Some abstracts from e-mails that my relatives have sent me containing some interesting information about GB and comments on the photos.

We live not far from Manchester . Where we are living is a very nice place. The people are very friendly and it is very pleasant to talk to them. This morning I went with Brian to church when he rang the bells for the morning service.

For information about the UK government you may like to visit www.parliament.uk and on the left hand side you will see a link to ‘Explore Parliament’. If you go to the ‘Explore Parliament’ site you will see eXplore themes which may give you the information you are looking for. You can go direct to this site by going to http://www.explore.parliament.uk/ .
For information about Kings and Queens you may like to visit www.royal.gov.uk . At the bottom of the page click on the ‘Site map’ and you will be taken to a page which will give you access to various bits of information about the Monarchy today, the Royal Family and, further down, access to information about the various Kings and Queens in the section headed ‘HISTORY OF THE MONARCHY’.
A good place to start for information about the British climate would be www.ace.mmu.ac.uk/eae/Climate/Older/British_Climate.html
On the right hand side of that page are links to other web sites that may be of interest to you and there is also more information about various meteorological topics.

Yesterday we went to see a friend of Brian’s and all went to have lunch at a local pub. It was a very nice place in a lovely location a little further north than Huddersfield . It was on the edge of Ilkley Moor and there were some wonderful views of the surrounding countryside. If you enjoy reading the words of songs you might like to look at http://www.ilkley.org/iguide/baht.htm This is a song which is written in the way that Yorkshire people years ago used to pronounce their words. Some do still pronounce their words in a similar way – but not all! The first line means ‘Where have you been since I last saw you’!
The meal was a traditional roast lamb with lots of vegetables, roast and mashed potatoes and mint sauce. Lena also enjoyed the Yorkshire pudding which is a batter very similar to pancake batter but then cooked in the oven at a high temperature. She thought you might be interested in knowing how it is made so we are giving you the recipe below:
75g plain flour, 1 egg, 75ml milk, 50ml water, salt and freshly-milled pepper, and 2 tablespoons of beef dripping (you can use vegetable oil instead).
Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C.
Sift the flour into a bowl, make a well in the centre, break an egg into it, gradually incorporating the flour, milk, water, and seasoning. You don’t have to leave the batter to stand, so make it when you are ready. Put the oil (beef dripping) into an oblong tin (28 x 18 cm) and put in the oven. When the oil is really hot, take the tin out of the oven and put over direct heat while you pour the batter into the sizzling hot fat. Then return the tin to the oven on the highest shelf. The pudding will take about 25 – 30 minutes to rise and become crisp and golden. Serve as soon as possible as it loses its crunchiness if it has to wait around too long.
Nowadays the Yorkshire pudding is served as an accompaniment to the main roast meal but years ago it was served before the main meal. The idea was to fill the stomach so that you did not need to eat so much meat to satisfy your hunger! Lena feels that you will get a lot of pleasure if you try to cook and eat this!

We live only a few minutes drive from Huddersfield but the house is at the end of a road so there is no noise from passing traffic. We will attach a picture which shows the local area. The house where we live is marked A, and you will see that there are two woods nearby (marked B). Lena wants you to know that the trees lose their leaves in the winter and many of them fall in our garden. Brian does not like to clear them so Lena has done it!
The other day we saw a fox running close to our house. Lena says that if you tell grandmother about this you should let her know that there is no worry about rabies in England . Any domestic animal brought into the UK has to spend 6 months in quarantine so that the authorities know that the animal does not have rabies. The rule has changed slightly now because some domestic animals can have their own passport that is only issued when it is known that the animal is free from rabies.
We have a nesting box in the small back garden and the blue tits are spending lots of time already in exploring the area and visiting the box to see if they would like to make their nest there. Each year in the past blue tits have used the nesting box so we are hopeful that the same thing will happen this year too. We also have some bird food in the garden so it is nice to see the birds visit and eat this. Lena was surprised to see that we can buy so many different types of food for birds. At the moment we have a container of mixed seeds and a half coconut full of fat. Just recently we were pleased to see that a woodpecker was enjoying the fat.
Last Friday it was a sunny morning so we decided to go out for a drive. When we were some distance from home it started to snow! It was difficult to drive then because so many people left work early. Some left early because it was the end of the week and others left early because of the snow and they did not want to find they were unable to get home!

