The Russian hiccup

How can it be Monday again already? Eh?

*sniff

However, this terrible fact is made better by the gorgeous weather and the fabulous weekend I had!

In the midst of sunny walks, BBQs and Monopoly, I also discovered something most interesting – if I speak Russian, it stops me hiccupping!

I know!!!!!

I discovered this at BBQ at Friend Who Knows Big Words' house. She's the one who married French Boy recently don’t you know.

Anyway, after nearly setting light to the fence and smoking out the entire neighbourhood, we finally sat down to a delicious supper of sausages, ribs and jerk chicken. My contribution to the event was a large couscous salad and this gave me hiccups.

Hic

Hic

Hic

Actually, it gave me hics...

After a while people started to notice, and there were numerous suggestions to drink water backwards, and various attempts to shock me – but with Friend Who Knows Big Words, very little could. Then, Tsarina, who was also at the BBQ decided to teach me the Russian cure.

Hmmm, I thought sceptically. I can't even lipread my own language well enough to get the pronunciation right sometimes, how am I gonna cope with something like Russian?

And it's fair to say that we had a few hiccups, both literally and pronunciation wise. But then, I got into the swing of it and performed this rhyme, which is about sending your hiccups away to various different places in Russia. And at the end?

Nothing!

Not a hiccup in sight!

But that's not the best thing. Nope, that was when Tsarina said my Russian pronunciation was excellent.

*blush

How extraordinary!

After discovering I speak Turkish sounding like their equivalent of an Essex wide boy, this left me beaming with pride.

Just don't ask me to remember how to do it again, please!