Plodding on

Ilvija is getting big now. She can rest her head on her Mum's
back. It is a good job she is so dark on her head, otherwise
it would be hard to tell them apart.

Unless I write things down I forget. It's not an age thing, it's just me. It's why I got an electronic organiser and then a palm pilot many years ago - now who remembers those? These days I just rely on my computer to remind me.  My phone wouldn't be much good as I don't always hear it - that is partly an age thing but I've always had bad hearing, so not totally age related. Anyway, that is all to say that unless I make a note of something for my blog then I might forget to write about it.  That is precisely what happened last week- I forgot to write about our movie night. Ages ago a local friend of ours suggested we go round for dinner and a movie. I kept thinking we must organise it before the nights get too short and eventually we did.

Mum and daughter

Chanel having a good scratch in the spruce tree. It's good to
see them getting out and about a bit now in the sunshine

The film we ended up watching was a thriller based on a real life hunt for a killer. It was the first time that DNA, found on two murdered girls, was used to first verify a serial killer and then find the killer. It was amazing to think that the technique was only discovered round about the time Ian and I got married. It was also at the time that Ian and I were at university and Ian would go on to work in a lab where some of the techniques discovered were being used, not to find killers but looking at markers to do with blood diseases.

Mari was also joining in

Mari sure looks happy about it.

Our car had issues again this week. Ian came home and said the car was not charging up properly and sure enough the next morning the battery had died. He managed to get it started thanks to a friend who came to jump start it, then Ian took the car to the garage and just about made it there, it certainly struggled. Some more friends of ours lent us their car that had been sitting around for a while, so at least he was mobile for the week.

An elegant look Lady V! Not!

Although even Lady V looks happy too

We got our car back on the Saturday morning, the call came just after I cancelled a trip to see someone of course. We had to make a quick decision to go and get it because we had someone coming to visit us on the farm to talk about the equipment needed for shearing, so we had to be back in time for them. The plan was that we both go to the garage and I would drive our car back. We planned to take our friend's car back later on this week when we have a bit more time to sit and chat, rather than thanks and goodbye. It was a good job we made that decision because when I got into our car the fuel gauge was rather low. It was reading 30km worth of fuel left. Ian drove in front of me and pulled off to take our friend's car to our apartment and I just sailed straight past him to get to the petrol station. He didn't know what I was doing. There was no way I was going to our apartment and risking running out of fuel. By the time I got to the petrol station the gauge was reading 12km. Phew! Fortunately he had worked out why I didn't follow him to the apartment and just hung around waiting - well I didn't hear the phone anyway. Hahaha.

An ear itch. It amazes me how flexible alpacas are, even more
so when you think that Lady V is nearly 17 and not so good
on her front legs.

Even grumpy Aggie looks happy to have a good scratch

I see the Covid19 virus is very much in the news in the UK, especially about the panic buying. When I first heard about how rapidly the virus was spreading I thought we had better get some supplies in as I haven't been keeping extras just lately. Silly not to really, especially when we live in a rural area. I know it doesn't take much for supermarket stocks to run low, as they do not carry much extra stock these days, even in the cities. I worked out a list so that we could continue to make bread that included the type of supplies that we would need over a month if necessary. It didn't amount to much because we have most of what we need from our land. We gradually built up our supplies and now I have a small box with the extras in. Yes! One small box, with oil, sugar, flour, rice, pasta and other bits and pieces. Not a trolley load of toilet rolls. What does one need with a trolley load of toilet rolls? It's a cold not diarrhoea. Also, hand sanitiser? Soap and water works just as well. Here in Latvia they are now up to 6 cases of people with the virus, all had been on holiday in Italy, so I guess it is just time before we see it appearing closer.

Sunbathing in the doorway

Oh oh! Cat's tails starting to go to seed.
Mind you we did find out that this area
is classified as an important wet
meadow area due to its diversity. Maybe
that is not such a bad thing then. 

I read an article this week about a Dane now living in the UK and how it now takes her 20 minutes to compose an email for work. She wanted to put a tag line at the end of short emails to say she wasn't being rude, she was just being Danish. It made me think today when I wrote to a colleague in Finland. Normally I would write a short introduction but couldn't think what to say, so I decided to go for the short abrupt route, after all the Finns are usually more abrupt than the Danes. They are not being rude, just to the point. So the question is when to be rude.... I mean brief and when to be polite... I mean long-winded. It is so interesting working with other cultures, it is often a blend of being me because I am still British (even if that is embarrassing these days to admit it) and working within the parameters of other cultures. Most of the time it works fine, they are a pretty tolerant bunch.

Nettles look so pretty in the frosty morning. Nettle soup soon

Flying over our land this week, not a UFO as Ian tracked it
on this plane tracker app.

I had to laugh at another article I read that spoke about UFOs. No not the flying ones, but in this case it stands for Unfinished Objects. If you are a crafter then you will understand and I am definitely an intermittent crafter, so I have plenty of UFOs. There are decorative side panels I was going to make for our curtains, unfinished felting projects, a sweatshirt with a hole in it that I was going to sew alpaca outlines on.... and so much more. I found a few yesterday when I was looking for my felting needles. Unfortunately I didn't find the felting needles so I need to add some little creatures to my list of unfinished crafting projects. One day I will finish them... or just add to the UFOs.

Frosted dandelions

Jakobs is looking very fluffy

Even he enjoys a good scratch through what is left of this
spruce tree

George enjoying a good scratch through a tree with needles
still on

Freddie working on reducing the needles.

Herkules, despite his mucky neck is looking much better this
week

As is Mr. P. In fact there has been no animal worries this
week. Well not more than the usual skin worries. Hopefully
they'll be out on the grass soon and it will be much better.