On Friday 24 March we went to York for the day. Lena wonders if you remember about the War of the Roses. She found York to be a very nice city and she remembers in particular four things from the visit. The first was the fact that we were able to walk along part of the big wall that surrounds most of the city and of course protected York many years ago. The second was our visit to the Roman Bath museum. It was very interesting to see how people lived 2000 years ago. We saw a section of the floor which was covered in small coloured tiles – some of them with very bright colours. The third was seeing the York Minster (the main church in the city) – but only from the outside.
While we were writing this Lena has remembered several other things about our visit! She remembers standing beside a very tall Roman column near the Minster. This had been found during excavations and was placed near the Minster for people to look at. She also remembers our walk through a lovely park where we were able to see the ruins of an old Abbey and then we walked along the bank of the main river that runs through York (the river Ouse). It was a chilly day when we visited so we expect to return to York on another occasion when we can, perhaps, go for a trip on one of the many pleasure boats that take tourists to see something of the local landmarks.
We are attaching two pictures that we took during our visit to York . The first was taken in the Roman Bath Museum – and yes, it is Lena posing in the picture! The second was taken of the ruined Abbey when we walked through the lovely park.
Easter is celebrated a little bit earlier here than in Russia so we went to church on Palm Sunday and Easter Day (9 and 16 April). On Palm Sunday each person received a cross made from a palm leaf – Lena will be bringing one back with her when she returns tomorrow (Wednesday). She hopes that it will not be too cold in Moscow because it is, at last, beginning to get a little bit warmer here and there are lots of flowers in the gardens to make things look so much brighter.
I am pleased that Lena has told you some interesting things about England . And I think I know the photograph you refer to when you described the buildings standing next to the river in York . I can understand your reasoning about the similarity to Venice – although I have never been there; however, I think the big difference is that people in Venice probably have direct access to the river from their buildings whereas in York people enter and leave their building from the side away from the river. But York has problems with excess water when it rains heavily. Sometimes the houses close to the river become flooded and the occupants have to move upstairs until they are rescued. Then, when the water has subsided, there is the lengthy process of making the property habitable again.
I hope all goes well with the concert and play in July. You made me smile when you explained that the boys are not brave enough to take part and so you will be a prince. That just shows how versatile an actor (as you are taking a male role!) you are. But if it helps, you may like to know that it is traditional in English pantomimes for the prince to be played by an attractive girl!

Last Monday we went to Skipton to look at a castle. It is the best preserved castle in England . At the centre of the castle (in what is called The Conduit Court) there is a yew tree that was planted by Lady Anne Clifford in 1659. We are attaching a photograph of Lena standing by this yew tree.
We tried to find out how tall was the yew tree at Skipton Castle but, sadly, we could not find any information in the booklet we purchased or on the Castle’s web site. The only information about the size of the tree is that it measures 9ft around the trunk. But, as you wrote, it is definitely a very, very tall tree – which is understandable as it was planted in 1659.


On Wednesday last week we drove to Eyam which is a small village in Derbyshire and about 40 miles from where we live in Almondbury. This village is famous because most of the inhabitants died from the plague in 1665-1666. The plague seems to have arrived when a large piece of cloth was sent from London to a local tailor in the village. The person who opened the box containing the cloth noticed that it was wet and it was hung up to dry. Researchers believe that the cloth contained some fleas which carried the plague and some of the fleas bit the man. He died soon afterwards but not before passing the plague on to others in the village. The local priest persuaded the inhabitants of the village to isolate themselves and not to leave the village. Food etc was brought to the village boundary and then collected by the inhabitants. As we walked around the village we saw many cottages with green plaques outside telling us who lived in the cottage and who had died there from the plaque. In all some 76 families were visited by the plague and 260 people – perhaps a third of the population of the village – met an awful, painful, death. Some families were wiped out completely and some left just one survivor. For example, Elizabeth Hancock buried her husband and six children in just eight days. Each corpse she dragged from her home, dug the grave and filled it herself. She herself survived. And we noticed that in many families it was the wife who survived when many other members of the family died.
As we walked round the village we went into the local church. One thing we can remember is that only one person who died from the plague was buried in the churchyard; this was the wife of the priest. Everyone else was buried as quickly as possible and near to the place where they died to try and prevent the plague from spreading. In the churchyard we saw a very old Celtic cross from the 8 th century and a sundial on the south wall of the church. We took photographs of these and copies are attached for you to see.
Although the village has a very sad past it is located in a very nice part of the countryside (known as the Derbyshire Dales in the Peak District) with lovely views around.
We are impressed that you spotted in the photograph that the numerals on the sundial clock go in an anti-clockwise direction. This is, of course, because the clock time is shown by a shadow produced by the sun – and the shadow moves from west to east.
We have not had such an exciting time here! However, we did go to Leeds for our ‘interview’ as part of the procedure for getting married. And we heard soon afterwards that all our papers are satisfactory so we are now thinking about the arrangements for the special day - Friday 25 August. It is only one month away now and that time will soon pass! On Lena ’s birthday we went to Harewood House which is a big mansion a few miles north of Leeds . The same family has lived there for 200 years since the house was built and apparently a Russian Tsar visited there at one time. Lena thinks she may be the second Russian to have visited!! :-)) Although the family still live in the house, they occupy only some of the rooms so visitors are able to look at many of the rooms on the ground floor and see some wonderful furniture and paintings etc. We also were able to visit the servants quarters situated just below ground level and see where the food was prepared in the kitchens and where the servants spent their time when they were not working hard.
In the grounds there was a large bird garden. Apart from many exotic birds there was a special place where a number of penguins were kept. They had their own swimming pool of course and we were lucky to be able to see them being fed. It was amusing to see that some of the penguins were quick to follow the keeper who was holding the supply of fish for them and then dive into the pool to eat the fish that was thrown there; while others were happy to wait for the keeper to give them the fish and so make sure that everyone had their fair share.
It was a very hot day when we were there but we enjoyed walking through the grounds and watching the ducks by a very large lake. One duck had several small baby ducks to care for but most of the ducks we saw were adults. Most of them were very tame and quite happy to be close to humans – probably because many of the visitors gave them food to eat! Part of the walk round the garden took us through a wooded area and we also were able to see a nice waterfall. We are attaching two photographs. One is a view of the lake with some pink flamingos at the edge of the water; the other is a view of the house from the back and this shows part of the formal garden.
Like you we have had some very hot weather recently. At times it has been too hot to sleep at night but it has been nice to be able to eat our evening meal outside in the garden – except when wasps and flies decide to join us!