The confessions of a hoarder

Yes another of those impossibly serene landscapes.
I never get tired of seeing them but they do look
unreal I think.

I wasn't really sure what to write about. It's winter, which may or may not provide lots of nice pictures depending on whether it's blowing a blizzard, in which case not, or a brilliantly white landscape set against an impossibly blue sky that looks rather surreal and also staggeringly beautiful, so perfect for pictures but maybe a bit samey. It is funny being very busy and not really having much to write about. Working online means lots of contact with people from many different countries, many of whom are not living in the countries of their nationality. It's fascinating and their stories brighten up my day, but not really appropriate to share. One contact though did have an unexpected connection, as his aunt has an alpaca farm and part of a rural development network - that could be a promising networking opportunity. 

Ilvija looking like a bat with white nose disease
(yes it's a real disease, but not for alpacas)

A little bonding time? No! Not likely! More like,
"you're not coming in here".

Is this Brencis singing of the joy of winter?

So what do I do all day? Well slum around in my dressing gown, or so it may seem, but my nice thick dressing gown saves me putting on any heating until well into the afternoon, so that works out well. Just a bit embarrassing when the postie rings the doorbell and opens the door to hand me the post. I wish she would wait then I could quickly discard my dressing gown for a few minutes. I also wish she wouldn't open the door, it feels kind of rude, but I guess it's just I'm not used to it. It wouldn't happen in the UK for sure, unless you lived in one of those out of the way places where the postie is probably one of your relatives. 

What is that son of mine doing? 

And now here's Tellus' daughter playing peek-a-boo

Meanwhile, Ian is out taking pictures in our forest!
I still can't quite get used to saying, "Our forest!"

I spend a lot of time on the computer, trying to learn Latvian, keeping in touch with friends and getting work done - currently I'm working on three projects as well as preparing for teaching two courses, one in spring and one in autumn of this year. One project is looking at whether citizen science can influence how the environment is managed or policies made or does it just take the learned experts to get things changed? One is looking at lessons that can be learnt from plans to avoid harming biodiversity and feeding that information to some policymakers. Lastly another project is just trying to finish off a database that is taking longer than it should. Added in a bit of proofreading and working on developing the courses keeps me out of mischief anyway. 

Not such a frosty day, but beautiful in its own way.

Time to soak up some sun.

More white nose disease. Mari also soaking up
some sun.

Over the course of a few Saturdays though I managed to cut up old t-shirts that are in my rather large stash of fabrics and old materials waiting for projects to use them up. Ian was complaining of having to stand on a cold floor in the mornings and so I decided to make him a modern version of a proggy mat - well that's what he would call it, I would call it a rag rug, or hooked mat. This was the quicker version of an old method of using up fabric that was not fit for much else. I cut the t-shirts up into lots of scraps 3cmx8cm (or thereabouts) and then sewed them down the middle onto a large piece of old thick interfacing. I then folded them to one side and sewed on another row. Eventually I filled up the interfacing and it certainly looked like an old rag rug by the time I'd finished - so no more complaints of cold feet. 

Now Mari is sharing a bit of gossip with Aggie.

A different angle to our land for a change. Looking
through the trees at the wintry sun.

Tracks in the snow. A hare? 

I know there are quite a few half-finished projects in my dump room and there are so many potential projects that I get overwhelmed with what to do next. At least I did manage to make a pair of baggy trousers from some self-dyed fabric, which I'm wearing and they are surprisingly warm. I have cut out some fabric to make some more, but I want to see how these one work before sewing up the other pair. I think the pattern needs a little adjustment. I also confess to starting some felted scarves this last weekend and now they are added to my half-finished pile as I didn't have time to finish them. It did use up some of the fleece we had lying around the place though, so that is a plus. 

A more subtle scene with a cloudy sky, but still
amazing to see such frosted trees.

Looking at Lady V's residence for young ladies
aka one of the alpaca houses from another different
angle.

