Not quite Latvia! I have my oldest son to thank for the
photos this week as I keep forgetting to take my camera
On Christmas Eve, I had a surprise, Ian finally accepted my friendship request on FB. The surprise did not last long when I found out he didn't mean too and I had to explain how to unfriend me. Don't worry I'm not overly concerned. We can always send emails to each other..... errrr I mean talk to each other instead.
They wanted to see pictures of the alpacas
Usually on Christmas Eve, I decorate the apartment but not this year. I would be travelling and it would mean Ian putting all the decorations away and he's not that bothered. What he is bothered about is the Christmas food though. So instead of decorating I did the cooking. However, I didn't even try that hard with the cooking. Just enough to make it a bit special. It's hard to think of what to do when I bake so many cakes and we eat locally sourced, organic food throughout the year. Dried wild mushrooms? No problem, I have jars of the stuff. Different herb mixtures? I dry my own and use them regularly.
My helpers in the garden
I attempted croissants but they didn't work as well as normal. My arm was still aching so tried the pasta machine to make thin sheets of pastry. That bit worked all right but the croissants weren't as light and flaky as normal. They were alright and we still ate them for breakfast on Christmas day. At least I didn't have to do any cooking apart from making some Yorkshire Puddings. I also left Ian with a pile of leftovers to keep him going for a few more days before he had to start cooking for himself.
Taken on a family walk
On Christmas day I went with Ian to put cream on the animals that needed some extra TLC (tender loving care) before I went away. I also sorted out some of the things still left out in the caravan or in the greenhouse while Ian showed visitors around. We had a young couple from Riga. It was the husband's surprise treat for his alpaca-mad wife. He even blindfolded her in the car just outside of our village before they arrived, so she couldn't guess where she was. Ian took Brencis to the car for her to reach out and touch before he took the blindfold off. They promised to come back in warmer weather.
Well nearly all the grandchildren together in order of age.
One was not so happy about the idea.
On Boxing Day (2nd Christmas day) I took the early morning bus from our village to Riga so I could get to the airport to travel to the UK. It was weird to arrive in Riga with Christmas preparations still ongoing. A couple of guys were trimming the bases of Christmas trees for sale and at first I couldn't work out why, then it dawned on me that for those celebrating Orthodox Christmas (7th January) the preparations would just be underway. Since the proportion of Orthodox Christians is 26% in Latvia and most of those live in Riga it makes sense.
Opening more Christmas presents
Travel on Boxing Day is difficult in the UK and so my parents arranged to pick me up. Well I arrived but there were no parents to greet me. I sent texts and tried to phone a couple of times but got no reply. I headed for the Terminal pick up point and on the way I finally got through to my parents to find they were stuck in traffic at one of the large shopping centres. So having spent a huge amount of money on presents that might not last long, much of the population head to the sales to spend yet more money - and some people wonder why I don't live in the UK! Eventually my parents arrived and I went to their house for an overnight stay.
My youngest son and the amazing cake my
daughter made. She based it on a car that
my youngest designed and actually
went into production for introductory
level racing
The reason for leaving Ian alone for much of the Christmas period and into the New Year is that I wanted to be in the UK for one of my grandson's 7th birthday and my youngest son's partner had organised a surprise birthday present for his 30th birthday on the day after Christmas. I could spend about a week at each of my children's houses and still get to both birthdays. The surprise was a little dented in so far as we got stuck in traffic again, between my parents house and the venue for the party. We ended up nearly an hour and half late. At least we didn't spoil the initial surprise of having a party organised for him.
An evening meal with the grandchildren before their parents
went out in peace for a meal and left me to babysit them
all. They were all in bed by the time I was left alone with
them though.
This time I travelled with my older son and his family to stay at my daughter's home as we were all staying there until the New Year. My youngest son came up for a pre-arranged day that he did know about and so I was together with all my children, their partners and children - all 15 of us.
Together!
So happy New Year to you all, may this year ahead be one where we can move forward and address the many issues that have held us back and threaten our future from the last decade. May we all be bold enough to rise to the challenges of changing our societies to ones that care more for each other and the environment.
I'm not very good at planning for Christmas. It kind of sneaks up on me every year nowadays. So yes, I was finally decorating and cooking this evening, but before I did all that I had to clean and tidy. Not so easy when we are still trying to work out where to put everything. Anyway, that's just to say, there's a lot happened this week and I will get around to blogging about that later, but not tonight. I'm sure you all have much better things to do with your time anyway than read my blog.
The nearest I got to a Christmas tree this year. Not mine but at the quaint little hostel in central Uppsala
I just about made it back home for Christmas and that is a tale in itself.I arrived back in the early afternoon of Christmas Eve. I was nearly bumped onto a flight via Helsinki that would only have arrived in the evening into Riga and then another couple of hours to get home.
