Flying home for Christmas

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.

What a week!

This was just over a week ago, just to show you we did
have some lovely spring like weather. Our girls enjoying
the sun

 I gave a short presentation about my PhD studies to my fellow classmates this week, since it is one of the requirements of the course. There is a very short time for questions afterwards and one young man asked what I meant by the term "robust communities"which is what I would like to see as a result of my studies. It was a fair question, because it is a difficult term to measure and who am I to say what is "robust", but I answered him that I felt it was the ability of a village or community to adapt to outside shocks, like a banking crisis I suppose. Anyway he then got into a discussion on why doesn't everyone move to the towns anyway, as their career prospects would be better. I was a little incredulous at this point and asked him where he thought the food would come from to feed people, to which he commented that they could then use machines in the countryside. Face palm moment I think! Fortunately at this point the lecturer said we had to move on and we could fight it out later if we wanted to. I do wonder though if he thinks that isolated individuals communing only with their machines is a sustainable and ethical way to produce food, sounds like a dystopian vision to me, especially when so many people actually want to live in the countryside for a better way of life.

Who took the grass?

A rather damp looking Veronica. At least Alicia our old
alpaca has the sense to stay indoors in this weather. She is
also sounding a lot better than last week, but still not quite
fit and healthy yet.

There was much discussion about "our friendly neighbours" in the class this week too, as obviously the Ukraine/Russian situation has some of my Estonian classmates a little on edge. The discussion arose after one of the students was talking about Soviet history - should it be kept or obliterated, which is the theme of her PhD. It is an important question when memories are still raw, but should all signs of the past be obliterated, even if they are not pleasant? It isn't really possible anyway, otherwise there would have to be a massive rebuilding programme, as so many people live in Soviet era apartments. Still it is a debate worth talking about to decide how much and what to keep. I did worry though how a Russian classmate felt in that class. I have no idea where his sentiments lie, but he is a gentle soul and not a brash kind of guy, probably more concerned with his studies than politics anyway.

At least the sheep have the good protection of lanolin in
their coats to keep out the damp

I had lunch with the lecturer's wife, after the class. It is not the best time of year to come to Estonia from sunny Colorado, because in common with many more northerly countries, people tend to hibernate in winter and so it can be difficult to get to know folks. In summer time though it is quite a contrast and it is as if people go hyper, although perhaps still not as friendly as those in Colorado. Mind you I think there was a tendency for superficial friendliness in Colorado that annoyed me at times when I lived there. I don't mind being friendly with people, but a friend I think is something different, but I guess that's me being all northern. I hasten to add, I did make some very good friends while I was there and do recall my time there with a certain amount of fondness. It is funny chatting though about things we both knew since we used to lived so close to each other at one time, only 50 miles away. Not far in American terms and we had visited Boulder where they are from.

The chickens have the right idea. Taking shelter in the boys
feeder. They have been getting through a lot of hay just
lately. They have been eating more than the girls, who we
expect to eat more since two of them are expecting

I also had a another meeting in Riga this week and I had a great time once again. The meeting was with two guys who help and support rural local organisations and we chatted about a few different things. They are interested in new methods to help local people and we had a real backwards and forwards discussion on different aspects of the topic. I think we all felt like we learnt something from it. It did kind of feel like this is what all my studying had been for. I was also able to send some ideas there way in terms of websites that I have come across before, that I thought might be useful. We also arranged to do a study where I help to assess how well the local organisations are doing, assessing what makes them a success. There is such a need to look at what helps people to be active in their communities and to see if there are any common threads in Latvia. I am going to organise what happens during the study and write a report afterwards, which basically means just working out a way to find out what I want to know and they will help with transport and translate. I think that is what is called a win-win situation.

