Snow is falling….(not)

Hello everyone!

Welcome to the last blog post of the term. As you can probably tell, we have no snow, but it does seem to be very bright today, which means that it will actually get light, which is a vast improvement on yesterday and the past few days! It has also been quite cold.

We celebrated Christmas is style last night, with our International Christmas Party, which the Vision team helped us to host. One girl said that she now wants to follow Jesus, which is great news! We had about 50 students there in total. There was a meal, a quiz, and some descriptions of what Christmas is like around the world, combined with lots of general merriment.

After the party, the girls headed up to the banya, which is a Russian sauna, but better. Basically you have the sauna part, and then you have a really cold pool to jump into, and then you go back between the two until your time runs out. You feel so clean afterwards! I made a bit of a prat of myself though, as there was also a shower in there, with another shower joined on which was a special “massage” shower. I tuned it on, to see what it was like, but I only turned one lever, which happened to be the hot one. I got out from under the scalding water in time, but then had to puzzle out how to turn it off – you could barely even see the lever through the steam… I got the ladle for pouring water onto the coals, and used that in the end, but it was a bit close really! I don’t think people are going to allow me to forget that for a while.

On Sunday night, my friend Tanya took me to see a ballet called Ondine at the Mariinski theatre – it was really amazing! I think the standard of even the little kids was even much better than anything we have in England. In the interval, we got to stand in the Tsar’s box and take some pictures. I hope we can go again sometime!

Right, I think that that is about all I can think of for the moment. I’m sure that we have done loads more, but at the moment it has escaped my mind!

I hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

lots of love

Sarah

xxxx

Last Christmas...

Hello everyone!

Today, the world seems a much better place. Mostly because there is snow on the ground, which has been all muddy and ming for the past week or two. We actually saw the sun yesterday, which was also exciting – we had shadows! It might sound strange that that is so exciting, but I don’t think we have seen the sun for about 3 weeks, and it is only properly light between 10.30 ish and about 3.00…

But enough of the complaining. The city is so beautiful when the weather is like it is now! We have had a winding down week really, as we are preparing to leave for Christmas, and for the Vision trip from England which arrives on Saturday. I will be coming home on the 22^nd December, which is very exciting. The Vision trip are coming to see what ministry and life is like here in St Petes, for people who might be preparing to come next year. We are planning an “International Christmas Party” for next Wednesday night, which the Vision team will help us to prepare for. It will be a meal with entertainment around the various courses (no turkey unfortunately), and with description of traditions in various places around the world. We are hoping that around 60 students will come, and that we will be able to share the Gospel with them during the course of the evening.

It is surprising that a place with so many lights and decorations can feel so un-Christmassy, mostly because New Year is the big thing here! But then, I did go into a shop the other day with a rendition of George Michael’s Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart playing. Except it was sung by a woman (I think) in Russian. And the words meant something completely different. But other than that it was the same.

Lots of love

Sarah

xxx

Talinn

Hello from a very bumpy coach, just back inside Russia!

Well, this has been a week and a half with a lot of travel. First we went to see the ancient town of Pskov, a 4 hour coach ride away from St Petes with a group of students, and now we are on our way back from Talinn. It is odd how much more bumpy the road is as soon as you cross the border.

Of course, that is not the only way that you can tell that you are going across – this isn’t like the civilised sleeping you can manage between France and Belgium, with the only difference being the colour of the road signs. Here, you are all turfed out of the bus, no matter whether it is 2pm or 2am, while the bus is searched. Inside a building you queue to go through border control. Then once all that is done, and you are all comfortably settled on the bus, the control on the other side get involved. Specifically to get into Estonia, a lady came on the bus, takes away your passport, and disappears with it. Thankfully she does then bring it back. Going the other way the other night, we spent 2 hours at the border, as someone didn’t have the right insurance so had to pay a “fine” of £1.50 and buy more from them there, and another girl had another problem or some kind. This time, we have gone for a record 45 mins, although we have gained 4 Russian women in border control uniform onto the bus. Not entirely sure why, but maybe they wanted a free ride.

