Sew, sew, sew

A wedding in the garden. Not the best picture but I promise
to post more later

Yes that does say sew, sew, sew and not snow, snow, snow - that might be in about a week's time when we get back home to Latvia. We have managed a few days of sightseeing, here in Perth, Australia but the rest of the time was spent on wedding preparation including sewing. Early on in the week it was decided that the really abrupt tan line on our daughter's back was not going to even out in time for the wedding and the only option was to hide it beneath a panel insert and so on the Tuesday before the Saturday wedding we whizzed off to a local fabric store to get some net curtaining - as you do, don't all brides wear net curtains? As our daughter was having her hair highlighted and cut, I got started on the embroidery to go on the panel; at least they gave me coffee and water while I was sewing even if they must have thought it a bit odd me sitting there embroidering. Fortunately the panel wasn't huge but it did need some decoration. Unfortunately there are no pictures yet as that is a surprise for the English part of the wedding next week. I also finished sewing the shawl to keep her warm in England as there is going to be rather a huge difference in temperatures between the Australian summer wedding and an English winter wedding. I must say I am rather pleased with it, again you have to wait for pictures of that too. By way of compensation though you can see the place where the wedding was held, it looked so pretty and we had great fun decorating her friend's back garden.

One of the pretty little places in Guildford with the not so
aesthetically placed for sale sign

There were a few things that marked this out as different to an English wedding, firstly it was outside in January, the sun was definitely shining and all I had was a cheap sun hat and not a glorious wedding hat - would have looked over the top anyway for this casual wedding. Secondly it was in someone's garden, all that is needed is someone registered to carry out a marriage and that was a friend of theirs who is Australian but they met him in England when they all lived there. We also had a fly pass of big black birds, only these weren't crows or anything like that, they were a parrot type bird called red-tailed cockatoos. Thirdly the day nearly started out in disaster when the one of the hosts got bitten by a redback spider which can be fatal - fortunately not all bites are serious and usually only for little ones and this one wasn't. One other spider was spotted later and swiftly dispatched. It was a lovely day, so relaxed that even though I managed to leave my bible and glasses in my handbag (purse) in room inside the house for the reading, it didn't matter as I toddled off to get them. It does mean though, that it may be one of those stories that gets recycled and I get teased about for a few years, along with the story of how with an hour to go to the wedding I realised I hadn't any suitable shoes for the wedding, only a tatty pair of sandals. I nearly wore a pair of purple flip flops, or thongs as they are called here (stop laughing Brits), very Australian. Instead I resorted to borrowing a pair of high-heeled shoes from my daughter and managed not to kill myself in the process walking around in them - major achievement for me.

What everyone should have growing over their
garden wall in January

Our two outings this week consisted of going to see Historic Guildford, a town built in the 1800s, and a walk around the river area near the centre of Perth. The phrase "historic" makes me giggle here in Australia as it did in America's mid-West, as their idea of historic and mine are rather different, but I guess it is just a matter of perspective and the Italians would possibly find my idea of historic just as laughable. One story that made me smile on the interpretative panels they have dotted around the town of Guildford, was of a young lady, who with her aboriginal servant rode into the sea many times to save quite a few people from a shipwreck and a certain Mr. Brockman on hearing of her heroism immediately rode out to meet this remarkable young woman. They eventually fell in love and married. A bit different from your soppy romantic stories where the young lady swoons into the arms of some heroic young man.

One of the cycle paths around Perth

I am not fond of cities, I have to say, but Perth as cities goes is not bad. It has many cycle lanes which makes getting out and about reasonably easy - well it does in the rest of the year, it is a bit hot for me at this time of the year. We did go for a long walk though that meant we could stop and take photos of some of the statues which are dotted around in the parks and on the streets, as well as the parrot type birds and the scenery. Just a pity that it must take loads of water to keep it all looking so green in such a hot and dry climate. Also managed to take some pictures of the naked ghost gum trees this week, those that shed their bark in summer, which is something to do with drought resistance apparently. I find that strange as I would have thought the bark would keep the moisture in. So sorry folks, I have got quite brown for me and this is despite it being January.