The snow is not deep enough to cover the 
molehills. We must have mole city under our
land. 

So while I am slaving away on my computer Ian has been doing lots of snow clearing, poo clearing from the alpaca houses as they don't go outside so much on the more miserable days and feeding Lolly. When he gets back to the apartment we eat and then he washes up. Quite a few days this week he has then been spending some of the evenings testing poo samples for parasites. Exciting heh! So exciting he fell asleep in the alpaca house. He needed a poo sample from a couple of the alpacas and it is a good time of the year to just spend time with them and get them more used to his presence, so he took up a chair to watch them. 15 minutes later (so he tells me) he woke up with two contented alpacas either side just chewing the cud. 

Karla having a bit of trouble with a long piece
of hay.

Such peaceful scenes

This freeze/thaw cycle is not much fun

The other news for this is week is my car arrived. It was driven from Riga along some quite icy roads to our village and then we had to drive to the big town to get it registered as owned by me and the bank. The only piece of paperwork we couldn't do electronically. Very annoying really as that was a couple of hours of my time, when most of the procedures in Latvia are going across to digital signatures, which I can do. Oh well! At least I'm now able to travel up to the university this week for staff training. The young guy asked if I had owned a car in Latvia before and the answer was no. We've had a car for 14 years but it has always been registered in Ian's name. I did once take it for its technical inspection because he was away, but other than that, my name has not been on anything to do the car. I have had a Latvian licence for 14 years but wouldn't have thought that would make a difference, but somehow it did. I have six months of full insurance for just over €50, I was expecting double that at the very least. I'm still conflicted though, as I would rather do without a car, I realise the environmental costs but I also have to get to work from time to time. 

A series of plants with their ice-crystal gowns

The neighbour's land.

Sun on snow

Cattails 

Vanessa in another of her contemplative moods

The snow is creeping up the greenhouse. Fortunately
it has melted next to the plastic so not leaning on
the plastic.

Much higher and it will be more like a rather large 
igloo.

I'm home honey!

Autumn colour

Yes! I have spent a whole week at home. Can you believe it? And the most exciting thing we have done this week is watch someone cutting alpaca teeth. Riveting heh! I can see you are on the edge of your seats. So what have we done all week? Well let's rewind a little. For a start the paper I have been trying to write for an academic journal was returned again and still requires "major modifications!" Sigh! I have done all the little tinkering about they asked for, but I still have to get my head around how to word the most important part. I won't bore you with the details, but it is hard trying to think of yet another way of phrasing the same material again, for the fourth re-write or is it the third? Something like that anyway. I think I'm getting there, but I have had other things to try and get my head around this week and they have taken priority - partly because I get paid to do that and not paid to do my doctoral studies.

Autumn raspberries

I have explained that I work for an online educational organisation and recently started tutoring the Sociology studies. There is only one student this year and bless him he was not up to speed in handing in any assignments. I was getting a little concerned and sent an email - nothing, sent another email to check if he had got it - nothing, sent an email off to my boss to see what he thought and he suggested copying in his mother. Oh that did reap benefits, two assignments no less, however, that then meant I had to mark the work. When preparing the lessons I hadn't got my brain into gear about how to mark the work and so that took me a little while to apportion the right number of marks to the piece of work that reflected the input required for the question. I also had to think about how to approach marking the work and what helpful comments I could put in. Tricky one really. I have been trained for higher education and not for 14-16 year olds, but the same principles apply. I have also had experience of teaching my own children at home but not in this subject. Still we all have to start somewhere and I know I will speed up as time goes by.

Part 1: This is a stockade that Ian built about three years
ago to store old hay, wood chippings and compost

The weather hasn't been brilliant this week, warmer but damp and dreary. One day it was forecast to rain for most of it and so Ian text me to see if we should go and visit a couple of friends of ours, who we hadn't seen in ages. They have a farm too and we just don't get much time to see each other in the summer months, there is too much to do, especially this year for Ian with the extra animals. The rain filled days though are a different matter, as the ground becomes soggier there just isn't the amount of work to do, apart from some winter preparations. Most of the harvesting has been done, there are only some winter brassicas, carrots and beetroots still left and they can stay in the ground until we either need them or until a hard frost is forecast. So nothing exciting to report, just sitting around drinking tea and chatting about this and that. Nice really. Nothing too academic.

