Meanwhile, he is the second one from the left :)



I and my friends went skating today in the afternoon. It is a photo of me and one of my best friends, Olya. We look happy in this photograph, don’t we? In spring we will not be looking half as happy… Why do you think? First answer the question what happens to snow in spring. It goes all soggy. Then it starts to melt excessively. Then there appear brooks and puddles everywhere. And only then does everything start to bloom and blossom. The spring period I (and most normal people) like doesn’t last long and when you think “Yeah, I like this spring” you realize that it is actually summer already :)



With best wishes,

Anastasia

Trudi, below I will try to correct the sentences from my two previous blogs:

1) I was to discover later that it never was the summer’s plan to stay in the UK for the three months I was going to spend there. (I am looking forward to your explanation about this one in particular, because I am not sure I have corrected it rightly)
2) Just to name, in the UK I saw hares, squirrels (in abundance), foxes, bats, reindeer, seals and rabbits.
3) – so extremely self-conscious did I feel!
4) This photo was taken on North Uist, a Hebridean Isle of the western group of Scottish islands.
5) I haven’t taken advantage of it yet.
6) I did hear about IELTS, how many such centres are there in China?
7) My advice to you will be to come here in the summer season.
8) It is what buildings in the city centre look like.

P.S. No, Trudi, I never told you what we have in common! When I was writing my first blog, I thought you were part Russian (because of you surname) and I thought that it was what we had in common (naïve). But stay intrigued, there is bound to be something in common between us and I am working on finding out what it is.

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