Before you come to the conclusion that buses here have wireless internet, I’m only typing this on the bus. I will post it later. Something very exciting happened last week – we actually got the internet at home. Granted (There go those women – must have just been their lift home) we did ask for wireless internet, and were told that we wouldn’t need anything extra for it, and we have only got normal until we go and get another box, but at least we do finally have it. 3 weeks before we have to go away for Christmas…

Talinn was really beautiful. It was a huge contrast to St Petes. First, there were hills, which, resulting from being at Durham, I really miss. St Petes is as flat as a pancake. Then there were cobbles in the old town, and everything was just so clean. I love Russia to bits, but it is just so dirty – people coming to your flat wash their hands often when they arrive, even if they are not going to eat. Lots of people spoke English, which was good as we don’t speak any Estonian. Also, everywhere was decorated for Christmas, most notably the Irish pub which we went to to get an English breakfast, and also to try out their Sunday roast. That proved not to be so popular given that they had never even heard of Yorkshire puddings, and it was only going to be chicken. They also offered to give us chips with it, which we declined.

They had a Christmas market, which was full of tourists, particularly on Saturday, when we reckon the Easy Jet flight had come in… I tried on loads of hats, as I am trying to improve on the tea cosy look, but I couldn’t find any that were the right size and didn’t make me look like an idiot.

Hopefully the blog site will now be accepting photos again, so I will put a selection up. It will now be time to come back to earth, for the final 3 weeks before the Christmas break – there is still lots of hard work to do, not to mention Christmas shopping!

Lots of love

Sarah

xxx

Exciting times...

Hello everyone!
Again, the snow has nearly all melted as the temperatures have increased by a few degrees, but the river Neva and the canals are in the stages of freezing! I don’t think skating will be possible, as the ice is very rough where it freezes and then moves around as it melts…but I think that is something to ask Rachel, the rivers expert!
I hope you are all well, and not too discouraged at the speed at which time seems to passing by!
Again, we have had a fairly normal week. Jo and Aaron had a local leaders conference on Monday and Tuesday, so it was a bit strange without them, but Luke ran the training session on Tuesday, so that was alright. Discipleship coaching on Friday with Jo involved building a snowman as we had just had a blizzard – it was good fun.
Something exciting happened yesterday – one girl called J***, who is from China and is studying International Relations here prayed to ask Christ into her life. She has been coming to church for a few weeks, and we met her as a result of the SSK project as she was one of the 6 students that came to the event we held to explain the Gospel. It is really exciting!!!
This weekend, we are braving a trip to Pskov, a town about 4 hours outside of St Petersburg. We are taking some of the students (who don’t have too much work – it is getting to that time!) to go sightseeing there. We are going by bus, and leaving at 7.15am and arriving back in St Petes at 11pm. I think it will be a very long day!
Next week, we are holding a “Soul Talk”, an interactive café, where we discuss spiritual questions in literature, film, music, and art. We are hoping that about 50 students will come and be ready to listen. I will also be giving my testimony, which will be quite scary!
We are going to Talinn next weekend, to get a new visa for Jo, and to visit the city there, and go shopping for warm hats, and shoes which are more expensive in St Petes. It will be really exciting, as I have never been there before.
Right, I think that is about all I have time for today! Time to go to the university for our prayer meeting.
lots of love, and happy thanksgiving to anyone from America!
Sarah
xxx

Hello from a not so snowy anymore St Petes!

Well, the snow has mostly gone now, as it rained on Sunday, but if anything is coming out of the sky now it is usually white and it is really cold out there! Hopefully we will have some more snow soon. I met a girl yesterday who said that at 17 she was too old to make a snowman. I beg to differ there!

I was invited to a baby shower for one of the members of the Russian team on Sunday night. It was good fun, and the games there involved tasting baby food, making a potato or a banana into either a newborn baby or a pregnant woman, by decorating it with cotton wool, ribbons and paper. Our group decided to go for a woman giving birth which was very funny. We also had to make a lullaby using an existing song but changing the words. The group that won that one used Britney Spear’s “Baby one more time” and changed the words to something like “Oh baby baby, how was I supposed to know, that you would not go to sleep…” A good time was had by all!

On Saturday evening we ran an event where we explained the Gospel in 10 minutes to all the students that had said that they wanted to hear it, and also for those who had won the prize of a memory stick. Of those, 7 people showed up, and only one of them had won a memory stick. This was obviously quite disappointing, but I think that those who came really enjoyed it and were ready to listen to what we had to say to them. One of them came to the Believers Group to find out more, which is very exciting.