Short post this week as we are packing and cleaning, or rather Ian is as I write this to head back to England rather too early in the morning tomorrow so here are some more pictures from our trip

One of those naked trees that have shed its
bark. Hope to have some more next week
as they are still on my camera and my lead
is packed somewhere.

Noisy as a galah, so the saying goes. An apt name for these
noisy parrots

Some of the many statues in Perth

Perth with the infamous or famous grounds where England
were defeated this year for the only time in Australia to regain
the Ashes. Apparently it is because it was the only pitch that
was hard, the rest have been soaked by rain which favours the
English according to one shopkeeper we got chatting too
in Guildford.

A cormorant who was not photo shy and even stretched out
for me to get a better shot of his feathers. Show off!

One for my friend Ju, a nice rusty train

Where to start

Bride and groom

Such a problem to know where to start after two weeks of little internet access and so much has happened. I mentioned that our son's wedding was lovely and indeed it was. It was fabulous to see the smile on the faces of our son and his new wife throughout most of the day, although I noticed he was tearing up during the wedding service but then again so was his dad - what a pair. Gotta love 'em! I was given a gorgeous bunch of flowers which I got to enjoy for a couple of days and then gave them away to some folks in a nearby caravan to where we were staying. I think the lady was a little surprised but I didn't want to waste them as there was at least a week's worth of life left in them and I didn't think they would survive our journey back to Latvia.

The very happy couple

We had a buffet meal for the wedding as funds were short but goodness me the food wasn't short, we were eating sausage rolls on the way back home as well as cakes and pizza, and who cares that we hadn't had a three course meal for the wedding? We didn't, that's for sure, it's just not important. The promises they made to each other were important, after that it is all secondary. The cake was made by the bride's mum, and it was a stunning creation with carnations made from icing which she made herself, certainly a talented woman. Some friends of the young couple teach Salsa lessons and so the entertainment for the evening after the obligatory first dance was learning to Salsa and the vast majority of folks were all up practicing Salsa steps, very funny! I did notice though that Ian's brother who was the photographer for the event was adamant that he really needed to video the proceedings which meant he couldn't join in, didn't look too upset about it though. Certainly a bit different to the embarrassing discos where many folks don't want to join in, as most people were up dancing or in my case trying to. At least my waltzing when we had to join in the first dance as the grooms parents was a little better than my Salsa skills. Those ballroom lessons in my childhood had some use after all.

Mother of the bride, bridegroom, bride, best woman and me.
The mother of the bride and I were witnesses (and no I am
not wearing a plastic bag as Ian keeps saying)

Our son and his wife had a few other non-traditional touches such as a best woman instead of a best man, and the bride's mum walked her down the aisle. The best woman was a Danish friend of our son's from a time that he spent attending a youth bible college when we were living in Denmark (obviously). They got on really well and folks made all sorts of assumptions but they were always just good friends and she even spent one Christmas with us as she couldn't make it to her parents as they lived in Kenya. Fortunately she was comfortable enough with English to give a great speech and talked about their time in the bible college and how she was responsible for our son not being fluent in Danish as they spent so much time chattering away in English. She even got into trouble for it from the principle, but in the end it didn't matter too much since our son returned to England after the course.

Forgot to get a photo of the finished cushion and this is
a scanned picture before making it into a cushion. Still
you get the idea. The wheels are bike wheels since
our son works at a bike shop and they both go cycling
together and the lace is possibly tatting that my
grandmother made.

As the young couple were getting ready to leave our son turned to me and asked me for the red bag. Red bag!!!! O-oh! He had handed me the red bag when we were getting ready for the service in the caravan so that we could take it with us and I had dutifully taken it outside to put it straight in the car but I hadn't got the keys and I couldn't get Ian's or any guys attention whatsoever at the time, the reason being they were all entranced with the car that had arrived to pick our son up. Our son's boss had borrowed a friend's car - as you do, in order to take him, which just so happened to be a black ferrari. Aren't they always? Well failing to get anyone's attention I took the bag back in and promptly forgot about it in the hurry to take the best woman to church (she couldn't fit in the ferrari of course and so had to travel with us). Well our son had to give us directions to hotel where he was staying on his honeymoon night so we could take the clothes in the morning but we did keep the information to ourselves. Couldn't resist sticking a couple of bows, we happened to have in the car, on the windscreen wipers of their car as we left after handing the clothes over, well they had removed all the bows and paper chains from the night before and the car looked quite bare apart from just married written in lipstick on the windows. The funniest thing was the hotel was full of Jane Austen fans on a tour and down comes our son in his shirt and trousers from the wedding, proper dapper. Wonder what they thought?

