Confession time

Yes this is Robbie the halogen cooker, cooking pie, chips
and sweetcorn. Still need to fiddle about with the timings
but at least it didn't burn the bottom of the pie like my
ordinary oven - mind you it didn't cook the bottom very well
at all. The top was cooked. I am sure I will get used
to it though.

Okay I have a confession to make, we bought another kitchen gadget. Have we got room for yet another kitchen gadget? No! Do we need another kitchen gadget? Errrr! Welllllll! Yes! Honestly we have a very good reason or two for buying our recent addition to the paraphernalia we have in our kitchen and in our dump room (I said we don't have room). You see, it's like this, all this week our heating has not been sufficient to heat our apartment to sensible temperatures ie it has been between 13C to 15C, as the heating company hasn't been sending warm enough water around our communal heating system. We have resorted to our wood stove rather earlier in the year than we would like, our wood stove is really for when the communal heating is turned off, which is usually before we would turn it off; anyway I think that maybe our neighbour downstairs has probably had to turn his heating up to compensate for all the cold apartments around him as he runs his heating off gas and not the communal heating like most of us, and I wonder if all of us have been turning on the ovens more than usual to provide hot nourishing meals and warm our apartments up in the process, in short our apartment block ran out of gas. Not sure who is responsible for making sure there is enough gas in the apartment gas tanks or if there is a set delivery date but yesterday we went to fry up some fish fingers for fish finger sandwiches (cor more confessions) or should I say gently saute (is that healthier?) and lo and behold there was no gas, in fact there was no gas all day. We had been humming and hahhing over getting a halogen oven, partly so we wouldn't have to buy a cooker for the other apartment and yet folks still be able to cook and also to use ourselves the rest of the time, we had seen one in our local Aladdin's cave shop but decided against it, but when the gas went off and having to rely on a kettle, slow cooker and an ancient microwave we decided that maybe it would be a good investment after all. So please welcome Robbie our new gadget, I don't normally name our gadgets but this one looks so like a robot from the 60s it has to have a name.

The cleared roadway

As is usual for this time of the year our week has been dominated by the snow and clearing it away. Since the fiasco with our tractor window last week our tractor went up to our neighbours so that Ian could do a temporary fix to it before using it to clear an access road to get onto the land to start work on the other fiasco, our collapsed polytunnel. With the piece of plastic from the polytunnel and good old duck tape the hole was sealed and the tractor serviceable again. As a thank you to our neighbours and while he was up there anyway, Ian cleared away the snow from their yard to make it easier for them, something they didn't feel should go unrewarded either and so Ian was treated to a meat feast of a dinner (lunch), three slices of karbonade (for all you who have not visited Latvia it is battered pork in an egg and flour batter and fried -sorry sauteed), and a couple of thick slices of smoked bacon, and I was at home wondering what he had taken to eat!

Not as much as last year but still a lot of snow.

The next job was to try and find the road. Ian had tracked our road and various things on our land, like the polytunnel, barn, orchard and bushes, last year with a hand held GPS (yes I know another gadget) and this meant he was able to roughly retrace his route and mark out a path with his snowshoes which he could then follow with the tractor. Next year I think we mark out the track before it snows with sticks to make things easier as a GPS is only accurate down to about 3-5m which could land us in a hole unless we fill it in, or we could end up running over stones that are on the edge of the road. There is not as much snow as last year but it is much heavier with a distinct layer of ice from an ice storm. Once the road way was cleared it meant we could then get on with the job of clearing snow from the polytunnel. The first clear day was rather chilly at -21C in the morning but it was a beautiful day and a joy to be outside working, well it was for most of the day. Ian used the tractor to clear around the polytunnel and I freed up various parts of the structure with a good old fashioned shovel. The problem is at that temperature it is really important not to stop moving or you freeze. I had on leggings, ski pants and waterproof trousers, a t-shirt, a base layer, thin fleece, outer fleece and my coat but had to take that off when working as I was getting too warm; it is also really important not to sweat or you get into a lot of trouble when that freezes. So I worked steadily and slowly all day, apart from huddling around the fire to have some fried egg sandwiches for lunch, and that worked well, but towards the end of the day I was getting very tired but I didn't dare stop as the temperatures were dipping low again. I was so glad when we decided to call it a day. Fortunately the following day was not as cold so less danger of freezing to death, literally, but it took two days to dig away the snow. Snow and wind stopped any further work until today when we started to dismantle the collapsed pieces to try and salvage what we can. It would appear that the OSB (composite board) joints failed in most places but there were also some solid pieces of timber that had cracked. There won't be any OSB joints when we rebuild that is for sure!

After one windy day this end piece
needed stabilising. 

If you follow this blog you will know that we have been away over Christmas in Australia and our daughter cooked us a lovely Christmas dinner but it didn't feel like Christmas at all as it was 40C outside and not cold like Christmas should be, well at least for a Northern Hemisphere lass. Fortunately our friends saved us a turkey they had reared and they brought it around this week and we decided to have another Christmas dinner complete with fairy lights and a few other decorations. We couldn't have Christmas dinner alone of course and so we invited our friends around too for a traditional English roast and I even bought them some little presents just for the fun of it. It was a great time, even if it still didn't really feel like Christmas - after all they had finished with all the Christmas songs on the radio.