My chalet. It was a little chilly on the first night, but then someone put a fan heater in my room and then it was snug enough
The manor house where I had breakfast. This was very nice
This was the more spacious hostel I was in the first half of the week. It was much quieter but perhaps needing in a bit of updating. I slept better though, as I am so used to the peace and quiet these days
I could kick myself now for turning down the offer of £200 vouchers they offered as compensation to take the later flight but Ian had already set off from home and I couldn't quite catch where he was because of the general noise in the airport. I didn't think until two days later that it could have come in useful for either flying to the UK next year or flying out someone from the UK to join us.
Aggie has been worrying Ian, she has a lump on the side of her face. We will have to have the vet come out and deal with it, but it is a worry he could do with out, especially in the damp depressing days
How did Mari manage to get so mucky on the top of her head
I also didn't think until after the event that perhaps the gentlemen who didn't put up such a fuss had children to fly home to, they just seemed kind of stunned and resigned to it. I just hope that they would have put up more of a fuss if they did. I was just rather tired and wanted to get home, so I wasn't thinking straight. It does kind of dismay me that I was so thoughtless though.
It was a good job it was a quiet time of the year as it allowed me to spread my work out on the table. I needed to arrange the work I was doing in a specific order to organise my thoughts and the best way for me is to print it out and then cut up all the bits I need and arrange them
The second hostel was very Scandinavian in style, but quaint
At least the week before was wonderful. As I mentioned last week I was very well looked after, despite the closeness to Christmas and all the family preparations. I had plenty of meetings and chats with other academics in the department, which were helpful for me to clarify in my mind the way I was thinking. It is also great to hear from people on the same wavelength that the urban and rural areas need each other and need to support each other and not just think of rural areas in terms of production of agricultural products - that will kill the very industry that is needed to make the urban areas sustainable in the long-term.
A rather nice dining area and tea and coffee was free
The kitchen was very well equipped
The best meeting though was getting out into a rural area of Sweden to talk with a gentleman who is interested in seeing slow development in his village and not the addition of 200 houses, which he estimates would increase the population of the village approximately by 50% in a very short period of time. He wants slow development so there is time to assimilate the newcomers and welcome them into village life. He also feels it would be better so that the infrastructure can develop slowly to meet the new needs. The Professor and I had a few different suggestions that he liked the idea of and so I was tasked with writing a proposal for a way to help the villagers plan a way forward. It will be exciting to see where that leads. It would be nice if I can also be a part of that process.
The rooms were tiny, but big enough. I had to stand on the bed to get this photo and the desk was a drop leaf attached to the wall.
This is outside our apartment a few weeks ago, but finally managed to get the photos off my camera because I have a SSD slot on the computer and don't now have to find the cable which has been lost for weeks
I bought myself a computer on the last day. I found out that it was cheaper to get it from Sweden than in the places I looked online in the UK, which seems really odd, as Sweden always used to be far more expensive. I was worried that my 6 year old MacBook could pack up on me any time, something I could ill afford to happen when I have a thesis to write next year. Also I needed to update the software but since it was getting old and cranky I wasn't sure how well it would handle it.
It would be nice to have some snow back with some cold weather to freeze the ground better than all this mud
Ian taking the muck to the compost heap - such a cheery scene
While I did at least see some sunshine from my office window, this was Ian's view. There are some sheep somewhere in there
My MacBook was also heavy for lugging around on my travels and I just needed something lighter. I can't say I am completely enthralled by it and I it obviously is not depositing everything I want in the places I want it to, but I will get used to it in time. It does bother me though to have to buy a new gadget, I don't like the idea of buying new things, I would rather make old things work better and one day I hope we can do that. Admittedly there wouldn't have been much I could do about the weight.
Lost! Some alpacas!
Moss and lichens do kind of glow in the low light levels though
I have to say the service though in El Giganten was fabulous. The lass who served me tried her best to get me a cheaper returned computer, but unfortunately when they do a factory reset, Pages (the Mac equivalent of Word, well sort of) wasn't on it, which she wasn't aware of and I need that programme to do some of the work I do. There was quite a bit of faffing about trying to work out why it didn't have Pages on, which entailed me trundling off to the nearby IKEA to get some lunch and of course I ended up turning the wrong way and having to go part way through the store to get out. I managed it without further purchases, but it was close, I nearly spotted something to buy but managed to avert myself at the last minute.
And the moisture glistens on the end of the branches
I still find it hard to think that this is our forest.