Our girls having a bit of an argument. They do regularly
spit at each other, when they feel the other one is getting
too close, but usually never at us. Veronica though, does
have a tendency to spit more readily, but she is
usually much better behaved these days

After a long day of travelling and the meeting it was nice to come home to a neat and tidy place. I wondered what had motivated Ian to tidy up, after all he works hard out on the land most days, it was then that he reminded me we had visitors coming the next day. Whoops! Slipped my mind a bit. Still I think we should have visitors more often, our home might be tidier. Our visitors were the people who organised the Latvian camelid society at Raksi. They came to see our alpacas and see what kind of a set up we had. One of the guys is very used to handling alpacas, but unfortunately one of our alpacas was not used to being handled by him. He took some feed and managed to catch Veronica around the neck quite easily, but Veronica does have a tendency to spit sometimes, especially if she doesn't like something and she wasn't impressed at being grabbed around the neck. She spat a great dollop of green, good and proper, right over one of our guests fluorescent yellow jacket. We did warn them to watch for her. Apparently their alpacas don't spit quite so far if they do spit, or as impressively.

Finally the chickens are getting into the swing of egg
laying. Not all of them yet, and today we got 9 eggs, but
we have 20 hens. The large egg on the right is enormous,
but you wouldn't guess which chicken laid it - not exactly
one of the biggest build. 

It has been quite spring like this week, butterflies have been appearing, geese flying north, swans circling around looking for lakes, eggs in the incubator and Sofie our cat got her first tic of the year (what is it with that cat, she seems like a tic magnet). It was all to lull us into a false sense of security though, as we now have more snow than we've had all winter, we easily have about 20cm. That isn't much compared to previous winters, but not what we really wanted now when Spring seemed to have arrived and the promise of green grass not too far away. Ian isn't too happy, as the ground was getting quite dry and he was thinking of getting on with the extension for the ladies alpaca house, in preparation for the new arrivals at the end of May or beginning of June. At least, he did say he has managed to get far more done this winter than he thought he might be able to, due to the mild winter we've had.

Ian's double sided doorlock. We can now open both
greenhouse doors from the inside or the outside and don't
have to walk all the way around when we forget which exit
we used.

I have to mention the passing of Tony Benn, he was a member of Parliament for Chesterfield when we lived just north of that town. He wasn't our MP though. I didn't agree with his politics all the time, but I always felt he was a man of integrity, which is more than can be said for many MPs, unfortunately. There are not many MPs that would give up a life peerage in order to serve the people, which is a route he took. He was born into privilege, but decided to give up some of that privilege for the sake of others and for that he has my admiration. I will finish with a very apt quote from him

"This idea that politics is all about charisma and spin is rubbish," he said. " It is trust that matters."

Action packed week

I planted these miniature daffodils near the large oak tree on
our land. They were the first things we did on the land. I
love seeing swathes of daffodils in spring so hopefully
one day there will be a whole bank of them

Can't believe I have packed so much into this week but it has been lovely. We've had lovely weather too which is wonderful after the snow and we have had plenty of new experiences. Tuesday saw us in Riga as I had managed to get a placement visit to meet someone at the ministry of agriculture who was responsible for forestry. Last week I mentioned how happy I was to get this placement as it now only means I have one day left to organise, and joy of joys I have that one organised too, for this next week. I have been trying to work on getting placements for a unit of my course since September, but weddings, busy people and sickness all got in the way. The ministry visit was certainly interesting and I was encouraged that the skills I have been learning on my course, are necessary skills for Latvia. The people in the forestry division are trained in forestry, but see the need for development and, although they have picked up ideas as they have visited other places, they are not very sure how it should all fit together. I am coming at forestry from a different angle altogether, as I am looking at how it fits into the overall scheme of rural development, so my knowledge of forests is not so good but I can see what they are trying to do and have some ideas of what steps need to be taken. Unfortunately they haven't offered me a job yet but I think the lack of Latvian would still hinder me somewhat.