This was the stockade this summer with the squash plant
taking advantage of the lovely compost

Gone! Ian has cleared up the area, as it was beginning to
look rather tatty and we would like the place to look
neater. The compost has gone down to the bottom end
of the new garden area, the wood chipping pile
temporarily moved ready for putting on the road way and
stones moved down to the forest edge.

I have also had the news that a Latvian student is willing to undertake the Latvian side of the study that I am trying to research (for any newcomers I am looking into how rural inhabitants can be included in development planning in the area where they live). That is a great relief and will make a good contrast to the Estonian research. I shall take a trip into Riga to have a chat and see where we take it from there. I was a little shocked though that the student in question does not do Skype and doesn't like the application. Not sure why that is, something to find out I suppose. For me Skype is such a boon and has meant I have been able to chat to all my children and grandchildren this last week. It was so funny seeing a picture of my grandson with an ipad on his knee whilst chatting to us, that his mum took with her phone. I still remember my own children pretending to talk to grandma and grandad on the phone and wonder how the two little ones will pretend to talk to us.

Our errant sheep back where they should be. Any remorse?
I doubt it. 

 The highlight of the week was a weekend of pottering. I pottered around the garden on the day when it was forecast not to rain and thankfully it didn't. I uncovered more of a strawberry bed that had got inundated with weeds and hoed paths to keep on top of the places I have already weeded. There was one point when I heard sheep. I looked out and couldn't see anything and thought it must have been my imagination playing tricks again, then I saw them run past the greenhouse. The only problem is that they were supposed to be about 300m away up the field and not running around the greenhouse. They must have got bored with their surroundings and came for a visit. Ian fetched some feed and off they all set back up to where they should have been. No drama or anything.

I'm partly adding this photo for a friend to see what we built
to trap our sheep in when we want to do anything with them
or when Ian wants to move them and he has to dismantle
their fence. It has proved fairly useful over the summer

Can you tell where the sheep have been? The grass is not
recovering so quick at this time of year

The strawberries are on the left of the picture in front of
the blackcurrant bushes and in the centre. Oh yes! We will
have two full rows this next year and I will work on another
for the end of the year.

I then pottered about the house and cleaned. The problem with communal heating is that they put it on when they should and not a day before, so no heating until October 15th (just realised that's only two days away) and even then it is always a debate if they will. It hasn't been that cold, but cold enough and damp enough to start stuff going mouldy. We had to bring the dehumidifier back from the other place where it was still drying out the apartment since the last flooding we had there. We have also been sinking under stuff here at home. Stuff that we are keeping just in case and I really feel the need either to sling it, or at least stash it better so we are not falling over it. I dread turning out like those folks who compulsively hoard. They don't tend to use their stuff though, just keep hoarding it, but we do use lots of stuff and need endless bottles to keep produce in, bottles for the home-made vinegar, bottles for jams, chutneys and dried foods. Then there are bags of fleece that needs processing and the time to process it. There was a child's car seat sat in the middle of the floor too and that will come in useful for when the little ones visit. As for the piles of papers on the desk! Well that's next week's pottering sorted. At least most of the windows have now been cleaned with bleach. I don't like using bleach but the mould was getting in and needs must.

The strip on the left has more blackcurrant bushes in and
we are trying some suckers from the five spice plant we
have in the greenhouse to see how it fares outside 

And that leads me onto today's riveting day. Teeth cutting! One of our alpacas needs her teeth cutting badly, but we have been struggling to get it done. On a visit to a camelid breeder we know, they told us that some of their animals needed theirs' doing. We got a text yesterday to say the vet was coming and if we wanted to watch then we could come over. An early start for us and we went across. In the end it was just as traumatic for them as for us. We are now seriously thinking of buying a tooth cutting implement that costs a lot of money and then Ian going to cut their animals' teeth too, as a way of recouping the costs of the machine. That and possibly learning how to shear the alpacas properly and he could have quite a viable business going. Well that's the theory, now all he has to do is go on a course and see where we go from there.