Coming home in the afternoon of a damp and dreary Latvia meant that we have done without a Christmas tree this year. I would have gone out to our land with Ian if it had been dry, to get one but it was so miserable, it just wasn't worth it. It would have had to stay down in the basement to dry off before bringing it into the apartment and the next day while Ian was seeing to the animals I was busy cooking a goose and a dessert to take with us to a Christmas meal we had been invited to, so no time for putting up the Christmas decorations. I did get out the fairy lights though and hooked one lot to a curtain rail and twisted around some silver stars and hung up a star and baubles next to it and the other set of fairy lights were stuffed into a large vase and a star perched on the top. Not the most festive but it works and cheers the place up a bit.
It is not all neat and tidy forest, there is also a lot of swampy areas where the willow ends up in a tangled mess
Moss and wood
We thoroughly enjoyed the meal with our friends. We had our first course and then went out to the land to put the animals away, some went out for a walk and some just hung around the house. We then went back for dessert. My dessert went down very well, which was a good job as it wasn't quite how I planned it. It was a sponge layer with lemon, squash cream layer (which tastes like lemon curd), followed by a layer of raspberries and then meringue. The lemon layer took longer than I anticipated to make and so I was having a hard job putting it all together. The meringue was meanwhile slowly decreasing as it was standing around. It worked though despite the hassle of making it. I know next time to allow more time to get a thickened lemon layer, although that may have been an asset in making the slightly soggy sponge layer. At least the meringue could have done with being made later.
I think we had some visitors nibbling on the bark
Not quite Thomas the Tank Engine on the telly, but GJ and Pops
We have managed to say Happy Christmas to two of our children and their little ones. Skype is so great for that. We sat and watched one of the grandkids building his lego set while we chatted. It is funny to watch the little ones interacting with us and they seem comfortable enough with us being either on the computer or on the telly even. Not as good as being there, but at least the next best thing.
Ian has found it is easier to ply two strands of wool together on the drop spindle rather than on the spinning wheel, but then it is difficult to make it into a ball after that, so he made this gadget to hold the spindle and turn while he winds the wool up
One final comment. Heather and I managed to finalise the plans for our felting workshop for next year. We will put up details soon on our website, which is at Griezītes Alpakas and on our Facebook page. So on that note, I wish you all a Happy Christmas, what's left of it and a great New Year.
It was one of those weeks of "Is it, isn't it going to be a white Christmas?" the snow came and went, came and went again. Some mornings we would wake up to a snowy white world and the next it would be green again. Eventually though we had snow on the 23rd and it has been white ever since. Mind you, we haven't got as much snow as some of our friends in Sheffield in the UK, which is rather unusual. Still it does mean that skiing season has begun here as I spotted some folks walking around with skis in hand today. It also means that the snow clearing season has begun and the snow blower actually made it out of the barn for the first time this season, which is about as many times as it made it out of the barn all of last winter.
Ian is there somewhere
We didn't plan much for Christmas itself, apart from what we were going to eat. We decided to go for free-range pork for the dinner, aka wild boar! You can't get more free range than that! It was rather tasty done in plum juice, sage and lovage, all from the garden, with just a little balsamic vinegar, mustard and worcestershire sauce. I also roasted other vegetables from the garden, like carrots, turnips, onions, beetroot and potatoes. It was rather satisfying to sit down to our Christmas Dinner knowing that so much of it had come from either our own garden or from the local area. I followed it up with a type of tiramasu, made from home-made chocolate cake soaked in squash and raisin rum, (which we have just decanted off from last year's brewing) and coffee, layered with home-made custard and blackcurrants. We ate Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve as we were visiting neighbours on Christmas Day itself.
Beautifully labelled! Not! Quite a few bottles of squash or
squash and raisin rum and it all tastes rather nice.
When I go out to the land, I usually feed the chickens and
as Ian went out the door, he called "Don't forget to check
for eggs." I do forget sometimes! As I checked I found a
package with five twix bars in the egg laying compartment.
The clever chickens had double wrapped them and written
a lovely little note for me. Isn't that sweet!
The croissants were made once again for Christmas Day breakfast. This is an annual ritual for many years. I'm not quite sure how it all started, but it makes a change from porridge anyway. I have baked them in the morning of Christmas Day for the past two years and then we've taken them out to the land to eat. As I've already mentioned we were visiting neighbours this year. We usually collect milk on a Thursday and weren't sure if we should go up, but since most Latvians have their main celebration on Christmas Eve it wasn't a big deal to be going to pay a visit on Christmas Day itself. Our neighbours daughter was home from university too and so it was an ideal time to catch up on some news of how it had all gone. What we weren't sure about before we went though, is whether we would end up eating there, as it has been known for us to turn up and a meal prepared when we weren't expecting to be fed. As it turned out snacks were provided and we had pīrāgs (which is a kind of bread roll filled with ham and onion usually) and apple cake, just right after a large meal the previous day. We also came away with a bag of apples and more apple cake, so that will keep Ian in cake for a few days. As for the young lady at university, it was nice to find out that she is doing very well and really enjoying the work, as well as adapting well to the city.
