Summer is here?

My wife informs me that in northern climates, when the temperature is consistently above 20 degrees the weather is referred to as "Summer". Well, then I am really enjoying the start of Summer and will have to find some sort of opportunity to get the cricket bat out. It's a shame that I don't even know any British people here to play with. let alone an Australian.

I started a bit of a guessing game about the shower strike. It seems my ruse was uncovered very quickly by a reader that used to live in Russia! I am wondering though, were the rest of you even slightly curious, or has my life become way too boring for you now?

Every Summer the hot water is turned off for maintenance. I'm not exactly sure what they get up to, but the hot water will be off for ten days. The cold water is still kind of icy cold, so I won't be taking any cold showers. When I start to stink a bit then I will heat up some water in the kettle... Russians don't seem to mind. They can head out to their Summer houses (Dachas) and fire up the Banya (sauna) and get themselves thoroughly clean. We foreigners don't have that luxury. I haven't had a Banya in 6 months and I feel way overdue. It's an important part of life in Russia.

We did some more research for tickets yesterday and it seems we may have a solution for Yura's tight travel schedule to get him to his festival on time on June 25th. It will depend on some cancellations working properly and forking out a little more cash, but hopefully it should work.

Here's some more down town shots. Krasnoyarsk in the Summer: