All grown up!

Our granddaughter enjoying
creamy porridge with
strawberries and grapes from the
freezer. Or should I say enjoying
the strawberries first and then the
porridge

Our little granddaughter is visiting at the moment with her Mum. It might only be a few months since she last visited, but she is now chatting away and saying distinct words. She has also developed quite an imagination. So much growing up in so little time. The snow is still on the ground here and so our little Ozzie granddaughter has got to see it for the first time , she wasn't very impressed. She must have picked up an Ozzie gene for the heat somewhere along the line, despite having two northern British parents. Her Mum and I took her outside to see the snow and she found it really difficult to walk in it, which she didn't like. She also got very upset when I tried to start moving snow about to make a snowman. Eventually she got the hang of walking about and then let me make snowcastles with buckets from the sandpit, which she then enjoyed demolishing. Today she had her first ride on a sledge, that was much more fun - at least at first. We went to look for a Christmas tree and she got a bit bored and fed up, maybe a little cold too and on the way back she complained about being in the sledge, then started crying as we tried to get back as fast as possible. In the process we freaked the sheep out with the noise of the sledge on the snow and our crying granddaughter, so they charged their fence, broke it and ran off.

Making snowcastles

Amazingly the old sheep shelter is still standing, although
they don't use it these days

Our granddaughter and her Mum disappeared into the caravan to warm up and the sheep spotted Ian at the greenhouse and so trotted over and followed him back as good as gold to their pen. He didn't even have to entice them with food. The problem is that tomorrow we were going to get a ram to put in with them and now Ian is not happy about doing that in case the ram got out. Our sheep know to follow Ian back to the pen, but would they do that with a ram about and would a ram be quite so obedient? It doesn't look like we will be having lambs any time soon then, as that plan has now been shelved.

Frosty backdrop to the girls alpaca hut

Our granddaughter isn't the only one growing up. Agnese is getting quite big now. She and Estelle still have a run around from time to time like young alpacas and Ian enjoyed standing in the middle whilst they raced around him. Other days they fall out and spit at each other, as alpacas do. We started with the vitamin injections for all the alpacas for the winter months today. That will be a regular monthly chore until about March time now. It is definitely getting easier to do these jobs as they get more and more used to us.

Amazing cloud formations

I love winter sunrises. Not only do I not have to be up
rather early, they are the most intense colours

The last chore we tackled with the alpacas was cutting toe nails at the end of November. Ian had to wear his glasses for that, something that is coming a bit hard for someone who had far better than average sight in his younger days. This last week he came home and asked if I had seen his glasses as he had been looking all over for them. Nope! Not I! The last time I saw them was, yes you've guessed it, when we were cutting toe nails. The next day I got a text, "Found the glasses! They were in the alpaca hut, those boys do think it's funny to hide things." They were actually just on the bit of shelf where he had left them. Shows he doesn't need them that often then.

Just because you can never have enough frosty winter
scenes. They are so bright after the dark autumn days

Our chickens are also growing up. The boys we moved into new arks proved to us that we were right in thinking that they were getting close to being grown up cockerels by Cock-a-doodle-doing. It is strange to hear cockerels again as we get out of the car in the mornings. It has been quiet around the place since we lost the older cockerels to a fox. Fortunately the hens have settled down now and are laying again, after only the briefest of stoppages due to the stress of the male interloper. It is nice to have a regular supply of eggs again after the rather sparse number over the autumn period.

I love the splash of colour of the playground equipment

We've had other visitors this week. Not long ago one of us commented on the fact that it seems strange we haven't had a visit from the immigration department for a long time. Lo and behold two ladies turned up at the door this week with a paper in one hand and the immigration insignia on their jackets. They asked if we had seen some American neighbours of ours, but I hadn't as they had left about two years ago, which I told them. They asked about another family and I was able to tell them they were still around, but I knew that was okay to say that. They never even asked for my passport or registration documents. They just seemed happy enough with the information and left. The funny thing about these visits by the immigration people, is that Ian has only ever seen them in passing on the stairs and never had to prove his existence to them, although I have shown them his registration documents. He is never actually at home when they show up.