I said he was there somewhere
Still in captivity! At least they haven't escaped just lately
We have more exciting news to announce this week, grandchild number five is on the way next year, this time around the beginning of July. It doesn't seem that long ago since we were announcing the arrival of our first two grandchildren or telling you about our adoption as grandparents by our son's fiancée's little girl. It has seemed such a rapid transition to life as a grandparent, albeit from rather a long distance. Thank goodness for Skype. It not only keeps us in touch with our grandchildren, it has helped Ian keep in touch with his elderly mother, who has not been very well just lately. It is a pity that she is afraid of computers, otherwise he could talk face to face, but she is happy enough hearing his voice. Just in case you are wondering, Ian still has brothers nearby to his mother and so we know she is well looked after by them. It is still a worry though, not quite knowing how she is. She ended up with a trip into hospital this week and we are not quite sure if she is out yet or not at the moment.
The snow might be a nuisance for Ian and adds to his chores,
but it sure looks pretty.
Looking for seeds in the sheep's hay bedding
There is no denying that I am at a certain stage of life where hot flushes are a periodic reminder of how old I am. They have been both a curse and a blessing this last week as they seem to have returned with great regularity. In some ways they are quite nice for warming up freezing toes, but as I have discovered they can be quite dangerous too at below freezing temperatures. I was out on the land with Ian and although we have the caravan, it has a lot of warming up to do before it reaches a good temperature of about 6C. When a hot flush ensues I have to start whipping off hat, gloves, scarf and opening my coat up before I start to sweat as the last thing I need when it is -8C outside is sweat freezing. I then have to wait for the flush to subside and try and judge the best time to fasten up my coat and put all the other things back on to keep me warm and toasty. So far I seem to have judged it right and I've not frozen afterwards.
This little chap seems to be spending a lot of time around
And seems rather bold
Playing with my camera again. The alpacas in the snow
using the sketch setting
In the UK a rather well know supermarket used the Christmas truce of 1914 in their advertising. It is quite remarkable that in the middle of a war, men stopped firing at each other and played football, or sang Christmas hymns to one another. It makes you wonder whose war it was? For a brief period of time, men stopped seeing each other as enemies and made connections with each other. One of the soldiers of time, Louis Barthas, said this
"Shared suffering brings hearts together, dissolves hatred and prompts sympathy among indifferent people and even enemies. Those who deny this understand nothing of human psychology. French and German soldiers looked at one another and saw that they were all equal as men."
You can read a fuller version of the story on the BBC here. It makes me wonder what could have happened if the soldiers had then decided to call a complete halt to the war. Was it possible? It is sad that not long afterwards they were shooting at each other again, after orders from above and the moment was lost. Something wondrous happens when we stop seeing people as enemies or the other. It means we can see them as people, with hopes and dreams. It is hard to see some people in that way, especially when they have carried out heinous acts. But what happens when we do see them as young men and women with distorted dreams? Dreams of a pure life with a certainty, but bought in blood? What happens when we see them as people who have grown to hate our world with its inequalities and all consuming greed? Will it help us to sit down and try our hardest to try and work out why our society spawns such hatred and try to do something about it? I hope so.
Turbjørn looking handsome in the snow
Tellus in sketch mode
Aggie and Estelle looking inquisitive.
Looking upwards into a snow covered canopy of aspens
Well New Year is nearly upon us. What will this New Year bring? People are certainly filled with uncertainty and are worried what it will bring. It is hard to hold onto hope at times, but I cannot and will not let go of it. I still have my dreams, I still have my faith. I still believe that God is into renewing this planet that he made and I will work to the best of my ability alongside him. I cannot take any certainties into the New Year, but I can take hope and that is enough. Many years ago, as I looked forward into what appeared to be an unknown future, I took encouragement from a song called "Beyond these shores" by Iona. It gave me the courage to take risks and to step out of my comfort zone. I'm not in my comfort zone at the moment, but I can still keep going based on the hope this song inspires.
I've been busy dyeing today. This pink
fleece is sat in a shallow layer of blue
This will be Ian's mother's Christmas
present. I still have time, Christmas is not
over yet!
Because it's Christmas here are a couple of videos, first our alpacas in the snow. Herkules loves to sit in the snow or even roll around in it. Unfortunately Aggie likes to roll in the hay, just look at her fleece and all the bits in it when you see our youngest alpaca. She is meant to be white and I am finding out how hard it is to clean the fleece once it is spun. Can you imagine how hard this will be.