Spring? No not yet!

Our neighbours horse drawn hay rake, still where it was left
waiting to rake up hay before the weather changed last year

I'm not very good at anniversaries and birthdays and that sort of thing. Facebook kind of helps by reminding me when it is someone's birthday but that is a bit late if I actually wanted to send anything. And anniversaries are only remembered if I set them as alerts on my computer. Well I missed one anniversary last week. Ian remembered it on the day, but I forgot to comment on it in the blog. And the anniversary? It is on the 4th March 4 years that we arrived in Latvia to live. It's hard to believe that four years have flown by, but what a lot has happened in between times. We now manage a piece of land, two of our children are married, I am in my final year of a Master's course and we still haven't learnt much Latvian. We have made some lovely friends and are thoroughly enjoying being here, even if at times we still wonder what on earth we are doing here.

It was still deep on Friday

I did think of updating last week's post, but didn't think it was worth it as there was something else I had forgotten too. At the drumming concert we went to last week, we were sat on a table with another couple and fortunately the guy sitting there could speak English, it turns out he knew rather a lot of people we knew, in fact one of our good friends who is the reason we are even here in Latvia has stayed at his house quite a few times. Small world as they say. It was funny to start talking about someone and go "Oh yes! We know them too." He is a pastor of a church in Riga and as one young man went past he said, "that's our church's youth pastor." The brain cell started whirring into action and I thought "I know that face," sure enough I did, another person we both knew. The young man had been in the Netherlands translating for a team of Latvians that I had travelled with to a conference and Ian and I met him at another friend's wedding. It is strange to meet someone and know so many of the people he knew and yet we hadn't met, or not that I can remember anyway.

And yes, Ian was still shovelling snow this last week. Mind
you this was to clear the road to get the horse box down

This week has seen some glorious days and I had been stuck in a lot of the week writing up. One day I was looking at the weather forecast and I realised that Friday was going to be another glorious day but the weekend looked poxy as we say. The forecast was for warmer temperatures and a mixture of snow and sleet, so rather than miss the good weather, I declared that Friday was the new Saturday and took the day off. I'm so glad I did as that meant that I could enjoy the sunshine and walk around in the snow for what will probably be the last truly glorious wintry day of the year. I would have enjoyed it even more if I hadn't slipped on a sloping path that had iced over so hard that even my Yaktrax wouldn't grip. I ended up on my knees having twisted my ankle and there was no way I could get up easily without help and so my gallant hero, Ian, leapt to my assistance, that's twice this winter he has been my Sir Galahad. Makes a change from being laughed at anyway. Fortunately my ankle wasn't that bad and I could still sit in the greenhouse (20C that day) and sip coffee. We even managed to get the horse box into the barn, which meant Ian reversing it by car all the way down a hill with a sharp turn at the bottom and I kind of directing, well saying "stop, stop" and waving frantically every now and again when it was obvious that the trailer was not going in the direction that it should do or a bit too close to the barn door.

Horse box safely ensconced in the barn. It is now easier
for Ian to change the brakes and the wheel bearings
even if the weather changes.

I've changed my homepage on my internet browser this week, not momentous news I know. I like the range of articles in the Guardian, especially as they have a section on development, but I hate the language. It is almost as if they seek out uses of the "f" word. A report on the protest in Russia, seemed to single out any badges or banners which had on the "f" word to report and that was the final straw. The "f" word for me does still have a shock value, but not to many people around me, they think it is normal part of the language and indeed it is for some, but that does not mean that it should be bandied around in the English press. Now if all the banners had the "f" word in the protest I would have seen that a fit place to report it, but not the odd one or two and I am sure that the Russians have more in their vocabulary to express their protests and if they had then what were they? So it is back to the BBC for me, a bit staid and not as interesting at times, but at least the language isn't as bad.