The fabulous cake. All those flowers
are hand made in icing. Amazing!

Well it was rather a hectic weekend as we not only helped to clear up the hall after the wedding we also helped to clear our son out of his old flat and shifted into their new flat. It was rather surprising how much stuff they had in a one bedroomed flat. Doesn't help that they both come from a family of hoarders and his sister had cleared out her house a few months ago and taken much of it down to him. They did say they were going to get rid of some stuff on e-bay but first they will need to find the chairs to sit down on before deciding what they are keeping and what they are getting rid of. I was proud to hear though that as soon as the table was free they sat down to eat their evening meal at it, even if it meant sitting on speakers. Eating around the table is so important and something we are pleased for sticking with even with the odd grumpy meals due to someone being in a bad mood. Even now we sit and chat around the table for hours when we get together.

Mother and daughter

Well I guess so this doesn't get too long I shall summarise our trip home.
Folkestone - blessed with a bed and a meal out so we didn't have so far to travel to catch the ferry in the morning. Wish the rest of the trip had been that easy.
France - only 20km so we weren't affected by the strikes thank goodness.
Belgium and Holland - Boring! Tedious! Slow! Just too much traffic and we hit Antwerp at 3:30pm ish and apparently that was not a good time to get there (is there a good time apart from the middle of the night like the last time we drove around it?)
Germany - roadworks, even though we chose a different route there were still roadworks on the autobahns and so I must conclude they are digging up all their autobahns (okay maybe not all of them but it sure feels like it). It was funny though to hear Kraftwerk on the radio singing "Autobahn", not something that either of us thought we would ever be listening to whilst actually driving on an autobahn.

Fairy lights and balloons. Very simple and yet effective

Our wonderful room (courtesy of the hotel website)

Germany was redeemed in my eyes though by the sweetest of hotels, the Pension-am-See in Neustadt-Glewe which has a gem of an owner. I rang to say we were running late due to traffic in Belgium and Holland and he said not to worry they would still be there. Well, shortly after that conversation we missed our turning due to yet more roadworks and ended up with me having to navigate our way around Osnabrück at night, not happy was I! Further roadworks added to the length of the journey and meant we arrived at the hotel at 1:30am and I had to ring the owner and wake him up to let us in, which he did with a gracious smile of welcome. I was never so grateful for a warm welcome as I was that night. (Actually I tell a lie, it was the same sense of relief to be welcomed into a warm home after having to abandon a leaking tent and turning up cold and wet on someone's doorstep one holiday in Scotland). We collapsed into bed but despite the comfortable bed I didn't have a restful sleep at all as I was still navigating our way across Europe in my dreams and woke up exhausted. Breakfast was wonderful though, with a table in a nice warm conservatory full of autumn decorations and fairy lights on the table (had to put that after putting up hundreds of them at the wedding as our son and wife really likes them and they had bought them in the January sales for decorating the venue). At least that was a good start to the day, well nearly! I forgot to read all the details on the booking form and missed the bit about only cash accepted, so had to dash out to a cash machine. (Just a note for anyone planning on staying and I would highly recommend it, not just the hotel itself but also because it is in a really pretty area of Germany, but the cash machine is inside the bank and so only available during working hours).

The only photo of our whole trip. A view of the lake from
the hotel car park as we were leaving. The view from the
room was much better but it was raining and we just wanted
to get on our way and the camera was in the car.

Poland was lovely again and the northern route through it is well worth the travel. This time we stopped in a hotel next to a pretty lake. The rooms were large but spartan and for some reason the plug sockets didn't work but since we arrived late-ish again, we hadn't time to sort that out - it may have just been an isolator switch to the room that hadn't been switched on or something simple like that. It would have been hard to explain anyway as the receptionist only spoke German. Now I have done a bit of German at school and even have an O'level in it but wouldn't be able to speak it all these days but I can still remember some words and numbers and can understand some things, Ian however who professes to have no skills in languages at all, was far faster at translating what the receptionist had said than me. I told Ian later that I was really impressed with his ability to understand German since he supposedly didn't know German at all, at which point it was Ian's turn to be surprised, "he spoke German?" he said. Ian has been in so many hotels whilst working that he thought it sounded something like breakfast seven till 10 and not frokost sieben zu zehn, which is what the receptionist actually said and fortunately means the same thing.