This week has somehow involved eating lots of sushi. Russian people love sushi, and it is also quite cheap here – one restaurant does a happy hour where you can get 2 for the price of one! I went with Jo on Friday in our discipleship coaching time, as we both like it. Then it was decided over the weekend that we would go on Monday, our day off with some of our friends from church here – Sonia and Jo. Then, we had already arranged that we would meet one of the students and go and eat sushi with her and her friend yesterday… I think if I’m not careful I will start to look like a piece of raw fish!

Right, I think that is all I have time for today, as I need to go and get some lunch!

Lots of love

Sarah

xxx

Walking in a Winter Wonderland...

Hello from a snowy St Petes!

Winter arrived right on time this week, with the first snow last Sunday morning. It is very exciting and I have turned back into an excited kid for the week. However, it is also quite cold, with temperatures around 0º (actually, the TV told us at midnight last night, i.e. 00.00 the temperature was 0.0º… Little things!)

We decided last week to take the Believers Group and their friends on a day out. We went to Tsarskoe Selo, which is one of the Imperial Palaces. We didn’t go into the palace itself, but went for a walk round the park there. It was a really beautiful day with a dusting of snow on the ground – just enough for a good snowball fight. It was quite cold, but laughing and throwing snow at each other soon warmed us up, and a good time was had by all.

Other than that, this has just been a usual week. We invited Indira and a friend over for dinner on Friday evening, then we had a mammoth session with her on Saturday – we spent 4 hours together. We started with a Bible study, then did some training, and then I went out to do some evangelism with her. We only met one girl, and we did a survey with her about love. I’m really glad we met her, as when we asked her how God shows His love for us, she started to cry because she had a friend who had died last Wednesday when some drug addict friends had spiked her drink. It was a shocking example of how the drugs culture is so prevalent here and how damaging it is to the lives of the students.

On Sunday we went to Church as normal, and then we had our usual girls pie session afterwards. Only this time, a boy called Harrison who is in our Believers Group, decided to come along too. He didn’t realise that he was the only guy until we were jus about to start eating, and then I thought he was going to leave. I think he enjoyed the session, although I think Luke may take him for lunch instead next time. It was a very interesting group, as it was the biggest that it has been yet, and of the 7 of us there, only 2 were native Russian speakers. Despite this, we worked in Russian (or mostly!)

Last night, we had another SSK follow up pizza party. We decided that the best way to follow up such a large number of people together is to run an event for them all, and share the “essence of the Bible in 10 minutes” with them all together. We are going to hold that on Saturday evening, in our Church building to give credence to the proceedings. We rang loads of students to invite them there. It was good fun. Qifeng and Indira came to help us, and were great.

Right, I am going to have to get on and learn some language!

Lots of love

Sarah

xxx

A week in St Petes

Hello there. Congratulations for making it to my blog!

It has been another busy week, but I made up for that on my day off, by not even leaving the house, and watching the last 6 episodes of Series 2 of Prison Break. Apart from Notting Hill the other day, all the films we have seen here have been on a prison/escape film. Maybe it is some sort of subliminal message??

Anyway, we made up for that on Saturday, when we managed to meet 6 students and ran a Connect Bible study (one of Agape’s resources) for another 3. I left with Jo after the session of that had finished at 8pm, to go to dinner with one of the students, but we came back at 11pm to find 2 of the 3 were still there, deep in spiritual conversations! It was great. I don’t know if we will hold a record for the longest course, as we started at about 5.30…

The clocks changed on Sunday, but it hasn’t really made much difference other than the extra hour of sleep. It is still dark a lot, and we had to go out at 8 am on Tuesday morning for our city-wide prayer time, and the sun still hadn’t come up then. The metro is insanely busy around that time in the morning. Think of crowd surfing, whilst being vertical. You are generally lifted up the steps (and if you are lucky, you don’t have someone’s elbow in your tummy) and through the doors. The trick is not to get pushed through the machines, as it means that the alarms go off and no one can get through. Someone once told me that they weren’t sure if there is enough air in the Metro for all the people in it during rush hour…

