My husband's bank account is still in existence, and every day it exists, it is less likely that it would be cancelled. In other words - I see the light at the end of the tunnel my new shoes coming.

Birthday-related customs here are different from those in my country. For a start, in the Czech Republic, we wish each other lots of health, happiness, and so on. People here do not use similar expressions, they usually wish you happy birthday and that's that. But to do so, they use the cards. I got three already, and my birthday is not today but tomorrow!

Also, when we wish someone all the above mentioned things, we usually shake hands. People here apparently love hugging, and so they do it when wishing each other happy birthday. (We hardly ever hug each other in the Czech Republic. Or, to be more accurate, we didn't used to do so. These days, many people have seen hugging in the TV, on the internet etc., and started doing it!)

The most amazing part is that here, it appears to be ok to wish someone happy birthday in advance. In the Czech Republic, this is sometimes seen as bringing bad luck (the origin being that the elves and evil spirits learn about your birthday and start doing bad things to you), so people often don't feel comfortable doing such things. But here... no one seems disturbed.

Anyway. Few new English expressions:

• send someone on wild geese chase = send him to find and/or fetch something that the person cannot find
• it comes like buses = this familiar work related situation when one day, you do pretty much nothing, and the next day you are crazy because 2000 things need to be done right now (this comes from real life - buses here work like this, you wait for 3/4 hr and then 8 buses come at once)
• the best of a bad lot = nothing's good but of these not good things, this one is the least bad

And one thing which is a bit personal. I have realized that it's been an entire year since I've taken probably the most difficult exams in my life. It was a truly life-changing experience.