Our kittens have grown but are still cute. Sophie has found
her voice just lately, driven us barmy today but we think
the dehumidifier is unsettling her, but we need it on because
someone didn't use the litter tray again!!!!!!

It has been a week of computers, partly as I am deep into writing up my thesis now that I have finished the research phase and also because I updated Microsoft as well this week from a very, very, very old version (in computer terms that is i.e. 2001). It was so old that it wouldn't update automatically and so all my settings were lost - that wasn't the real problem though, the problem came on updating the email client that proceeded to delete messages off the server, ones I had kept for ages. I wouldn't mind but I have done that before when changing email clients for work from Thunderbird that got corrupted and wouldn't update to Mail. It is something to do with the difference between IMAP and POP accounts - I don't know, but what I do know is I am not keen of what happened to my emails. I am a hoarder I know, but in some cases I was keeping them for reference. Fortunately really important ones were downloaded and kept separate but general emails were not and now I have lost a huge chunk of my past. It made me feel very grumpy.

In pensive mood here, but occasionally still shows herself
to be the livewire she was as a kitten

I am beginning to wonder if God is saying something through this though, there is something about hoarding that keeps hold of "things" as security and my security should not be in things, or emails but in God alone. I wonder what else I need to let go of? I had seen so many posts on hoarding, the good and the bad aspects of hoarding. It is good that we don't throw away jars, because it means I can process so much of produce from the year to eat over the winter. Hardly a day goes by when we don't tuck into some of the food prepared over the summer, and jars were handy the other week when we found maggots in the plastic packets (still finding the odd one, but I think we have got the infestation under control now). But how much other stuff do I keep that I should let go of, or is it more a state of mind that hoards, that I should let go of? This was on my mind when someone posted a link to a song called Pioneer by Rick Pino on YouTube (thanks Paul). Not quite sure how all the pictures relate to the song, but the lyrics were what caught my attention. "You travel light and you travel alone," well I don't travel alone as I travel with Ian, but travel light? Perhaps, in some ways, but I'm a hoarder and along the way I have accumulated stuff. A hoarder cannot be a pioneer, a pioneer cannot be a hoarder - too much baggage to take with you.

Leduspuķes or literally translated as ice flowers on the
greenhouse plastic

Rick Pino - Pioneer

Pioneer, Pioneer
Keep pressing onwards beyond your fears
And only your Father goes before you, to your own frontier
You're a Pioneer

Uncharted wilderness stretches before you
And you thrive on going where no one has gone
Still it gets lonely when darkness rears
So sing by the fire until the dawn

You travel light and you travel alone
And when you arrive nobody knows
But your Father in heaven, He is glad you can go
Cause those who come after you will need the road

And what you have done, others will do
Bigger and better and faster than you
But you can't look back, you gotta keep on pressing through
There's a wilderness pathway and it's calling you

Calling you, calling you
Keep pressing onwards beyond your fears

And only your Father goes before you, to your own frontier
You're a Pioneer

Hoarding? Getting a little crowded in the greenhouse just lately

So what do I let go of? Where do I go with this? I don't know, I just know the season is about to change as I finish this phase of studying and move on. I don't think it is moving countries, but just into the next season of life. It excites me that others will follow, but do things better, faster and bigger than I will, and so I am happy to tread the road for others if that is what is needed. Well I guess I had better press on.

Hard to believe that these will be uncovered soon. Once
the snow goes and the fence re-electrified then the wraps
will be off.