Lithuania was still flat and the route a bit monotonous and boring but I do understand that Vilnius is nice but we decided not to call in, a little tired of navigating around cities unintentionally. At least they didn't have loads of roadworks and so better than Germany on that score. It was nice to get to familiar landmarks in Latvia, even if we had never actually seen them in the dark before (we only ever go to Jekabpils shopping so never there at night) and we made it back to our home village just before the hotel finished serving meals. Perfect timing or what? And judging by the snow that started whilst eating I think we did indeed get the timing right. After that epic journey, would we do it again? Don't know! The next time we fly, we are not going to do that route in the middle of winter, that is guaranteed.

Our friend's husband assembling one of the machines at
the orphanage. Just heard they have some money to
redecorate which will be good.

Saturday we went to the local orphanage to handover 9 sewing machines that we had transported back from the UK. A friend of ours had managed to get information out to folks about the orphanage's need for them to teach the youngsters sewing techniques and then to set up a project for unemployed youths to give them a diploma in sewing. Within weeks she had had the offer of the machines and organised them to get to us during our stay, she even brought some across herself to us. Some more will be coming later in a container but at least the orphanage can get started on the project with the ones they have now. The husband of the lady who managed to organise this tremendous feat happened to be in Latvia too so he came to see the place and take pictures and find out a little more about the orphanage and then joined us for tea.

Sunday I rested! How Biblical! Has something to do with a cough and a cold as well though, picked up in England! Thanks guys! And so to today, no chance of a rest this week either as I have an assignment to complete and so I am up to my eyes in the habits of wild boar, and the methods of monitoring their activity, preparing for a possible project next year for my Masters thesis. Ian meanwhile was back into his normal-ish routine too, transporting a neighbour, picking up our tractor from its holiday home at the nearby to the land neighbours (boy this is confusing), and checking to see how far our Swedish friend has got with the apartment. It is in serious danger of actually being finished but I won't hold my breath, it does look absolutely lovely though (I think lovely springs to mind far too readily, need to find a new word). Progress on the barn has been slow though, but I don't think the fact it snowed while we were away has helped either.

An interesting week

The week started off by a visit from immigration officers. One of the not so nice outcomes from the open borders agreement in much of Europe is that now the immigration officers need to check up to make sure people really have left after visas expire, or to make sure that people are up to date on their registration documents and so entails periodic home visits from the dear folk. The last visit I had there were four guys who all looked pretty intimidating, but fortunately the one who spoke English was a nice enough bloke who was very courteous. This time it was a visit by a man and a woman but they still looked intimidating with their official cards and huge jackets with immigration written on them, oh yes and don't forget their pistols, however they were really nice and checked our passports and asked some questions about a friend of ours who has left the country. The only question I do have, is how come they always wait until Ian is out of the house before visiting? Hmmm!

This week I also discovered a squeamish side of me I didn't know existed and if you are of a delicate disposition, then please skip this paragraph. We decided to buy some of the local carp as I had the great idea that the lake that keeps appearing could be developed into a fish pond, well there is not much point in developing a fish pond if you don't like the type of fish that grows well in it so it was important to try it out. Well the fish was fresh, some of it was still flapping in the buckets but the one we bought didn't flap, well not until I started to gut it. Gutting fish I can cope with fine, but not when fin moves, even more so when it opens its mouth. It kind of freaked me out a little and I made Ian come and do the manly thing and dispatch it properly before I continued, he wasn't particularly happy about doing it either but he managed. So the lesson learnt? Make sure you know how to dispatch fish properly before starting to prepare it for cooking. Now I know some of you would be thinking at this point that really the lesson learnt is to buy a nice little pre-packaged thingummy jig at the local supermarket - problem solved! Well here in Latvia they keep the carp in tanks so it would still be flapping when they give it to you, and besides I think we do need to reconnect where our meat and fish comes from and not be quite so squeamish. I am going to learn how to make sure the jobs done properly though in future.