On to a less morbid subject, I decided to go to a youth group in an Orthodox church with one of the students last week. To confuse matters slightly, the name of the group is Agape. I didn’t tell them I worked for Agape (especially as in Russia it is known as Novaya Zhizn). It was very interesting. It seems that it is part of the Russian mentality that church has to be really, really long. In some churches, they have 2 sermons. Our pastor usually talks for over an hour (although that is with the translation). This group went on for 3 hours, and it basically consisted of one of the priests showing us this dvd of pictures from a trip he made to Jerusalem. Although what he was saying was very good, it was a big challenge for my Russian, and if we hadn’t been sitting where everyone could see, I think we would probably have left. It was interesting to meet them afterwards, especially as he spoke English to us (and a bit of Chinese to Dasha, the student). He was explaining to us about the history of the church itself, which was apparently a soap factory during Soviet times. I’m not sure if I will go back there myself, but I would be able to recommend the church to any Russian students who want to go to an orthodox church.

Wednesday was a really long day (even with the morning off!). We started with team prayer in the canteen at the university, and then met with a student called Ira to study the story of Jesus turning the water into wine in John 2. Then as I needed to practice my language, we went to talk to a student, getting her to listen to a text that I had learned and correct me. We stayed chatting to her for a while, and then I had to rush home to eat and get my things for a language lesson. I got a marshrutka (a sort of minibus/taxi – it follows a route, but stops wherever you want it to. They are really great) home. Jo stayed behind for another 10/15 minutes. Traffic was pretty terrible, and when I eventually got home after an hour sitting on this bus, having had it go backwards, forwards, left, right, to get round the traffic, I had 15 minutes to cook and eat and go out. I was very unimpressed to find Jo already home. Grrr. I then had a good language lesson with Anya, and then went to meet a girl called Lida in Coffee House, a café. It was finally 11.30 when I got home!

Language Error of the week

I can’t think of one for this week, although I did remember a good one from when we were at Zelenogorsk last week. They were asking everyone first thing on Sunday morning what time people had gone to bed. Unfortunately I missed one word, which meant I thought they were asking how much sleep we had had. I won the competition, thinking that I was saying I had had 6 hours sleep. People kept coming up to ask me how on earth I had managed to go to bed at the same time as them (at 2 am) but then only go to sleep at 6. The only saving factor was that Luke also thought that was what they were asking!

Right, I think that is about all I have time for this week. Enjoy the weekend!

Lots of love

Sarah

xxx

PS Some pictures from Zelonogorsk!

A very busy week!

