And then..

Brencis rocking his big teddy bear look.

Well it's been another of those eclectic and hectic weeks. Trying to juggle various jobs that need doing around the farm, work related tasks and jobs for others. We finally managed to get our own alpacas sheared anyway. Our friends from just north of Riga came and helped us again with Brencis, for which we are deeply grateful. Of course we also ate food afterwards and chatted the afternoon away. It's nice that we don't have to shear all of our alpacas on one day, so we can split them into more manageable numbers. The only problem is that Ian had to keep the alpacas in on a couple of days because of the rain as we can't shear wet alpacas.

Such a smart looking chap now.

Jakobs having a good scratch on the fence now
his fleece is off.

We had help for the other boys too on another day. The difference was that Ian was also teaching our helper about shearing alpacas at the same time. He explained what he was doing as he was going along. We were just grateful for the extra pair of hands but they thought they should pay him for the teaching. Ian had no idea how much to ask, so they offered us some pork as a gift. They came back a few days later with the gift. Note to self, when someone in the countryside offers a gift of meat, remember that it is unlikely to be in neat and tidy packages. We eat meat but not great quantities at once, so a small amount of meat goes a long way. One of the pieces would have done Fred Flintstone proud. Put it this way, I split the meat into about 8 largish chunks to put in brine, split some more into small pieces, enough for three meals worth, got a jar of fat and four jars of stock out of it and then there were two smaller pieces that were put directly in the freezer. 

Soaking up the sun

Freddie looking suave

Ilvija before shearing

The other problem that reared it's ugly head on that day, besides needing to deal with the meat and shear alpacas we were contacted by the agricultural subsidy people as there was a mistake with the application and it needed to be dealt with by the end of the day. That meant having to ring a friend to ring the office to find out the problem. Then Ian had to give instructions to be able to amend the application. Akkk! It was a complicated day. It was also the day when we sheared the most tricky of our alpacas, i.e. the spitty ones - although to be fair, Aggie was so relieved to get rid of her over warm coat she behaved impeccably. Even the really spitty one, Chanel, wasn't as bad as she could be. I wore a waterproof coat while we sheared her daughter, so that she didn't spit down my neck and I didn't really need it that much. We had to shear Chanel last because her skin is bad and we needed to put some diatomaceous earth on her to see if that will help. That stuff is a fine powder that kills the shears though.

She sure needed a haircut

A good scratch in the trees

Mother and daughter. From a distance the slight
grey from the powder is the only reason we
can tell them apart now. Chanel has been really
protective of Ilvija just lately, but we have
no idea what has gone off. Maybe a disagreement
with one of the other alpacas. Who knows!

The rain has cleared and warm days have suddenly arrived and we are finding there are still more alpacas to shear in Latvia. Gone are the days when we were only one of four places with alpacas in the whole country. I started writing this blog on the way home from shearing two alpacas for new owners just outside of Riga. It was so nice to talk to people who are concerned to provide the best for their alpacas though and were interested to learn. We helped move the alpacas from one field to another, as they weren't sure about how to handle them yet. They were very, very grateful. Ian the alpaca whisper struck again! Fortunately one of the alpacas was halter trained and with a bit of adjustment to a horse halter (not ideal but it worked) he led it to where it needed to go and patiently guided it through the various gates along the way. Ian's intuition was that the other would follow and he was proved right. We only struggled at one point when the follower was quite content to stay with the goats and the geese that were in the next field, but I and another lady managed to encourage it to follow. Ian also gave them some advice on grass maintenance for the alpacas and warned them of things to watch for.  

Poor Chanel. Her skin is awful. We have arranged
for the vet from the university to come out at the
end of the month. She should cope until then. We 
aim to get to the bottom of the issue with blood
samples and skin scrapes - whatever tests are needed.

Aggie with the fleece on that she was so happy
to have sheared off. She's been quite pleasant to
Ian just lately, even though she's pregnant.

We are starting to get a steady trickle of visitors to see the alpacas, with one lady even coming back after a visit three years ago. Another group spent ages asking questions of Ian while I was sat out of the way under the shade of a tree for an online staff meeting. Eventually we had a break in the meeting and I had to interrupt while I grabbed a coffee. It's been a busy few weeks with work. There has been the checking the theses for readability and correcting some English mistakes, reviewing some more theses in preparation for their defences and then sitting in and listening to them. So excuse me if my own English has gone to pot, so to speak. I'm having difficulty readjusting my brain between all these different things I've been reading. I also attended another conference online and Ginger Tom got in on the Zoom call while I was speaking, fortunately everyone just laughed. Why does he become so affectionate when I'm on the computer?