Surrounded by Macs! Ian making sure they
are all working and transferring data

We can't go into Riga and not fit in a few other jobs at the same time, so our car went in for its 60,000 Km service and we picked up the computers from the repair centre- finally! What a saga! At least I don't hear quite so many tuts and sighs from across the room now, as the old computer is once again relegated to purely playing internet radio until if finally gives up the ghost! We also bought a new flask, not very exciting you might think but in this household it is an essential household item; the reason being we drink tea by the gallon. A flask means we don't have to boil the kettle so often and we can take out plenty of tea with us when we go to the land. We haven't had much luck with flasks just lately though as Ian has got through three of them in the last year, one broke when it fell out of the car, one exploded when hot water was poured in and one just wouldn't keep the heat. He was beginning to despair of ever finding a good one when we came across a Stanley flask, the indestructible, keep things hot thermos flask. It had better be for the price it cost. Pricey! Definitely! So it had better last a lifetime. So far it is certainly living up to expectations as the tea is now too hot to drink straight out of the flask and that is all day.

Not sure what these are as we haven't seen them before
but there is a carpet of them under one of the oak trees

We have been into the school again to help with English lessons and I must admit it is all a bit confusing when it comes to trying to help the students understand what they are supposed to be doing for their exams, which are only next week. I think the style of exam is perhaps quite simple in some ways just not straightforward. To my mind it was all back to front as the teacher had a set of answers to questions and the students had to make up the questions. For instance the student would be told that they had to ask a question to do with reasons for moving to Latvia and the teacher had to answer with "I moved for a better environment for my children" but the student doesn't know the teacher has to say that, you could imagine the confusion if they don't ask the question in the right way to get the right answer. We also found out that the exams are assessed internally and then they all go to the education ministry to be assessed again. That is someone has to listen to all the students who graduate this year from the whole of Latvia! Not just a selection to make sure the assessors agree, but each and everyone. We were astounded at this method, it is no wonder it takes so long and people complain each year. We said that it would be better to have perhaps just one in ten selected to make sure that the assessors agree and only if there is a discrepancy would all students be re-assessed, which the head thought was rather a good idea and might suggest it. Not exactly a novel idea really as I think that is pretty much what happens in the UK.

A lizard out on the land

The head mentioned there was a meeting of the local inhabitants and said if I wanted to go she would translate for me so I didn't pass up the chance. The meeting was run by a consultancy firm as the district authorities try and find out what the local community want to see in terms of development. I must admit to seeing a demonstration of how not to initiate community meetings as I saw in development speak the 'capture by a local business elite', in other words someone not afraid to voice their own opinions and takeover a meeting, several people got fed up and walked out. It is really hard for the consultants as they have to give room for people to speak but they also need to pick up very quickly those who would seek to dominate the agenda for their own ends. For some reason as well, the month of June has been picked as the month to carry out surveys of 300 inhabitants, as the schools finish at the end of May, June is therefore a holiday month and perhaps not the best time for surveys. They would perhaps have more access to those who take the time to return for the very Latvian festival of Jani but then they wouldn't be folks who live here 12 months of the year. It would be funny if they picked us in their random sample to survey though.

The wrappings came off this week. I would have shown
you a picture of them without their winter clothes but
they don't show up being all twig like. The good news
 is that they have survived well and just about all of them
are beginning to burst their buds

It has been a hard week trying to get my assignment done with so much else going on but I did make it in the end. I even had problems on clear days as one neighbour decided to start on some renovations above the apartment where I usually work because it is so peaceful and quiet and at the other apartment I got interrupted by someone trying to sell me pans - Latvian in full flow. The only door to door salespeople we usually get are trying to sell potatoes, so this was a bit of a change. To cap it all one of our young neighbours is still having his all night parties and I went round twice in one night to tell him to turn off his music, 2am and 4am. The second time I walked straight in and made my feelings known which I think he probably found rather embarrassing, but I was not in the mood for being polite. The next couple of nights we decided to sleep at the other apartment, so I was well rested to get my assignment done, and it was bliss as we even managed to sleep in till 8am one morning- quite late for us. This was the first time we had actually slept at the other apartment ourselves.