(I'll also post a poem from years ago (see I said I was a hoarder) of the questions that occurred to me as I thought about the pioneers who forged a route across America, when I gazed across the landscape from what was then home in Colorado)

Crazy times

The lilac bushes outside our other apartment

Okay so we are crazy but you love us anyway heh? Can't believe some of the things we get up to. We finally got around to starting to deal with the buckwheat seeds that we harvested over the summer. Of course it was nice and snowy outside so once we had worked out the best setting on my kitchen aid flour grinder just to crack the hulls, we then had to separate them. Now normally a nice breezy day outside would be perfect, but inside? Arrh! So our hallway was transformed, cleared of boots and shoes and rigged up with fan at one end to separate the husks from the seed. Mind you we found out at the end the the easiest way to get buckwheat flour is to grind it to crack the hulls and then grind it again to get flour and the hulls can then be sieved off, with just some ground into the flour to make the more traditional black buckwheat flour. We also found out that it was probably best sieved right at the start to get rid of the grit out of the husks and seeds. Oh well! We'll try again next week.

We have a Father Christmas car again

Talking of harvesting, the deer left a note saying "Thank you very much for the tasty kale, same again next year?" Yep you guessed it we are left with stalks and the swiss chard that was covered with pine branches to deter the deer from eating them so we have spring greens to grow back next year, were also disturbed. Will be interesting to see if we have got any come back up next year. All is not lost though and we can still have tasty kale crisps which we have got rather fond of, because we have some more growing in the greenhouse, so unless the deer work out how to unlatch the door or go through the plastic which is unlikely, then they will be safe, especially now we seem to be on top of the mice problem. We caught six mice altogether in the traps and the poison bait is no longer being removed, so they won't be tucking into kale either.

A winter wonderland

The snow finally came this week and the colder temperatures followed it. We cleared around our greenhouse, which is still up thankfully this year, so that the ground had a chance to freeze. We found last year that a large amount of snow on top of soft ground is really difficult to shift and ends up making a big mess of the ground when digging away the snow. We haven't got as much snow as last year, but it is enough to give everything a good covering and the ski season has started. Our cross country ski run even has floodlights now so that people can ski in the evenings, which we did this evening. We were a bit worried about the floodlights at first as they were on all night, not good for light pollution, but they seem to have sorted out some timing on them now and they went off at 9pm tonight. Still we got a good chance to ski and even some lessons from one of our neighbours, who showed us some of the techniques.

Not a star but the new floodlights to light
our cross country ski run

The cleaning fairy has been in operation most of this week, Ian tidied the office and discovered lots of space that seemed to just appear - not a lot went out so no idea where it all evaporated to, although there were many cardboard boxes taken out. Maybe the wall post on facebook that someone posted is true after all "Cleaning is just putting stuff in less obvious places" (not quite sure who is responsible for that witticism). Along the way a bunch of photos were discovered that we appear to have inherited from the church we used to go to in America, it seems to be a bunch of pictures of a Sunday School trip. Another find was a CD given to us after we had seen the mayor of the village which contained some presentation pictures of activities in the village - nice to be able to recognise some of the folks now and actually put a name to a few (hopeless with names anyway, so just being able to recognise the people and where from is an achievement). It is amazing how much brighter and more space we feel we have now that room is cleared - next week the dump room, weather permitting ie lots of snow to keep him indoors. Our flat appeared to get worse since we started the gardening work in earnest, which has kept us busy, the polytunnel collapsing last winter and the weddings, plus my course work, all conspired to keep us on our toes even through what would normally be the quiet times. I'm still doing my course work but Ian has more time this year. We do struggle to throw things out though as we do re-use lots of things. Old clothes get morphed into bags, quilts etc. Our bedroom curtains are curtains from our Danish house, our office curtain was a shower curtain in a previous life, Ian's jacket was repaired yet agin this week with binding I have inherited from goodness knows where and last year his over trousers, which he managed to burn a hole in, were repaired with fabric that I had in a box. So you see we don't waste a lot. The cardboard boxes will end up as weed barriers, and the polystyrene packaging will reappear somewhere else - not sure about that yet but we can always do with insulating things. You can also guarantee the minute we throw something out will be about five minutes before we discover we did needed it after all.

