We also played outside a lot too, apart from learning letters. Sometimes we went to the forest with the children’s centre, and sometimes with my parents.

Oh an I forgot to tell you on time in kindergarten before, I was frustrated with my teachers for not letting me sit in the san pit but only on the edge as I played. But that is unimportant.

Mighty pine tree towered above, reaching towards the sky. They scattered beautiful pinecones, seeping a fresh, cosy wooden smell. I would walk around happily with a bucket. Sometimes I would gather pinecones, but my bucket filled so fast I had to empty it and take out the best ones, then gather more, and sort through those, and so on.

Some of them fell closed, because the squirrels never took interest in them, but most were opened. Squirrel had pried them open looking for nuts. What remained was a flower like shell.

Unfortunately for us humans, these pinecones were out of our reach. Our teeth aren’t as strong as squirrel’s in that sense (although they are much bigger), and they grew high in the trees. Besides, I suppose those pinecones would taste bitter. Larger ones are fine, but those ones didn’t grow in that forest.

If you are careful with the pinecones they would last a long time. If you weren’t and bent the petals, they would become stringy at the roots and snap off. I don’t have any of those pinecones with me anymore. Writing about them makes me homesick and I regret ont seeing the value in them now. But I suppose that when I was surrounded with them it was hard to imagine their value.     To Dad, they were clutter in the house because I was constantly bringing home more.

When I walked with my parents I brought along my scooter. The footpath was constructed form thin slabs of concrete next to each other. As a result, there was a small gap between each gap, about the size of a finger. Each slab was a few steps. When I rode over the path, a got a pleasant “clickety-clack, clickety-clack” sound. I happily sang along to it, imitating the sound the path made. It was now of my favourite things about the forest.

When I was in the forest, I helped my parents distinguish between the poisonous and edible mushrooms. I got it right most of the time- if I didn’t, a few helpful people at them market pointed that out.

I can also remember a sand (and a decent number of pinecones) pit I would play in.

But this is more supposed to be about Children’s centre. I had friends over there like Надя -Nadya, Лиза- Liza, and Арсений- Arseniy. I occasionally saw them afterwards in school. Arseniy went in the same class as me. I saw Liza occasionally but don’t really remember her. I think Nadya must have given me this teddy bear I still have, because I named it after her. It is a pink ballerina teddy.

I have a happy story to tell you, though at the time it was quite overwhelming. It was with the language learning again. By now, I had learned words like green and yellow and blue and pink, and bug and chair and waiter, but abstract words are a different case.

I was playing happily, I can’t remember whether it was a hoola-hoop or skipping rope, more likely a skipping rope … anyway, I was playing. But being my clumsy self as I skipped about, I accidentally flicked it on Arseniy. I wanted to say I’m sorry, but I didn’t know how. I mumbled in English that is was sorry but there was a glass wall between us. He probably understood by my horrified face, but I didn’t realise.

Once I got home, I told Dad about how that had happened, and I had wanted to say sorry but didn’t know how. Dad was sad that that had happened to me, because not being able to say sorry is a terrible feeling. Then Dad taught me the new word- Извини- sorry. I told Arseniy soon enough, and he understood.

When I first came, everyone called me Абигаыл – Abigail. But because they weren’t used to such names, they drew out the last tone awkwardly and it sounded aggressive, ugly. I was already beginning to learn that my name was different, and I asked Mum and Dad what my Russian name was. I told them that all girl name finish with an А or Я- an “ah” or “yah”. My childlike brain absorbed these things quickly. Mum tried to think of as many Russian girl’s names as possible, running through the list in her mind- only to prove my theory right. Right now, I can say the full name always end with an “ah”, but nick-names sometimes had “yah’s”. Finding the Russian version of my name wasn’t very hard because it is in the bible and the bible had been translated into Russian, and os with that my name was Авигея. -Avigeya. Occasionally people got this mixed up and called me Абигея – and then I would wonder what is correct. But I always signed Авигея on my worksheets and everyone called me that Only old distant friends weren’t up to date on that.

Hardly anyone had that name. Its nice to have a unique name. From what I can remember only one person had that name – my art teacher in Tynda’s daughter, who I never met.

The arrival of foreigners also stirred amongst the people in Krasnoyarsk. It probably sparked the imagination of a Russian writer who wrote about Абигаиль, who lived in Krasnoyarsk, form Australia. Some parts of the story are accurate, other things she took liberties with using her imagination. I ended up with glasses like I od have, but also with red hair. Apparently, as the story travelled Dad’s red hair meant I had red hair. Anyway, its interesting how much of a splash out family brought.