Somewhere under there are current bushes

It has been a topsy turvey time for many of us thanks to the banking crisis of a couple of years ago. We have had a house on the market for over a year and this last week we arranged for another estate agent to have a go at selling it. So if anyone wants a house in Sheffield, England here is the link, the original estate agent is completely flummoxed as to why it has not sold, it is not as if there is anything wrong with it, it is actually quite a nice house. It is incredible to think though that it would seem that the bankers have learnt nothing from the debacle they helped to create. It seems that the bankers just sighed with relief that the worse is over and now carry on as before, they seem to think that's it, nothing else to worry about, but I am afraid they didn't heed the call. The foundations are rotten and I believe there will be more revelations of where their money comes from and the harm it does. I really wished they had changed their greedy ways, they had the perfect opportunity but decided that greed was the better option. How wrong they are!

There was a track there once down to our workshop

It is not just high street banks that are the problem though, it is the whole financial set up from the IMF, who the Latvian Prime Minister describes as the unpredictable partner, to those who lend microloans to the poor. I had my doubts about microloans, and I wrote about them in October 2008, as the interest rates are so high. It would seem that the Institute of Development Studies have reservations too pointing out that loans have a habit of encouraging more debt and loans do nothing to address the imbalance of power that keeps the poor poor. What is even more incredible is they point out that the World Bank endorse microloans as a means of helping the poor out of poverty and yet have not done any follow up research to see if this is really the case. Is this more evidence of the rotten core of the financial powers? The core that puts ideology before the real needs of the poor?

More snow! 

The rotten core of the financial markets have now also turned their eyes to the food markets leading to volatile prices of food, even when there is no cause for it. Speculation hinders proper pricing of foods. So who else thought that the hike in price of wheat was due to Russian wheat shortages? The fact is there is enough wheat in store to ride out a year or even two years of shortages but big grain companies and derivative speculators made a killing from the fear of shortage. There was no shortage of wheat in the grand scheme of things. So what is the answer? One answer is to enable small farmers to move beyond subsistence farming into the marketplace and ending the power of large agro-companies. It is not the large agro-companies that feed the world, small farmers are much better at it than we are lead to believe. And if you believe speculators should be regulated in the food markets then check this link out and maybe sign the e-petition. 

I love the contrast of our neighbours truck with the
white snowy world. A bit of snow doesn't stop him
from getting on with his job.

Sunshine rules! Ok!

Well it was 7 years this week since we left England and it is amazing how far we have travelled in the meantime. It is so hard to believe where we started and what we have done. I was a housewife with three kids at home 7 years ago, now I am a student again with no children at home. One child is now in Australia, another planning his wedding and another at Uni. Ian and I have moved three times internationally and visited many more countries as well. When I think of all God has accomplished in those 7 years, it makes me excited for the next 7 years; I'm up for a challenge!

So the start of the next 7 years saw us in Cyprus again. I said Ian had had a call to help out on a Friday and on Monday we had booked the tickets to travel, by Sunday we were in Cyprus where we spent a good week, Ian working hard in a lab and me studying hard sat outside in the garden (hard life isn't it?). In the Bible it talks about a Jubilee year as a time when you don't reap or sow but live off what grows naturally from the land, well we sort of did that in our first year of being in Latvia by living off our savings, the year after Jubilee is a time to sow and the third year is the time to reap what you sowed the year before. Last year new relationships were formed by Ian and old ones re-established meaning he spent two weeks working in Cyprus last year, this year has been the fruit of that. I also needed the sunshine and the fresh vegetables to boost my immune system, I finally shook off the cough I had had for weeks so worth the trip out there for me. Don't get too jealous though, we arrived back to even more snow than when we left even though we expected it to have been melting while we were away.

In travelling backwards and forwards to Cyprus we have discovered a really good airline, Czech airlines. The food is not bad for an airline, they even have metal cutlery, they describe one meal as a light snack but it is a whole baguette with ham, cream cheese and roasted red pepper which is included in the price, a rarity these days and their main meals are pretty edible too. It is just a very pleasant experience and would be even more so if the times of flights from Prague to Cyprus leg weren't so awful, we arrived at 2:30am and left at 3:15am. One of the best parts is the discovery of a brilliant animation Pat and Mat which is made in the Czech republic but it is classic slapstick stuff, we always look forward to seeing them on the in flight entertainment and you don't need to know Czech to understand it. Talking of food and airlines, I had to laugh at one bit of news out from United Airlines (an American airline) that they are going to introduce an organic option to their snack box range, does this mean that finally there is something in the box that is more edible than the box itself? Believe me their snack boxes are awful normally, so hopefully this is a step in the right direction.