Ginger Tom taking a nap in the sun.

The swallow is nesting, even whilst we were shearing

He looks such a cutie but he can be a bit of a
menace for picking fights. We were wondering
today if we will have to separate him and
George his half-brother

Ian of course is also busy at this time of the year. There's the shearing and the preparation for shearing, like cleaning and sharpening the equipment and cleaning out the alpaca houses. Then there's mowing the grass that has suddenly burst into life and sorting out a water leak at the apartment that took 6 hours. He also had to take a trip back to the big town to get his ID card after forgetting to take his passport the last time but while he was there he also took the car for its annual technical inspection. It didn't pass and he has a month to sort out leaf springs, one of which has cracked, so we're pleased they found that out. Fortunately we have a good local garage that will sort that out, hopefully.

George eating through the fence again. Sigh!

Larry the Lada setting off on adventures new. 
The reason the young chap is steering with the
door open is there is also a bees' nest in the car.
Not a honey bees' nest though.

We said goodbye to Larry the Lada this week. A relative of our alpaca friends, who came to help us, was interested in our old Lada that hasn't run for years. I have may have mentioned a few times that it needs to be removed, it was becoming a bit of an eyesore, so when someone said they were willing to take it off our hands we were delighted. The two young men came and surprisingly got the car to start after a few attempts. They then arranged for it to be transported away, although that had to wait until we got back from shearing in Riga which was just after 10pm - still light though. Apparently Larry might end up as a run about on a piece of land, or be broken up for spare parts. Fine if you have the time for that sort of thing but Ian doesn't nowadays. 

Mr. P. looks a bit scruffy once he's sheared as he
goes and has a roll in the dust and it shows.

Tellus the stud male that all the ladies like. Here
not looking his best due to all the fat lumps he
has now. Not sure what makes an alpaca prone
to fat lumps.

The cold start to the year has meant that we are behind on somethings like getting the chickens out of the greenhouse - they are finally outside. I've taken a distinct dislike to our new chickens though. We got back one day after a trip out and wondered what had gone off as there was a bit of blood on a perch, but all the chickens went rushing in for food at putting away time as they normally do and so thought no more about it. Same again in the morning, all the chickens rushed out for their feed. However, by mid-morning I went to take a look and one was dead and I had to fight off the others to get to it. They had pecked it to death.  Not sure if it had a prolapse or not but a few days later they did that to another chicken. It was horrible. This week it looks like the chickens had been removing the eggs from the nesting box and started to eat the eggs. If they carry that on, they will be in the pot - all of them. Hopefully being outside will help to focus their mind on other things. 

You can see that Tellus has quite a few fat lumps
on his neck. 

Surprisingly Turbjørn responded quite well to 
shearing. We did take the precaution of giving
him some pain relief before we started the 
shearing process and was ultra careful with him.
I wonder if the mosquitoes are bothering him though
as he can't move his head so well to get rid of them.
I have found a fly spray that is pleasant enough and
yet works, but of course it has to be applied often
enough.

Those pesky flies get everywhere

Looking very summery now

Valeria cooling off in the shade of a tree.

Elegant Mari, elegant! We sheared her half-sister
yesterday. We were a bit surprised to find out that
one group of new owners had got their's from our
friends up in Estonia.

Vanessa enjoying the sunshine after shearing

Another elegant pose. Not sure who this is though. 
It has got so difficult to tell them apart since
they've all been sheared.

Sunbathing....

...and eating grass now they don't have a winter coat on

Not sure if this is a baby lizard or something else

Frustrations and joys

I was asked to measure the holes in this area as they are not
part of the study area. This hole with my stick in it
measured 80cm.