Hello!
It is blog time again…
This week has simply raced past. We had a retreat day on Friday, which meant that we didn’t meet any students but just spent our time by ourselves in prayer and study. It was really great and useful, especially to consider where we have got to in our 7 weeks here! Then in the evening, I went to meet Kath Snelling, a lady who works in Moscow for Agape’s music ministry. It was really interesting, as I met her with some St Petersburg Conservatoire students, who are planning to start working with the students there. I found myself understanding quite a lot, despite the fact that the whole meeting was in Russian…
Then on Saturday, we took the electishka (suburban train, with wooden seats, that stops every 5 minutes and goes really slowly!) to a place called Zelonogorsk, which is in the Finish Gulf, about 1 hour from St Petes. We had 12 students from St Petes State Uni with us which was really exciting, especially as there were others there from the Polytech Uni as well. It was dark by the time we arrived at the place we were staying (after a bus ride), but the food was good, so we didn’t complain. We ate together, and then we put on our first “Soul Talk” of the year. It is in a café style format, and we show a film, a song, maybe a poem or some literature, and there are discussion questions after each one. The students here react really well to it, as they are very interested in cultural things. The theme of this one was “feelings”. It was another challenge for my Russian, as the whole thing was in Russian, but I was still managing at that point…just! We then had what is known as a “Vsolly Vecher”, or a Jolly Evening. I was organising it with Aaron, and we gave the students games to play. It was really funny, as although we started with a more conventional game where they could get to know each other, we soon moved on to a musical changing hats game (without hats as we didn’t get any before we went – we ended up using loo rolls as hats instead – the people who didn’t have a hat when the music stopped were out!), a display of a normal morning routine, where one person stands behind another and puts shaving foam on the person in front of them etc (thanks Kat – copied the idea from CU houseparty last year!), to crawling on the floor in a race where they had to blow a ping pong ball using a straw, and also wrapping people up in loo roll… All in all, they really enjoyed it, despite the fact that we committed a serious cultural error in getting people to crawl along the floor – Russian people won’t even put their bags on the floor, and the floor here is really dirty from all the dust.
After that, that was the end of the fixed entertainment for the night, although we then played Mafia until about 2 am. That was the biggest struggle on the language front, as I reckon my ability to understand or talk Russian switches off at about 11pm. By the last game I wasn’t even sure if I was alive or dead. Despite this, people still thought that I was one of the Mafia, and I continually had to defend myself!
After a poor nights sleep, in a freezing cold room with at least 10 other people, and on an almost non existent mattress, it was time to get up. Kasha (porridge) and huge scones greeted us, and then it was time for a mini film festival. We watched some short films and then discussed them together. Then we played the Big Game, which was mostly outside, with small challenges at different stations that we had to complete. Our team finished first, which was cool and I think that this was the favourite part for most people. Then it was lunch, followed by a walk to the beach, and then it was time to go home again. This time the Electrishka was packed and I was standing with some of the Russian students in the vestibule of the train. The journey was enlivened by games in Russian – great fun, although I should really learn to count properly! It was also made quite exciting by the fact that the door kept on swinging open as the train was running…luckily no one fell out!
Monday was my day off, and I met my friend Tanya to go to a souvenir market, and then for a cup of tea. Then that evening, we went for a meal with Chip and Diane, the people in England who are in charge of out team. It was great, and I haven’t eaten so much in a long time! Chip led my summer project to Krasnoyarsk last year, so it was really good to catch up. When normal conversation started to run out, we decided it would be a good idea to see who had the biggest mouth by measuring with some paper how wide we could each open…
Chip and Diane led our team meeting on Tuesday, which included picture drawing (CU Impact group eat your hearts out!), and then we headed over to campus to eat and individually meet with them. I spent the afternoon with Diane, and we met a girl called Lisa, who took us down to a market near Nevsky, via one of the orthodox Cathedrals. We had a really great spiritual conversation with her, and I will be meeting her again soon.
I think that is about all for this week – a long one I know! I’m impressed if you have made it this far.
Language error of the week: This was not one of mine, but too good to pass by – Anya, my language helper said last night that when she graduates, she will become a bachelor….
I should also mention our happy little washing machine, which beeps lots, and plays us a bit of Schubert’s Trout Quintet once it has finished!
Lots of love
Sarah
xxxx

Hello everyone!
I hope that you have all been having a good couple of weeks. Things are really busy here at the moment, although it sometimes feels a bit like we aren’t really getting anywhere.
We have now moved into our new flat. It is really great, and I am really appreciating having my own room again, and not having to move a mattress off the floor every time people come round. It was also exciting, as it meant that we had a team trip to Ikea, to buy all the things we needed, like things for the kitchen, bedding stuff, etc. It was a very interesting experience, as it was so similar to Ikea in England, except there was a lot of maths to be done to work out how much it was going to cost. And the hot dogs were only 10 roubles each, which is the equivalent of 20p each. We had lunch before we started, and then had supper when we had finished about three hours later. So in total, we had 4 hot dogs, and an ice cream each. It was a very good day! We also persuaded Luke to buy a toy ferret (can’t remember why) and we bought some plants and cacti to liven up our flat.
We used lots of the crockery and glasses we bought last night for the Believers Group, which had a record number there – there were 9 students, 7 of whom are Christians. The other two are very interested, and I think they enjoyed it. The good thing, is that I don’t think we could have fitted everyone into the old flat comfortably. We seem to be growing week by week, which is awesome!
We haven’t had a lot of time this week to follow up the SSK diaries, but we are hoping to do some more there over the next week. So far we have had five meetings, which have all been with students ready to listen to what we have to say, and to have questions. We will be having a follow up Connect course (a bit like Alpha) for anyone who will be interested in that.
I have also been meeting with some of the students after church – we go to this café which sells amazing pies! (although they had sold out of the nicest one this week – annoying!) There is one Korean girl who is already a Christian, and another girl who is Chinese who became a Christian last summer. Last week we were joined by another girl, who isn’t a Christian but has loads of questions for us. It was a really great opportunity to share the Gospel with her and also some of our testimonies. We also managed to talk a bit about assurance of salvation, which is always good to hear. I think we will try to do that every week. It is great for my Russian, as I don’t speak either Korean or Mandarin!
I’m trying to take as many opportunities as I can to speak Russian, although sometimes I give up – it is so hard! I did make a friend in the cake shop a couple of weeks back, when I went in to get a cake for the Believers Group, and she wanted to practise her English. One marshrut (minibus type bus – they stop anywhere you want them to, and cost 30p to go anywhere!) driver thought that I was Finnish for some reason, and Anya my language helper helped me to say my ‘r’ s properly, although we discovered I can’t say my ‘l’s at all. And I say ‘law’ wrong in English. Hmmm.
Tonight we are having lots of people round to watch England beat Russia at football. Should be great fun, plus there will be lasagne and snacks! Luke has a new housemate called Chi-Chi, who is a Nigerian professional footballer. He is in St Petes to learn Russian before he goes to play for Dynamo in Moscow. I think he will be coming too, so it could be interesting.
Right, I think I had better go and learn some Russian!
lots of love
Sarah
xxx

