A lovely time

Our family with my parents.

I'm not sorry the blog is late again this week, we had a really wonderful time with our family in the UK. Earlier on this year our youngest son surprised us with an offer to pay for tickets to fly to the UK for a long weekend, as birthday presents for us both (okay mine was in April but we won't quibble about that). He knows it is a little bit difficult for us to take a great deal of time off together to see family and our family have trouble getting across to see us, so a long weekend seemed like the best option. He also arranged with our daughter for the family to meet up at her house and he made sure that Ian's brothers, their wives and my parents knew about it too. I think the general consensus was that it was lovely to see each other for a happy occasion, rather than a funeral as seems to be the case more recently.

It is damp in the mornings now

A dew covered dandelion head looking like a diamond
encrusted flower

Before the weekend we were pottering about doing the usual tasks around the farm. There are so many harvesting jobs to do and we wanted to get many done before the weekend away and some possible rain. We celebrated Ian's birthday on Tuesday by digging up potatoes and then going to the hotel for a meal. We were dismayed though that there was no hot French Chocolate cake, which is one of Ian's favourite desserts. He had to make do with an enormous bowl of ice-cream instead.

Most of the tomatoes are now harvested. The
Amaranth seed on the left has been sieved and sifted
a bit. The bright red berries are the raspberries and
the bucket on the right is hemp seed for eating
through the winter. There is little point in keeping any
for sowing next year, it will have seeded itself all
over the plot anyway.

Our autumn raspberries this year have been a roaring success. Last year we only had a few raspberries before a hard frost then finished them off. This year we have had at least three bucketfuls already and there are still lots to come and no forecasts of frosts yet. The first ones were sweet but the last ones are not as nice, but they will be fine dried and in cakes. We are also still harvesting the green grapes so we are really going to miss the fresh fruit on our breakfast when the frosts come and finish them all off. We've been having fruit on our breakfasts straight off the bush or the vine since late June.

Playing nicely 

Posing for the camera

Grandad and granddaughter reading a book about our farm
that we gave to her one Christmas

On Friday we got to the UK and then had a mad dash through the traffic to see our oldest granddaughter come out of school. It is only a little thing in so many ways, but not one we get to do often, so worth the effort. I had to squeeze into the back of our son's rather small car. (don't ask what it is, I didn't take notes and I'm useless with makes of cars). The front seats are fine, but even I struggled with head room and knee room in the back and I'm only around 5ft (152cm) tall. The advantage though is that I could put my knees on the seat in front and snooze.

Our youngest son's partner, our daughter's youngest son,
our oldest son's youngest daughter and our youngest son's
partner's daughter in the background. Got all that? 

We were treated well and had Fish and Chips for tea (dinner!) our normal treat when we are in the UK. I was good and only had a very small handful of chips but nearly the whole fish, so was rather relieved that it didn't have a disastrous effect on my blood sugar. I would have been heartbroken if it had. The full English breakfast the following morning was good and our son even nipped out in the morning to get supplies in for that. We went out for cake and coffee at a nice little cafe on a street that had quite a few such places but it felt rather weird sitting there feeling quite foreign somehow. England in some ways feels like a different country to the one we left, or maybe we have just become quite comfortable on mainland Europe that England just feels different. It's hard to explain in some ways.  We did realise after a while though that we were not sat on the sunny side of the street and that was probably why the cafe we were in was quieter than the one across the road that morning though.

A strawberry offering from our youngest granddaughter

Our oldest grandson (son of our oldest son)

In the evening we had dinner with our son's partner's father. We had met before but not actually sat down with him to eat and chat. It was a very entertaining evening and nice to find out a bit more about Chile where he comes from. We had something in common as he had studied sociology in his younger years and so we could discuss the type of topics that you wouldn't normally chat about around the table or at least from that kind of perspective.