This has been a rather frustrating week really. It didn't start off too well when at least one of our dear little puddy cats got onto the sideboard knocking a glass into their water bowl and then proceeding to traipse water everywhere including Ian's computer. Fortunately the glass did not break, but the computer was not happy and sulked to a stop. Ian needless to say was not a happy bunny once again, to see his computer dying on him for the second time, about a year after the last time. He then spent a fruitless day trying to get the wiring fixed on the horse box. I think I forgot to say that the horse box failed its technical inspection when we bought it, but that was only to be expected on an old trailer and it only needed some new tyres after they had started to perish in storage, which was no big deal. Unfortunately on the way home the cover of the rear light came off and Ian could not find it. So although the new wheels were easy to replace the lights were a different matter. Ian had to buy two completely new units, which weren't expensive, and fitted okay. So far! So good! Problem is that somewhere along the line the wiring seemed to have gone awry and on inspection some of the wires were perished and contacts corroded, one of the original units was also wired in wrong. So Tuesday we spent on the land with Ian fixing the wiring and me periodically doing the checks on which lights were working and which were not. We finished the day with no joy, as the units were still not working properly.

And because I don't have enough photos this week that I
can show you, here is the other half of the rainbow from
the other week 

As it was eating out night we decided to check first to see if the hotel had a conference on or not as last week we ended up getting to the bakery just before closing to get a take away. We were in luck this week, no conference and on the way home from checking we saw our new friends who we met last week. Our new friends have to move out of their rented accommodation soon, because the company that owned it went bankrupt, but they were really fortunate to find a flat at the right price. They were so excited about their new home and wanted to show us around. It needs quite a bit of work doing on it, but it's theirs and that mattered much more. After such a frustrating day it was good for our spirits to see the joy on their faces and to realise that our frustrations were minor compared to the threat of not having a roof over their heads. Just for good measure the computer dried out and started working in the evening too. I guess all's well that ends well!

Hopefully safely installed in the greenhouse. At least it is a
bit warmer in there. Just got to make sure the place is
ventilated from time to time so we don't end up with a load
of mould

Ian spent the rest of the week on the trailer and also on Larry the Lada. Our Swedish caped crusader friend came to lend a hand and suggested renewing the wiring on the trailer rather than trying to trace the fault. He helped Ian to sort out the starter motor on the Lada as well, as that was only working when it was not properly fitted, as soon as the bolts were tightened it stopped working. It took an angle grinder to get it sorted - not quite sure what they did but the phrase "if it doesn't fit, make it" springs to mind. I meanwhile toddled around sorting out our plants in the greenhouse and getting them ready for winter or digging up the ones that had finished. I had a shock at one point when I picked up some string and inadvertently picked up a small rodent. Not too sure who got the biggest shock though. I'm not the squeamish sort really, and mice don't freak me out - unless of course I pick one up without realising it and then I kind of jumped and shrieked. Just a little shriek you understand. Larry the Lada took rather longer than anticipated, but at least in the end it was working. We finished off the day by manoeuvring the caravan into the greenhouse to store it over winter (meanwhile praying fervently that the greenhouse does not collapse like last year). That sounds easy but it wasn't. The fit was tight, the ground uneven and slippy and in the end we couldn't use the car to back the caravan into the greenhouse and on our friend's suggestion we got the tractor and pushed it in.

Trying to get a photo of this little one was hard, she is a
bundle of energy

At least we are now a good way on to being prepared for the winter as Ian has got some of the equipment into the barn and I have got most of the plants snuggled under blankets of wood chip. I am trying that instead of conifer branches this year as it is easier to get hold of without cutting the branches off lots of trees. Also means I can leave the wood chip to decay gradually into the ground instead of having to remove the branches somewhere. I will still need to use branches for some shrubs on the land to stop the deer eating them though. I think the next job will be to mark the road way so we can still see it even under snow and then we can relax for the winter! All the planning for next year will then start.

Play time! The kittens using the greenhouse like a climbing
frame

The kittens are doing well and it is funny to see their characters developing. Bella chirrups often, she sound more like a budgie at times than a cat. Sofie, I was shocked to find out by looking at a kitten chart, was seriously underweight for her supposed age, but some good food (yes no more cheap kitten food either after last week's smelly events) and she has put on quite a bit of growth and feels a lot stronger. She now fights back when Bella starts play fighting and can leap about surprisingly well - not quite the calm cat she once was, but she can still be quite timid at times. On Saturday we decided to take the kittens to the greenhouse as we feel sorry for them cooped up in our apartment. It was like taking the kids to one of those indoor amusement play centres and they sure slept well that evening. One reason for taking them is to stop them getting bored with being indoors all the time, there is more space for running around and as it turns out some excellent climbing frames for them, the other reason is the mice or at least small rodents in the greenhouse and we don't want the caravan overrun with them. Sofie did an excellent job, there was a blur of cat and a loud squeaking noise - not sure what it was but there was disgusting smell afterwards that smelt like tom cat, but we think was most likely emanating from a petrified rodent. I couldn't work out whether she actually caught the rodent or it got away in one of the many tunnels they seem to have built in the greenhouse, but at least they might think twice before coming back in.