Been a good week for feasting and sitting round a dinner table chatting, which is my idea of a perfect time. Earlier on in the week was the American Thanksgiving, sorry to be absolutely correct United States of America Thanksgiving as the Canadian Thanksgiving is a month earlier, and Canadians are American too so it was pointed out to me that evening (well yes I kind of knew that). Amazingly we had a huge turkey, which is not all that common here in Latvia, both the turkey and huge; normally if you can find a turkey at all they are of the scrawny variety and not the well fattened sort. America exports many things including ideas and celebrations but not Thanksgiving, which I think is a shame. I am all for a celebration that revolves around eating (notice a pattern here) and being grateful for the past year with friends and family and, as one person said whilst I was in America, no pressure to buy presents. Mind you with hindsight I wonder if his wife thought the same way about it?

The other feast was a wedding. We were invited to the wedding of one of the camp leaders we met in the first year of camps we did in Latvia back in the year 2000. She is a bubbly, passionate kind of girl and looks like she has found someone who is equally passionate about his relationship with God and I think they will suit each other well. The wedding was a little of an English-Latvian fusion because there were many guests from England, including the "best couple" who were good friends of ours from our church back in England - in fact the couple who were responsible for getting us interested in going out to Latvia all those years ago. Latvians love flowers and use any occasion to give them and so instead of flowers being arranged by the couple, every family brings along flowers to give to the bride and groom. There were lots of vases around so I think that the huge number of flowers given were actually distributed around the church building where they got married to decorate it rather than be wasted. Other differences to the UK traditions I noticed was no bridesmaids and once the father walked the bride down the aisle he immediately handed her over to the bridegroom instead of an elaborate handover ceremony. At the reception the bride and grooms family did not sit on the top table, it was the two supporting couples. There were songs sung by the bride's brother and friends, which is not surprising in Latvia as they do like to sing even if they don't go to church, there was a game where the winners got to take the young couple out over the coming year, for instance one couple will take them to the cinema one month, one will organise a romantic meal another month and so on, not sure how normal that is for Latvians but seemed an interesting enough idea. One thing I understand is common is the regular banging on glasses with cutlery and the shouting of "kiss, kiss" in Latvian of course and then the couple were expected to kiss, a real headache inducing tradition.

On the way to the wedding in the morning we came to an area where it was unexpectedly misty and I couldn't quite work out why until we came round a corner to see a very sad sight, a hotel that was on fire and by the time we were passing the spot was a mere shell with the outside walls still standing but no roof and only the chimney stacks still visible; by the time we went home the whole thing had collapsed. It was a great shame as it had only just been spruced up since we arrived in Latvia, in the bright yellow colour that the Latvians love (as you can see from the picture)

On our late night trips back home we usually see plenty of wild life and this time was no exception. If you see one deer on the road you can usually expect more so Ian is always careful to slow down. This time there were three deer stood in the road who were looking in the opposite direction to our car, we expected them to at least scatter when we approached, but no they didn't even turn around to look at us. You would think that a car at night with headlights on would warrant some attention but it wasn't until we were within metres of them did they seem to realise we were there and run off. We decided at this point that wolves have got it all wrong, they don't need to go around in sheep's clothing to confuse the deer, they just need to take up driving, the bigger the car the better, they would be sure to be able to sneak up on the deer then.

It has still been rather wet here this week so it was quite a surprise when the sun actually put in an appearance today and so the dark night took a little longer before it really took hold, well perhaps 10 minutes more daylight than normal often it is pretty dark by 4pm, and we have even needed the light on for much of the day sometimes. Makes you realise why the Northern Europeans like candles in winter time. Talking of winter Father Christmas was spotted today having a walk around our village, he does seem to have lost quite a bit of weight though in preparation for the annual stuffing of eating all those mince pies and shots of sherry at the UK addresses. Which reminds me, I guess that must mean Christmas is fairly close! Oh! Crumbs! Well never mind the kids aren't actually going to be coming out this year on Christmas itself so I should be safe. First one arrives two days later, next one two months and errr the other one?????? Whenever!