The dolls house is mine that was made for me when I was a
child by my Nan's neighbour

The morning of the family get together our son made pancakes for breakfast. Not bad for someone who didn't really do much cooking at home and when he did it was beautifully arranged but cold. Fortunately the pancakes weren't cold. Our trip up was not as eventful as our other son's the night before. He arrived with his small family at 11:30pm after a hold up on one of the motorways after a crash. On our way from the airport the few days before there was an enormous hold up due to another crash. Folks had got out of their cars and were striking up conversations with fellow travellers, it was that long a delay. I really do hate the traffic in the UK and is often something we mention when people ask if we would move back.

Two of our grandchildren playing with our great, great niece,
who were delighted to see and had invited herself.

Anyway, fortunately everyone arrived safely and we sat around and ate, talked and cuddled babies. A perfect type of day for me. One of Ian's cousins also popped in for a short while, since he was in the area. The little ones were really good and played well together. If they argued at all it was short-lived and heartening to see them getting on so well.

It looks like the youngest too are weighing up who has the
best vehicle. They are cute, at least I think so.

To finish off we took our oldest granddaughter off to school and then decided that rather than risk any more hold ups on the way to the airport we would set off early. We had a tour around Cambridgeshire, avoiding heavy traffic and had lunch not far from the airport. Quite relaxed and uneventful for our trip home. Unfortunately for us in Latvia we clipped a small deer that ran out in front of us. It did get up though and shakily went on its way. We also had an unexpected trip down memory lane as we had to take a route back home that we haven't used in years since they asphalted the road to Riga. One of the river bridges was closed to traffic overnight and so we had to take a detour. Still at least there wasn't the congestion like in the UK, although we sometimes think there are more cars on the roads late at night in rural areas than during the day.

From somewhere

A frosty morning in Tartu

What a week! Now let me get this straight, I'm in Estonia, it's 8:33pm at night on a Monday and therefore blog night. Right I think I have that all in order now. Can you tell it's been one of those weeks? It started off on Tuesday with one of those freezing cold days where the wind blows through you, just perfect for a train journey that didn't go completely to plan. I have two wonderful conductors to thank for making sure I got to my destination of Riga, otherwise I am not sure if I would have. One young man collected the train fare, but he didn't seem very confident with me, yet very chatty to all the other passengers, later I found out why. Just before I got to the station Valmeira in the north of Latvia, he came up with another conductor who spoke English and he told me that the train was stopping and we would have to take the bus for four stops. All well and good, but it wasn't immediately obvious which bus, that was because we ended up waiting about 20 minutes in the freezing cold for it to arrive. When I realised that it wasn't coming immediately a minor panic set in as I was meant to be meeting with someone. The nice young chap helped me work out what time I would arrive and I contacted the anthropologist I was meant to be meeting to make sure he knew I would possibly be late. The conductor chappy also made sure I was off the bus and back onto the train and alls well that ends well on that one, apart from being made to wait again in the cold before they let us, including the conductors, on the train. I was freezing by the time I got to Riga.

A beautiful but unwanted guest to our land. Stories abound
of these little fellas getting into chicken houses and causing
mayhem as they go into a frenzy and kill every sleeping
chicken in the hen house. This one will not be
causing mayhem

The meeting with the anthropologist went really well. It was nice to be able to talk about my observations of Latvian life and hear some extra pieces of information that made so much sense. It was also nice to hear it from someone who was firstly Latvian but also used to deeply observing his own culture. That's not to say I go around minutely observing my friends and neighbours you understand, it is just observations from trying to make our way around in a different culture to the one we grew up in. It is also the sort of observations made in trying to work out plans for ways forward in our community. We have both, observed the tendency amongst the authorities and NGOs to call something participatory, when all it is doing is ticking boxes for consultation with "the public" in a very loose sense of the word. I am glad we both agree that something has to improve for people to be given a genuine say in what is developed in this country of Latvia. I will see where this link takes me and I am pleased to have someone to contact to be able to ask questions when I am puzzled about something or need confirmation. Certainly worth having to catch the later bus for.