Sofie hiding in the buckwheat

The finish of the week was no less frustrating for Ian as it would appear the connector from the car to the trailer was also faulty and so he spent another frustrating day locating 7.5 amp fuses - in fact we have probably bought up the whole of the stock in the village now. So rather than sitting in tonight we escaped to a friend's house, as we did not want to be around when trick or treaters called - a fairly recent introduction to Latvia and a very unwelcome one in my estimation. Our evening out, at least was not frustrating, in fact we had a great time with much laughter - always a good tonic for a frustrating week.

Odd week

Really excited to see our grapes growing.
I hope they taste all right after all this as
we have waited three years for this
and they have miraculously survived
two bad winters

Been an odd week this week. We are still doing the job the banks should be doing and helping where we can, but, as I told one person, it is a privilege to be able to share what God has blessed us with and if it makes life easier here, then that is good, and if it gets some businesses going, then even better. There was one point that I was just a little worried if we doing the right thing because money can always be a difficult subject between friends and I asked God for some specific encouragement about the matter. I got the most amazing reply back in the form of an e-card, from someone with no connections to Latvia thanking me for the way I invest in the lives of others. It wasn't just sent to me, it was sent to other folks as well who had also invested in this young person's life, but for me it was as if God had sent me a personal reply to my prayer that just answered any of my worries about whether I was doing the right thing or not. No matter what the possible issues should be, it would seem that God's answers to any worries I might have, is that I should keep investing.

Our plot on the land with sunflowers
growing well

One of the advantages of keeping this blog and a photographic record of what we are doing. is that we can look back over the years to see what we were doing a year ago or two ago and compare it to where we are now. For instance we have tomatoes coming now in the greenhouse, but how does that compare with last year? We feel like we are far behind because the greenhouse took so long to build, but when we look back we could even be ahead of last year, which is quite a relief. The hot weather in June of this year in the greenhouse must have brought everything on quicker than the cold wet June we had last year. Outside, however, everything is behind due to a lack of rain - it's swings and roundabouts I guess. It does show though why mixed farming is so necessary in the chaotic times with the vagaries of the weather. Mixed farming means that if one crop doesn't do so well then maybe another crop will, instead of relying on one massive monoculture crop to supply the income. I used to find in Derbyshire where we used to live that if I grew two sorts of beans, french and runner beans then I would do well with one sort if the other one didn't do too well - could never remember which did better in which kind of year though, as we didn't keep that kind of data then. Here we tend to also grow crops in three different places as the micro-climate in the three different locations is slightly different and by growing some crops in the three different places we stand a chance of doing reasonably well somewhere, that is as long as we don't get pestilences visiting all plots. This year we have been battling Colorado beetle on our potatoes. As insects go they are very sedentary and very easy to catch, but they are voracious eaters and will sit there happily chomping through many leaves if you don't catch them and so constant vigilance is required. On the subject of growing, our field of buckwheat is coming along nicely, we obviously timed it well by getting it in just before the rain finally came and now it is growing faster than all the other weeds that have germinated in the damper conditions, which is very reassuring and exactly what we wanted it to do.

Germination looks good until you realise that it is not all
buckwheat but lots of weeds too

I was hoping to say that this last week we had been to see an alpaca farm, but I am having difficulty getting hold of the guy. I rang the other week and we chatted briefly after which we arranged for me to ring on Tuesday, but when I rang he couldn't hear me. I sent a text instead and he texted me back saying he will ring me, but he didn't - well not that I know of. I have tried several times since, but all to no avail. It is really hard to know what the problem is. Is he avoiding me for some reason? Possible here in Latvia, as people can be wary of dealing with foreigners. Has his phone broken? Also possible too. I am disappointed, I was really hoping we were getting somewhere by finding someone who raised them in this country. I still believe it is the way we should go but not really sure how to proceed now. I will give it one more go tomorrow and if that doesn't work I will then get a Latvian to ring and see where we go from there.

