The Journey: 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.