Three happy grandchildren. It was about the closest we got
to all looking in the right kind of direction with a smile

You may have guessed this wasn't a usual Estonia-Latvia backwards and forwards type of week, I have also fitted in a visit to the UK too accompanied by my lovely hubby. Only he wasn't very lovely this morning as I woke him too early. He was tired bless him, and we just arrived back from the UK yesterday (oh yes we missed THE storm) and so while it meant we actually got to lie in an extra hour yesterday and so 4:30am didn't seem quite as bad as it could have been, it did mean by the time we got back home we were not bouncing around and for probably the first time in our married life, he did not change the clocks before we went to bed, hence me being up too early. It was really 5:30am and not 6:30am like I thought. Heh ho! We'll live. The reason for visiting the UK was a chance over the course of the weekend to meet the family, our kids, their spouses, their children, my parents, my sister and her family. It was a bit of a take over, we took over a house, took over a cafe, took over a park (okay not really a took over as there was plenty of room) and took over a pub. I guess that's what happens when families expand. It was sad it couldn't be longer and I hope we can have some more times when we can meet, but for this season we take the opportunities as they arise, no matter how short.

Café takeover. We squeezed in, just with all the strollers

One of the things about travelling is you begin to realise how important toilets are. Not a delicate subject I know, but you know this is the stuff of life. Tartu train station in Estonia has toilets that are immaculate, up-to-date (apart from having to chuck your loo paper in a bin -trash can- rather than down the loo due to the inefficient drain systems) and they are free. Riga train station in Latvia has a lady who collects your 20 santims and next to her on a stick is a toilet roll from which you take your toilet paper before heading to the loo. The toilets are clean and yes you have to put the paper in a bin and not put it down the loo again, but why can't they trust you with a toilet roll? How much would it cost them to put loo roll holders in each toilet? Rome has a problem with the drains too and so despite the fact that Rome airport has modern looking toilet facilities that are regularly cleaned, the smell is awful - at least it was in the middle of summer when I was there. Modern and clean looking toilets with access to loo paper, preferably free so you don't get caught short without enough change says a lot about a place I feel. It reflects well and reduces stress. It made a difference today to visit a nice little cafe whilst driving back up North to Estonia which had lovely toilets. I badly needed a coffee to stay awake and the fresh out of the oven biezpiena cake (sort of like a cottage cheese cake) was wonderful, a log fire and clean toilets too - what more could you ask for?

The park takeover, yes they are all our kids and families,
well some of them anyway. I didn't manage to get
a picture of the pub takeover, I was too busy stuffing myself. 

Our animals played up for us, both before and after we went away. They seem just like children when the babysitter is about to arrive, making life difficult for the parents. Before we left, the boys escaped their fence and took a lot of rounding up and persuading to go in their shed and the girls were difficult too. The day we came back, the chicks didn't all go in without a bit of persuasion, the girls led us a merry dance around the paddock before we got them cornered and leashed up to lead them in and two of the big chickens got left out for the night as they weren't cooperating either. The boys had to be persuaded again to go in. Apparently tonight though, all but our cockerel were well behaved. From now on our cockerel shall be named chicken stew, his days are numbered. Think we've worked out why one of our chickens is missing this week and it doesn't bode well. Ian was working in the barn threshing buckwheat, which our chickens adore, when suddenly the chickens hurtled into the barn. Ian stood up to shoo them away, thinking they were after the grain when he realised that there was a bird of prey chasing them and got within a metre of one of them. Fortunately the bird saw Ian and executed an about turn and headed away, meanwhile our chickens went very quiet. We do wonder if that is the reason for the disappearance as they chickens have seemed a little subdued just lately.

House in Tartu

Not quite on the subject of animals or families but certainly something to do with the land we manage, we declined some bags of chemical fertiliser. We were offered several large bags of the fertiliser and we had to weigh up the pros and cons of whether to use them or not. A one off application, probably wouldn't do a huge amount of harm, but we decided that the possible risk to the soil organisms and the possibility it might just fertilise the weeds instead of the grass meant we decided against it. We'll stick to rotating our animals around more instead. We just have to work out how to do that and teach them to follow Ian to new pastures. May take time but I think we are getting there.