This shows the good news though, as the buckwheat is the
larger leaved plants that are taller than the rest of the weeds.
One other thing that buckwheat is good for is that bees
produce a glorious dark honey from the pollen of buckwheat
we shall have to see about borrowing some bees I guess.

The oddness of this week was added to by an invitation from a friend to join a meeting to pray for the outgoing President of Latvia. The prayer meeting was located, in a Lutheran church, across the river from the place where the President was holding a party to say goodbye and it was an ad hoc meeting as it was only arranged the day or two before. We started off with a selection of songs by a brass band which seemed a bit odd at times, as I have never been to a meeting with a brass band before. I have heard meetings led with organ music, piano, guitar and drums and even saxophones, clarinets, flutes and violins but never a brass band complete with euphonium. As they played the more regal music, I could imagine a procession fit for a King, with the trumpets ringing out declaring his presence and it was quite awe inspiring at times. Unfortunately though there was a mis-communication and after an hour of the brass band, the lady in charge of locking up wanted to go home, she wasn't prepared to stay until 10pm as we thought had been arranged as she had already had a long day. Still it was good that we got some time where we could come together to pray for the President and his new career, wherever that takes him. I do indeed wish him well on his journey as he has really showed himself as a man of integrity by standing up to the dishonesty displayed amongst many of the Latvian Parliamentarians.

Butterflies love Ian's Lada too

To complete this rather odd week I have had a rather mixed day today too. Part of it was spent taming the monster tomatoes from sending out sideshoots, as they are the sort of tomatoes that send out sideshoots as soon as your back is turned (for those not into gardening, sideshoots means the tomato plants are concentrating on growing more leaves and not on tomatoes and so taking out the sideshoots helps to concentrate their minds a little on the job of growing tomatoes). Part of it was spent being the not so glamorous assistant to Ian by pumping the brakes of his Lada, as he bled the brakes - we now have a Lada where the brakes all work, which is kind of useful. The rest of my time was spent reading academic papers and making notes, whilst sat in the caravan sipping cups of tea. Odd it maybe, but enjoyable it was! Although it is a little frustrating for Ian's Lada to be sat around because it is not in good working order, it has meant that Ian has had a chance to brush up on his car mechanic skills from all those years spent maintaining crumbling cars when we lived in the UK. While in Denmark he had only bikes to maintain, whereas in the US and here, so far we have had relatively new or new cars, so not much maintenance for him to do. He therefore has relished the challenge and endured the frustrations of getting a car working again.

Empire expands

Our new Lada

We started off this week by adding yet another item to our inventory, a Lada! Yes I said a Lada! Ian has had his eye on a Lada ever since we got here, to be precise a 4WD Lada Niva. It is interesting to see that over the years the changes in car ownership in Latvia. When we first arrived the cars were mainly Soviet era makes, and don't ask me what they were I have no idea, I just know they weren't the state of the art modern looking cars. The only modern looking cars were the dark windowed Mercedes that you didn't ask who owned those! As time went on the cars changed and more and more European cars were seen on the streets, in fact quite upmarket cars, but the Lada Nivas were still seen around, well maybe not in town but certainly in the countryside. The Ladas continued to chug on, nothing glamorous or elegant in any shape or form but robust little workhorses. We used to have a Niva in England and I have to say it was a pig to drive, it had a small steering wheel and no power steering so driving it from our village to the next town was a physical endeavour that took a lot of energy, however and it is a big however, in the snow it was perfect. It was like a different beast entirely. The Lada we have acquired is a suped up rally version as it was used in competitions around the local forests. This means there are no frills at all in this car as it is as light as possible but it does what we want it to do which is to travel over the land without chewing it up quite as much as the tractor and tows a trailer at the same time. It has a winch on the front that will pull 5 tonnes and so it might be useful for winching some of the trees from the forest but we still have to try it out on that. It now means as well that Ian gets to partake in one of his favourite hobbies of messing around with cars, I think he has missed the dirt and the swearing as something doesn't go back together the way it should and we don't have to worry about putting our newish, heavy vehicle into situations where it could get stuck or damage it. If we damage the Lada, the chances are it will be fixable and cheap, damage the truck and it is likely to cost us money - lots of!