Bell with her natty purple apron

Our cats were not happy this week as we sent them to be neutered. There are plenty of lovely looking kittens in this village without our cats adding to the number and I am sure the local bird population would agree. Of course our cats were pretty groggy when we got them back and we were highly amused by their attempts to walk, unfortunately Sofie also likes to lick and we ended up having to put an apron on her that the vet had given us to prevent her licking the wound. Bella's was put on at night before we went to bed since she is not so compulsive at keeping clean like Sofie. They did look silly in them, and I think Sofie agreed, because the next morning she was not in it. How she managed to get out of the apron with the strings still tied and in the confined space behind our settee we have absolutely no idea. Could just have understood it if it had been a normal day, but right after her operation, how could she move her limbs enough to slip out of the apron? Houdini cat I suppose.

Sofie with her lovely white apron. Now you tell me
how she got out of that in a confined space?

Latvia to the right. Definitely very Northern, but where is
Eastern? Finland could also be classed as Eastern European.

I have a question for you, so where are you? Our geography doesn't always match up to our feelings. The Brits for instance, if you live in England you are less likely to feel European than if you live in Scotland but that belies the fact that Britain is in Europe, it is sits on the European plate whether we like it or not. Now take Latvia! I hesitated last week at adding the thought about Eastern Europeans and how many in far flung countries are separated from loved ones because I was effectively lumping all those coming from ex-Soviet countries as Eastern Europeans and one of my friends mentioned that Latvians do not always like to be called Eastern Europeans. But take a look at the map! Where is Eastern Europe? Who are the mythical Eastern Europeans? How far west do they come? The Latvians actually now prefer to be thought of as Northern Europeans because that is what they are, not as northerly as their northern neighbours Estonia and then Finland but still way up there. They are, however, not the only ones separated from loved ones, doing the jobs many in Britain do not want to do, the cleaners, the toilet attendants, the potato pickers, the maids and the list goes on and so does the list of countries that contribute valuable services to Britain, the Latvians, Lithuanians, the Poles, the Filipinos, the Indonesians, the Sri Lankans etc. etc. etc. sending back valuable finances to their homeland, targeted aid supporting education, nutrition and goodness knows what else. And if you want to see the effect of these emigrating populations on towns and villages around Latvia, have a look at this video from the BBC about a town called Cesis

Clearing the snow from the roadways to encourage them to
freeze this week to make any subsequent snow clearing easier

I mentioned about two weeks ago that Swedish agricultural companies were starting up Latvian companies to buy farmland expanding the Swedish financial empire. Seems the Swedes haven't bought everything up yet, as this week a Swedish company bought the Latvia's national commercial TV channel. It would not be too bad if the Latvians benefitted from all this "investment" but I am not sure they do, hugely. In my research and the internet stories I read, it states that home grown enterprises are far more likely to add value and jobs to an area than outside massive investment. The problem with the big investments is that profits leave the country, whereas home grown enterprises are more likely to reinvest into the area. They are more likely to support local causes and seek to bring about improvements in their area because they have a big investment in that area, namely their families. Big is not necessarily better, even economies of scale are not always what they seem. Sure a big company can create a lot of stuff and cheaper, but at what cost to the environment and what expense to its workforce? Cheaper loses some of its lustre when it binds people to a life of drudgery because they cannot afford to live well. Swedish companies do not always do much better outside their own nation, in the same ways the Brits are not exactly likely to promote welfare and good practices once outside of the nations control. We are often aware of it at a long distance as in India, China or elsewhere but not so aware when it is within Europe. One rule within  a nation, but outside of it? Having said that I have got to give praise where praise is due, Swedbank have written down some of Latvia's debts as a goodwill gesture. Not sure what that means in practice but I think it is a positive move and at least sends out the right kinds of signals. It isn't the first bank to do so though, SEB (another Scandinavian bank) was first and at a lot earlier a stage.

Icicles hanging from the barn roof