A truly glorious winterscape of frosted trees and deep blue
sky

On the same day, as my visit from the immigration officers, Ian had a visit out on the land by some guys from a government mapping department. I presume they were just checking up to see what the changes were that were showing up on their newly updated maps, such as our greenhouse and barn. They left Ian a leaflet explaining what they do, but of course it was in Latvian, so that wasn't much help. What was of help though was the website that was listed on the leaflet. Ian checked it out and is delighted to find that they have maps that can be overlaid and by changing the transparency of the top layer, it is possible to see the transition from one map to the other. This shows the landscape changes over time and helps us to see how much the weed trees have grown over the years. When I say weed trees, I just mean the trees that are growing up in areas where they aren't really supposed to be growing. The trees are being gradually thinned out though, so that there is adequate room for the alpacas to graze and a chance of shelter from wind, rain and sun.

Our frosted oak tree

And my thought for the week? What is truth? It seems such a relative term and I don't think the lack of truth is worse now than it ever was, it is just a different expression of it. I find that too often the posts that are reposted on facebook that purports to tell us about particular people portrayed in a negative way are untrue. Recent examples are suppsosedly how many MPs were in the British Parliament to debate their pay and their expenses compared to other deemed more worthy topics or the photoshopped manipulated image of someone holding up a poster outside the fire station in Ferguson supposedly saying  "No mother should have to fear for her son's life every time he robs a store." Factually they are not true (you can read the truth behind the photos here and here), but there is a truth in both of them though. Whilst the picture does not tell us the truth as it actually happened, I think it does tell the truth of what is in our hearts. We often want to think the worse of our "enemies" or at least the people on the other side of the debate. Sometimes the truth is downright inconvenient. The picture of the MPs may not be factually true, but the output from their debates in the policies signed into law would suggest that it paints a sort of truth and I must admit to being sorely tempted to repost this one. More often than not though the picture paints the ugly truth of our own hearts, that we want to demonise the "other." What does it mean to "love your enemies?" Whether that enemy is a single individual or an amorphous group, we are called by Jesus to love them. Even telling the truth about our enemies is not always enough either, we have to question our motives in revealing ugly truths, is it calling the person to a greater accountability or just gossip?

Competition time! And the winner is..... actually no one got the whole answer, but some of you did get part of the answer. The picture shows our cat Sofie, curled up on top of the caravan skylight window for warmth.

Travel and things

Winter jobs, cutting up wood for either later on in winter
if necessary or for next year. Ian had some help too this
week by some friends who are leaving to go back to the US
soon. It doesn't seem five minutes ago since they arrived
and yet it is nearly two months ago.

Didn't get off to a good start this week as I got one of those virally things which resulted in a disappearing voice. Something that still amuses my youngest son, even now as it used to happen a lot when they were growing up and so he took great delight in Skyping me, just to hear me squawk. The virus meant that I slept rather a lot more than usual and didn't get much done that I should have got done. It is that bit that frustrates me the most. The days are dark and dreary at the moment, but still relatively mild and I suppose that doesn't kill off the bugs. I really need to get some solid work done but things keep cropping up that get in the way. I suppose I am going to have to get ruthless so I can see some progress and make sure I get some time off around Christmas time.

One of our cats and the chickens sharing a meal. I don't
think she has been catching enough mice to keep her warm.
The cat is the one on the right, there should only be brown
chickens or brown and white in this ark.

It is not just sore throats that make me sleepy, I'm finding it easier and easier to fall asleep on trains, buses and this weekend airplanes. It was quite strange this weekend to not be setting off in a bus up to Tartu at 7am on a Sunday morning, instead I got a lie in and we set off by car to the airport about 9:30am. Stranger still was taking about the same length of time to travel all the way to England, as it does for me to travel the far shorter distance up to Tartu. So instead of four buses and two 20minute walks, it was a car, airplane and rental car trip journey. It also means that I missed my lecture for the week, but I'm allowed to miss three, so I'm okay.

A statue outside of a church in Cesis, took last Sunday
on my walk around to try and fill in a few hours

One thing we do not miss about England is the traffic. Even on the Sunday afternoon when we arrived, the motorway was clogged with cars. At one point on the opposite side of the motorway the cars were at a standstill and I don't think there was an accident to hold them up, just sheer volume of traffic. Not something we deal with here in rural Latvia where four cars in a row is rush hour. We drove back today and set off at 4:30am and couldn't believe how many lorries were on the road at that time in the morning. There were two lanes worth of lorries most of the way. By 6am when we arrived at Luton, we were only too happy to get off the roads and be heading home.

Another picture on his own and why not, he did well! 