I was spitting feathers at one particular news story about IMF's Mark Allen called out of retirement to come and sort Latvia out, the sense of smugness he has about the job he has done and the sense of rightness that the guy has left me astounded. The fact is that if he has been operating for the last 40 years he has not been doing a very good job. His experience is useless and is still putting the pain of adjustments onto the poorest segments of the population something the Icelandic people decided was not something they were willing to do in their nation judging by their referendum this week. If the IMF did proper assessments of the job they do across the whole of society and found their systems work then I would acquiesce to their knowledge but the only criteria they have is that the country pays back their debts and they believe the pain that is inflicted is fine because the poor will benefit in the end, something that is not borne out by experience, the poor suffer and continue to suffer even after the economy is supposed to be on an even footing. The pain is also only worth it when you are sat in your ivory tower and don't have to watch your child dying through lack of medical help or food because your suddenly expected to pay for it. At least in Latvia people are not dying for want of medical help (well not that I know of) but they do end up with big bills as one of our neighbours has and without the means to pay it.

Not sure if I am happy about the fact that the World Bank has agreed a loan for providing a social security net in Latvia. I agree with the fact that the poor do need additional support and there are plenty around judging by the numbers there are clearing paths in our village. Clearing paths is a job creation scheme for those without work, helpful when it has been very snowy but sad that there are so many needing the money. The problem is that a loan is a debt that needs repaying at the end of the day and is only necessary because of the bad debts that Latvia has got into and the stupidity of bankers greed in lending the money in the first place, the children of this nation have been mortgaged to the hilt now and it will be a long time before they will be free of it.

On a lighter note I was quite entertained by an article on a citizen's initiative in Naples. Claudio Agrelli set up an online community whose citizens never jump red lights, and they always use the pedestrian crossings in other words they always follow the rules, not something that Naples or Italy is renowned for. He is seeking to establish a community where people respect rules and actively participate in discussions on those things they believe would be good for the community which is brilliant really, anything that moves people to becoming active citizens with an interest in other people is to be applauded. Good citizens of the world unite

Photos
Photo 1 My spot by the pool under the palm trees
Photo 2 A lemon tree in the garden of course, not many of those in the UK or Latvia
Photo 3, 4 and 5 my more sheltered spot for windy moments
Photo 6 It wasn't warm all the time so nothing better than a seat by the fire to carry on doing some reading.

Would you believe it!

Well here I am sitting in the shade of a palm tree by the side of a pool with the sun shining and listening to the birds tweeting, not like the half metre of snow we left in Latvia. They have had heavy rain here in Cyprus which is good for a drought stricken land but I am pleased that the forecast is pleasantly warm enough to sit outside in some sun for the next few days, something I wouldn't be able to do for at least another month in Latvia. In fact the day before we left we had to rescue a friend twice from the wet slushy snow (yes it had started to warm up), being from the South of England he was quite amazed at the techniques we used to get him out when we couldn't actually tow him, from sacks under the wheels, to bits of twigs and fir tree when they didn't work. Hope he got out from the camp where he was staying though as we weren't around to help him the next day as we were on the way to the airport.

Talking of snow in Latvia, Riga has seen the most snow in any winter for the last 100 years. What an awful time for that to happen though as it was also the time when they had the least money to clear the roads. Riga didn't come to a standstill though and the population muddled on through it all.

Latvia hasn't been in the main news because of the snow but because of a hacker who has hacked into the State Revenue service and stole quite a few details of people's tax returns. He or she has been dubbed the Robin Hood hacker because they have been revealing how some of the rich have been less than truthful with the Latvian public, from bankers and public servants who haven't taken the cuts that they said they would to those who have been given bonuses despite the fact they have turned to the Latvian Government for aid. Despite the illegality of what they have done they are being hailed as heroes for brining to the attention of the public the less than transparent dealings of the rich, who continue to benefit despite the terrible problems the public have been having. Does make you wonder who the real villains are? Still on the subject of Latvian state services I came across this one during my internet trawl - The Latvian State Agency of Intangible Cultural Heritage (Nemateriālā kultūras mantojuma valsts aģentura), what a fantastic name, not entirely sure what it means but I think it is something to do with things like language, ie the cultural identity of a nation that is not made of bricks and mortar but I could be wrong.

The World bank is in a spot of bother too. Apparently they have not been checking up on whether their policies actually do work, something they agreed to do a few years ago. Another interesting fact to come out of a recent report is that the World bank still relies heavily on consultants from the North to advise poorer countries which consumes an awful lot of dosh, rather than building up the poorer countries capacity to take action themselves. In other words the North are paying themselves a lot of money for bad advice and that is classed as "aid." Think there maybe a need to change there then.

Well I know this is short but I had better get back to lounging errr I mean studying in the sun, but just so you know what I have had to put up with here are some photos from last week in the snow.

Most of these photos you will have seen before but this will be probably as deep as it gets for this winter.
Photo 1: That door is actually way off the ground and is never used, and so it is not snow on the steps.
Photo 2: The seats finally disappeared again this year, like last year (The rural East of Latvia usually gets more snow than Riga but this year I don't think so. The bin ever so nearly disappeared too but not quite.
Photo 3: The ice roads we navigate for at least 3 months of the year and makes you realise why winter tyres are compulsory in Latvia from the beginning of November to the end of March.