I would passionately love to climb on a plane tomorrow and rush off to Moscow. I would absolutely love to spend a Russian New Year and Christmas and go play in the snow. Unfortunately, my life is woefully lacking in fairy-godmothers and this Russia project is taking an awfully long time to get off the ground.

I’m currently at the applying-for-a-visa stage. I dislike this stage. Probably not quite as much as I dislike the packing stage, but still a whole lot. In fact, I’m not quite at the applying-for-a-visa stage yet. That’s where – all things being equal – I’ll be next week. Right now, I am waiting for a letter to arrive so that I can apply for a visa. The visa application process begins, you see, with the company that is hiring me getting an official invitation letter from the Russian equivalent of the Home Affairs department. And before South Africans say ‘at least it’s not SA home affairs’, from what I’ve heard, it may as well be.

Apparently the letter has now (finally) been produced, so I’m just waiting for it to arrive. Still waiting for it to arrive. And hoping and praying that it hasn’t been ‘misplaced’ somewhere between the heart of Moscow and a small town in the Eastern Cape.

Once that eventually arrives I can do things like book a flight. I wasn’t able to before because apparently no matter what dates the company asks for, it’s a little unpredicatable what dates the Russian home affairs people will put on the letter. Once the letter gets here, I’ll be in a flat panic to get everything done and the application to the Russian Embassy so that they can (hopefully, holding thumbs) give me a visa so that I can eventually – at some point in the distant future – go to Russia. In the meantime, I’m struck by the misery of inertia. And the terrible nagging suspicion (or perhaps paranoia) that maybe this is all a pipe-dream and Russia will never come true.