PS I should have posted this one yesterday, then I wouldn't have to retract my words about winning against Russia. We tried to be inconspicuous to the room full of Russian boys, when they won!

A month already???

Hello from St Petes! I am suprised that it seems I have been here for a month already - it feels on one hand like I have been here for ages, but on the other hand like no time at all! The city itself still feels really enormous, and I'm not sure if I really know my way around yet at all, but it is really starting to feel like home. It is starting to get easier to talk to the people (although English is a very useful language!). I have made some friends, including a lady at the supermarket cake counter.

We took some of the students to a small town near the Finnish border called Vyborg last Saturday. We had a really great day there, even though we had to sit on hard wooden seats on a train for 2 1/2 hours to get there and back... It was a lovely autumn day there, complete with dry leaves on the ground to slosh through. We first went to the zamok, or fortress, which had amazing views from the top of the tower.

After that, we went for the obligatory blini (pancakes) in a cafe, and then went for a walk in a park, which was really beautiful. It was called Monrepo, a transliteration of the French Mon Repos, or my rest, and it was by a lake. The colours were all amazing!

The ministry side of things is really starting to pick up now, with appointments from our diary project starting to be made and happen. So far, I have arranged 4 appointments, made lots of phonecalls, and been sworn at once. It was very funny, as I had no idea what had been said, but when I asked Indira I was told to never say it again! Unfortunately, not everyone wants to hear what we have to say, but then we are only ringing and arranging to meet those who have said that they do want to hear the message of the Bible in 10 minutes.

Language Error of the week:

Well, this one is slightly embarassing, but when we have been handing out our student planners, we have been lending pens and pencils to the students. I realised only the other day that rather than asking for the "ruchka" (pen), I was asking instead for the "rubashka" (shirt). And no one told me!

Right, I think it is now time for me to go to bed, as Saturday is another work day for us, with Monday as our day off. We would normally have our team Bible Study followed by prayer time, but as Aaron and Jo are both away (Aaron in Finland, trying to sort his visa out, and Jo away at the church retreat they were both supposed to be on) we are meeting later just for the prayer part. And we still have about 40 diaries to hand out!

Lots of love

Sarah

xxx

Hello

Well, I have now been here in St Petes for nearly 3 weeks, and it feels like we have done loads! So far, we have handed out nearly 2000 student diaries with a questionnaire attached, found accommodation (but not yet moved), re-started the Believers Group, been bowling with the Russian team who work at a different university here in St Petes, and been camping! We have also managed to squeeze in almost the whole of series 1 of Prison Break, Chicken Run, and The Fugitive. Spot the theme!

The place we went camping was near a village called Gromovo. We all had a really great time, although the weather was poor to say the least. The high water mark from the lake was also pink, but that didnt stop us! We originally decided that if we couldn't start a fire, we wouldn't stay the night, but we managed to find some dry wood, and cooked some really good food. Russians are very into meat, and have kebabs called shashliki fairly often. They are good when they are done over a fire!

Our team here consists of our leaders, Aaron and Jo, a guy called Luke and me. We are small but powerful! Here are Aaron and Jo:

And this is Luke!

Then we have Indirra, who is one of the key students that lead our Believer's group, and who me and Jo will be discipling this year.

The other leader of the Belivers Group is Boris. He is in his final year of a degree in Business.

Hello everyone!

Welcome to my new blog. I will be updating this properly soon!

lots of love
Sarah