Working at home

Working at home, with help from Narimanov

Candy Cane Mountains

Monday this week was a local holiday, so we travelled to the Candy Cane Mountains which are about 1 1/2 hours from Baku. Travelling north towards Quba. On the way you pass Sumqayit which is described as an ideal location for a beach resort until the Soviets planners made it home to Azerbaijan's heavy industry (chemical factories). It once held the world record for infant mortality.

The weather was warm & sunny. They are called candy cane due to the coloured banding of the rocks. We enjoyed a picnic - before we saw the wolf !

Weekend in Dubai

At the end of November, we took a week off work and spent 3 nights in Dubai. We stayed at The Atlantis which is at the end of the palm. The view from our balcony

Dubai was a nice change from Baku, it made us realise how challenging Baku can be ... when you are living there things just become the norm. We were especially surprised by the quantity & quality of the food - there were supermarkets with more than a few tins of vegetables !

The weather was also warm, the last few weeks in Baku the weather has turned much cooler and it will be like this until the end of March when the good weather starts again.

The hotel we stayed in had a huge aquarium in the centre of the hotel, you could stay in a room with a wall looking into the aquarium for 29,000 dirhams (£5,000) per night !

Still cheaper than the rooms in this hotel !

New Additions to the family

Four weeks ago we became the 'new slaves' to two rescued kittens, who we have named Narimanov (male) and Natavan (female). We believe that they were about eight weeks old.

They both have settled in very well and spend most of their day, eating & fighting & sleeping.

Narimanov is the ligher coloured, bigger kitten. He was quite cautious when he first arrived but not any longer. Natavan is darker in colour, she was the bravest of the two.

Vets (at least ones you would trust, we have heard lots of horror stories) aren't that easy to find, most people use either the state vet (which is a 40 min drive from the centre of Baku) or the vet at the zoo. We have found a vet close to our apartment, she is from the Ukraine and was very good with them earlier this week when they got their vaccinations for the first time. Medicine for pets isn't very advanced here and it tends to be human medication from the local pharmacy given in smaller doses.