The Journey: I'm back! Did you miss me?

Miss you? Who me? Nah! (Taken at about 8:30 using the
light from a head torch)

Of course you didn't miss me, I haven't been away for long and you will have much more important things to do at this time of the year anyway. I certainly haven't been away from blogland long enough for you to miss me either. I have been away this week though, up to Estonia to my university. It was a productive time and I even went to my office Christmas party and a birthday party. Now there's a novelty, especially for someone who hasn't worked in an office much. The downsides of remote working, I suppose, or is that the upside? Depends on your experience I guess.

Yawn! Don't wake me so early! Actually Jakobs it is 8:34, so
get up! I love the coiffured look though.

Wink! No of course I didn't miss you!

As usual my travel up to Tartu meant an early start in the dark. It wouldn't have been so bad but I'd had some rough nights, as my arm has been aching and it meant I hadn't been sleeping well. I think I have over strained it whilst carrying my heavy rucksack on all my recent travels. It has been improving with rest, but every now and again, I set it off. It may also have been lack of Vitamin D. There sure hasn't been much sunshine just lately.

A smiley Josefs

And a smiley George

Unfortunately an early start, does not equate to getting to Tartu early, it just means 3 hours of traipsing around Cēsis. Someone told me there was a pop-up Christmas shop and so I went to investigate. I found it, as it was pretty much where I guessed it would be, but it was only open at 11am and I found it just after 9am. Too long to hang around waiting for it to open. I decided to resort to my usual habit of sitting in a cafe in one of the supermarkets where the drinks are cheap. At least I could work, although they don't have Wifi there now. I guess that is a good thing sometimes. I had my phone when needed and I knew I could charge it up on the train when I got to Estonia. While there is free Wifi on the Latvian trains, there are no charging points as the carriages are fairly ancient, unlike the newer Estonian ones.

Little Ilvija

It looks like the middle of the night, but it isn't. The sunrise
is about 9am at the moment but the days are dull. At least
it isn't northern Finland or somewhere like that.

My friend came to pick me up from the train station and we headed for the supermarket. Not my usual destination in Tartu, but I needed to get some dried fruit to make pseudo-mincemeat. Dried fruit is cheaper in the city and I can get larger bags. The added advantage is I don't have to carry it from home - less wear and tear on the old arm and shoulder. While my friend sorted out the meal for us and another couple who would join us later, I cobbled together the dried fruit for the pseudo-mincemeat. I even popped out for a bottle of rum to add to the mix to soak it in overnight. My pseudo-mincemeat was just dried fruit, Christmas spices (or actually pumpkin spice as that was handy) and lots of apples.

Lady V

These girls look like they've been partying all night.

I am not a great fan of plain mince pies and I prefer mine with lots of apple in them, so this recipe worked for me. It also meant no long curing time either. The only one to know was my Yorkshire supervisor. In the list of things we were bringing, I did explain that I was going to bring mince pies and then a great long explanation of what that really was - but it was only for his benefit. I reckoned that no one else would know the difference and I didn't want to build up his hopes of the real thing.

Brencis

Josefs eating as normal

After a lovely meal with friends and a good nights sleep I headed on into the office. My colleagues and I worked hard on getting the protocol finished that has been ongoing for far too long and had a deadline of that day. The project leader gave us until 2pm. We got the majority of it done for then, but there were one or two rapid changes that needed doing. By 3pm we were done. We had worked through lunch and I had survived on chocolate, oranges and a student breakfast (seriously, that is the translation. To you and me it is a dried fruit and nut snack mix). I was ready for lunch and so was everyone else, so our boss treated us to a meal at a little Italian place. I had a smoked salmon salad and never seen so much smoked salmon on one plate. At least it was a nice starter for the soup that I knew my friend was making for our evening meal.

Looks like a lot of fleece already

Someone has the right idea

In the evening I worked a bit on a presentation for the following day, but also spent quite a bit of time making the mince pies and a Christmas cake that turned out to be more of a pudding. I think it was because the mix was too wet and it was cooked in a glass dish rather than a tin. Still I am assured it tastes good and that's all that matters. I divided it up into small portions and gave one to my boss, as it was his birthday on the Friday (I didn't know that until the day before). Three pieces went to Ian and two stayed with my friend.

About 11:15am this morning. No snow but to me this is
Christmas weather - only UK Christmas weather, not Latvia

A journey to somewhere

In Estonia the birthday person has to buy the food for a party, so at 10am there was a buffet of Estonian food. Fermented cucumbers, lamprey, brawn, sauerkraut, fat slices, liver pate and dark rye bread followed by a cheesecake and blueberry jam, with most of the ingredients sourced locally. It was interesting! Actually it was quite tasty. I'm used to trying all sorts of foods and so I don't often come across anything that I can't eat and I prefer this sort of food to a MacDonalds for sure. Having spent quite a bit of time in Latvia now, I can understand why much of the food would be fermented, it's a great way of preserving food over the winter and it is healthy with plenty of probiotics and vitamins.

A rather twisted tree.Look at the base! A sad end to an
apple tree. This one had little but very sweet apples

Another mangled tree

The moss on the granite boulder is so vibrant

In the early afternoon I gave my final presentation as a PhD student. The next presentation I give in Tartu will be my pre-defence and then my defence. There weren't many people there as many were busy trying to finish off their work before the holidays, but three of my colleagues did manage to hang around, at least for a bit, so there wasn't just my supervisors there. In fact one of my colleagues got quite excited by one slide in particular and we had a lively discussion that was very helpful for my final write up. It helped to clarify one of the outcomes of my research. He was pleased that one of his comments had produced the basic picture that I created a while ago and it was great for me to know that the more recent changes I added (actually that morning) were helpful for visualising a concept. I now have a picture in my head that could be of use for others - at least I hope so! Fortunately I have some talented colleagues who should be able to help me create a good diagram from my ideas.

A ski track! Can you tell? It's missing a
little something. Can't think what!

These catkins took some photographing.
I think it was a combination of low
battery and a dull day. My camera
didn't know what to focus on.

I managed to miss lunch again but decided this time not to keep going on snacks and just wait for the evening Christmas party. It wasn't quite what I was expecting, having never been to one before in all of the 7 years I have been doing my PhD. This was a sit down meal with a selection of Christmas foods from a variety of nations, so it was a German, Ukraine, Estonian and British fusion. I think there were a few other nations' foods in there too but the result was delicious and it was hard not to overstuff myself. I was pretty full by the end of it as it was. It is strange to say, that one of the most remarkable facts about the evening, apart from the good food and good company, was that one of the younger folks was using an old-fashioned 35mm camera. I haven't seen one of those in years and she was probably young when they were taken over by digital ones.

Autumn came and went

The river near our apartment

Saturday I had a lift to Riga and so I was in plenty of time to catch the 3pm bus back home. It was lovely not to be arriving after 7:30pm like normal and I even had company on the way back. My friend's daughter who had helped us during the felting course was on the bus and so we chatted on off for the whole journey. She is an enthusiastic learner and bright, so attends university lectures on a Saturday during school times. It was interesting to hear about her experiences.

A different view of our apartment block. It's kind of rural

The bank is washing away

So back home it was more tidying up, collecting post from the post office that had arrived while I was away. Since the post office is only open till 3pm in our village, Ian cannot collect the post easily. There was also a trip up to a friend's to get some printing done. Our printer has run out of ink and we haven't got around to getting any more. At least it meant a catch up over a cup of tea, which seems like a nice way to pass the morning.