The trip itself was worthwhile though, as it was nice to see our youngest son all dressed up in his graduation gown and meet some of his friends from the course as well as his lecturers. It is strange to think that this was the culmination of the dreams of a nine year old. Despite having moved around a lot over the last ten years, we still have some of his early drawings of cars that he did, as his passion for drawing improved. You can see how far he has come on his facebook page (link). It is also strange to think how divergent our paths have gone, my son's course was in automotive design which was a little different to Ian and my courses in the natural sciences. Obviously children do not always follow in their parents footsteps. Seeing our son wasn't the only perk to the travel, it was getting to see his lovely fiancée and her daughter. The little one has even got the hang of calling us Grandma Jo and Grandpa Ian and we went and did the grandparenty thing of going into school with her to see where she hangs her coat and puts her boots - important to a little one in school for her first year.

A water tower in Cesis. For those in the
warmer areas further south, note there are
no leaves on the trees. It was quite a shock
to see England still so green.

I have found a few things have got easier with travelling, one is the hanging around. I no longer think that waiting for an hour is endless, now an hour feels quite short. Time just seems to pass by now. Not sure if that is a good thing or not. Another thing I have found is that pleasant people really make the journey itself more pleasant. The staff for Wizz air, did try their best, although Sunday was not one of their best organised days, but they are dealing with stupid rules. Allocated seating really does make a difference and I am fairly sure, it also makes boarding quicker. Hassling people onto the plane, constant reminders to quickly take your seats, does not necessarily make the boarding any quicker. I wonder if anyone really does make evidence based decisions on boarding. Has someone really monitored how long it takes? Wizz air also has a massive fail on its baggage policies. We watched as one woman was made to pack everything into one bag and ended up throwing a perfectly good computer bag away and yet she wasn't carrying a huge amount of luggage. Beware, Wizz air's restrictions on free carry on is very small and what would be considered normal carry on by most other carriers is considered large and as such will be charged extra for. Okay so this is explained on the boarding pass, but who reads all the gumpf on those things? Regular travellers with other companies are most likely to fall foul of this one. It's such a shame as it was a viable alternative to Ryannair and I'm not so sure now.

A bit hard to see, this is not just another
picture of the water tower but a picture of
a sculpture or something to play with, I
wasn't sure but those coloured blobs are
cup shaped and so I assume moves in the
wind? Maybe!

One pleasant woman today was a lady on the tills in "Real Food" in Luton airport, who offered to help carry trays for customers who were loaded up with baggage or make the tea or coffee from the self-serve section at the end. It is hard to carry a tray and wheel a bag around when it is loaded up with full English breakfast and tea and so she offered to help each customer (not sure if this is company policy or her own policy, but good for her anyway). Not that it was me who she helped, as there were two of us, one managed the tray and one managed the tea and we didn't have a full English anyway - not enough time. Not quite sure what would happen in the busy periods, but the pleasantness was nice. I was also called "darling" this morning by a very pleasant gentleman in the petrol station (gas station) - not bad at 5:30am. So thank you sir at Newport Pagnell petrol station, your pleasantness made the journey more bearable on a dark November morning. I know not everyone appreciates being called "darling," some would even call it sexist possibly, but I took it in the spirit it was intended - a friendly greeting to make life a little more pleasant.

This church has seen better days (in Cesis)

One massive fail at Luton airport are some of the departure gates, there were plenty of travellers with little ones today- it was almost like a kindergarten outing, there were so many, as Ian remarked. The problem was the stairs down to the departure gates and no staff on hand to help those travelling alone with youngsters, fortunately there were helpful customers who stepped in and Ian carried one ladies pushchair down for her. We seem to be making a habit of helping those with little ones, I helped a little chap on our arrival in the UK up some stairs. He was pulling a little suitcase along and needed help up the stairs, but his Mum already had a baby to carry too. Maybe if someone will pay it forward for our family with their little ones when they are travelling, that would be nice. I just wonder though, if all airports could not make their departure gates more accessible, it is not just those with youngsters but less mobile folk that would have suffered too. I guess for those in wheelchairs there must be an alternative route - or is there? 

Dark and dreary or mysterious, whichever mood takes you

One final thought for this week. I had to share this comment on Gene Logsdon's blog, The Contrary Farmer  "Eat real food with real pleasure. I’m pretty sure health and happiness follow" by Laura Grace Weldon. I like the idea of eating real food with real pleasure, I'm sure if we followed that lovely piece of advice our relationship to what we eat would be a lot less fraught and more healthy.