Wood anemone 

This week one of our neighbours came up to us with another lady and started chatting away to me. I managed to understand that she was wondering if we would give up some of our allotment as this new lady had only just moved in late last year and wanted to grow something this year. We have more than enough space to grow things, especially now we have extended our electric fence to grow vegetables on the land too, so it wasn't really a problem, I just had to move some lavender that was growing in the section at the bottom. The lady has spent all week digging the garden over since, which won't have been too bad as Ian had dug it over thoroughly before, but she will just have finished when Ian takes the rotavator to do ours, which will not take him very long. Seems a bit of a cheat but we haven't got time to manage the land and dig over the veg gardens properly and we haven't really sorted out a bed system for it yet anyway so we can reduce the amount of digging we do. To manage all that we have to manage and for me to study, we have to cheat every now and again. Does feel a bit odd though having spent the time digging it over for someone else to benefit, but it feels right, she even gets the two year old strawberries too, as I had taken plenty of runners off them last year and we have two beds of them elsewhere, and I am sure that will be enough to be going on with.

Our extended electric fence so that we can keep the deer
and wild boar off our vegetables as well as out of our orchard

Had a really lovely Easter weekend. It was my birthday on the Friday and so I decided to take the day off and go and help Ian out on the land. It was a beautiful day and Ian rotavated the new veg plot and I raked mole hills. Moles and voles seem to have taken over Latvia this year and their hills and runs are everywhere, which won't make mowing the grass we keep short very easy at all and so I flattened as many of them as I could and filled in a few of the runs. Might not seem like the ideal birthday treat but it was just lovely to be outside doing something physical rather than sat inside using my brain. We did finish off the day with a visit to the local hotel for a meal and had the obligatory birthday treat of hot french chocolate cake, which has a gooey chocolate filling, so it wasn't all hard work. The next couple of days we had meals out at friends' houses. The first meal was with the neighbours to our land at some of other friends farm, our neighbours however had never been to the farm, or so they thought, and so they followed us out. Felt sorry for them as following anyone at this time of the year is like trying to drive through a sandstorm on the dirt roads, but we all made it safe and sound and it was then we found out that our neighbour had been before, in fact she used to be a vet at the kolkhoz where our friends farm is now. A kolkhoz was the name for the Soviet collective farms.

We were taken to see this lovely wooden chapel built in the
forest. It is next to a cemetery too, Latvians spend a lot of
time tending the plots and keeping them neat and tidy but
also very natural too, almost always up on a hill and
usually amongst a woodland.

The second visit was to see a couple who kind of live in Scotland, at least part time anyway, one of them is a professor in an Estonian university and so spends much of his time there but they also have had a house in Latvia for ten years, where they spend many holidays. I got to know them after making contact with the Estonian professor as he has written some of the few papers written about Latvians in Latvia and how they feel about their environment, so I wrote to him as I could tell he was not Latvian to see what his experiences of Latvia were and we have kept in contact since. We were invited for Easter Sunday lunch and so we had a beef stew - partly because Latvians don't really have beef joints for roasting and in fact rarely have beef at all and we had those with Yorkshire puddings. It is so long since we have had Yorkshire puddings, in fact we only seem to have them if we are making a traditional English meal for someone and so a wonderful meal and followed by apple and banana crumble - just so English. To round off this lovely weekend and to celebrate finally finishing my assignment and posting it I went out to the land again and this time we collected large stones (the ones that catch on the mower and don't do it much good) and filled in pig holes with some of the piles of soil we have lying around. The problem with the pig holes is they are rather deep and can tip the tractor if your not careful.

Taken on the 4th April

Taken on the 25th April, amazing
what difference a few days makes

Well I shall finish off with a follow up to something I felt God say last week "Wait and see what the Lord will do," funnily enough I had an email where I was offered $12.5m this week and it made me laugh after what I felt God say last week, but I thought I would not write back and claim it, not quite that daft. We did though get some Lampreys - the food of kings. I have cooked them and frozen them as we have not had chance to eat any yet with being out so much. I do promise not to eat them all at once though as I believe that it is not healthy since a couple of Kings are supposed to have passed away after eating a few too many. Another surprise was an email for Ian asking for some help concerning flow cytometer usage, the machine he uses for diagnosing leukaemia. The lady he helps in the hospital passed on his name to someone doing research from the university, not quite the same field, but he did manage to find her the right information to help her. Not sure if that will go anywhere but you never know.