Our share of the haul of mushrooms

We have been venturing out again this week, this time picking mushrooms with one of our Latvian friends. During the English lessons I teach we are often asked if we have been picking mushrooms in our forest and had to confess that to be honest we hadn't had time to look but even if we had we weren't one hundred percent sure that we could remember which were the safe mushrooms to eat. It turns out that one of my students is an ace at picking mushrooms as she knows the best places to go and picks loads of them, so we put her on the spot and asked if she would take us out and show us the safe ones, so earlyish Saturday morning saw us out in the woods with our friend and two young helpers who could translate. We set off into the woods and our friend wandered off in one direction and the helpers in another and we were left a little bewildered as to what we were looking for and where we were but as if by magic eventually everyone re-appeared and found each other again, much to our relief. We did eventually get the hang of which mushrooms to pick and saw some beautiful examples of what we were definitely not looking for, the classic red mushrooms with white spots but also there are some brown ones which have similar spots on the top - didn't know about those, but we did learn the Latvian for poisonous that's for sure. Pity I didn't have a camera with me to take a photo of the red ones, they are so pretty and there were some beautiful examples of them. The afternoon was spent processing our haul into mushroom sauce, dried mushrooms, mushroom sandwiches and guess what we had for tea (dinner) too - yup! You guessed! Mushrooms!

A lovely spot to work

It has been good to be exercising my brain again and getting back into the swing of academic work but what was even nicer was sitting outside on our land today in the sunshine and the peace and quiet reading my course book. Well it would have been quiet but someone was hammering away trying to do something with the wheel on a certain Lada, thank goodness it didn't last long. I think if I was going to do that on a regular basis though I will have to invest in a comfier chair although it was a good excuse to get up and wander about looking at the changing colours of the trees, watching the pond life and generally doing something other than reading from time to time. Ian meanwhile continued shifting hay off the main part of the field into a humungous pile that will eventually become compost. What it has helped us to realise though is that we can't do that again every year, it takes far too long when there are plenty of other jobs to do. We will have to mull over the solutions early next year I think. The options are to get in the contractors but that costs quite a bit of money and they won't be very happy at baling up our degraded grassland with all the raspberry canes in it and we are unlikely to recoup the costs from sales of the bales, get a baler ourselves that we can at least avoid the places that mess up the machines, borrow a horse and use the old-fashioned grass collectors or get sheep! Sheep are a strong possibility particularly for steep areas but I think we will be restricting ourselves to fattening up lambs for the table so we don't have the winter expenses too soon. Still we have the winter to mull these things over and that's what winters are for, to plot and plan for the year ahead and eat what you have grown during the year, oh yes and to see our children getting married.

A pond frog hiding. Not the prettiest of names for such a
pretty coloured frog

One thing Ian and I struggle with at times is making decisions. Sometimes we can make rapid decisions but often we take ages. Planning our trip to England to see our son getting married is a nightmare. Part of the reason is not having an income yet and so seeing savings dwindle as we live off them can be a bit scary at times and there is still no sign of our house in Sheffield selling and that means we really should be being careful with our money. Accommodation in the south of England is a bit problematic but finally we found a caravan to stay in which is near enough to our son to not have a long round trip every day. Next we have to plan to actually get there, we have decided on going by car - well that's one decision down but now we have to decide where to stay en route as we don't like the idea of sleeping in the car, not even sure it is legal in some places, and a nice bed, shower and breakfast will make for a much more pleasant journey. Oh well! Back to surfing the internet for hotels along the way I guess.

For all my Colorado friends, aspens in
our forest.

One other decision I have to make fairly soon is on a research project to do, both a short one for a placement, an assignment and then next year the big one for my Master's thesis. One thing I will have to do is to engage with some of the Latvian authorities to find out what help they can provide to assist my research in development in rural Latvia. In one way I am dreading it as I know how long some things take. I have been reading how important the first contact can be in social research and how a bad initial contact can put up barriers to any further research, so that does not instil confidence. We are blessed though with a neighbour who is an environmental journalist which means lots of useful contacts but a busy schedule and so that meant taking two weeks just trying to find some contacts with someone in the state forest service. I now have to find someone to translate for me, at least for the initial contact. I suspect that there are people who would be able to speak enough English in the organisation for me to work with them but gaining their confidence is crucial before someone is willing to admit they can speak English. Picking the right person to translate is also going to be crucial too and so time slips by - at least I have a year to get somewhere on this one, that is some consolation. One day, one day! I will be able to speak Latvian and that will be one less problem to work my way through but until that day I have to rely on others, which in itself is perhaps not a bad thing - making myself vulnerable and dependent on others.