Could be better

Winter sunsets are often glorious

It has been one of those weeks. Nothing catastrophic happened, but it could have been better at times. Yes we had some cold windy weather, which wasn't pleasant but we didn't have much in the way of snow, even parts of the UK got it worse than we did, a real beast from the East as opposed to the poodle in the East for some. We have about the same 25cm of snow we had last week. It certainly wasn't melting much in the sun, it was too cold. This did mean the first issue we had was frozen heating pipes or at least on the way to being frozen. The wind was causing a north facing wall to cool the pipes to near freezing when we discovered it, when a radiator refused to warm up. That meant three days in a row up at our other apartment during the day to run the wood fired heating to defrost it. The first day was rather chilly, the second day was pleasant and by the third day the heat had been absorbed by the walls and the pipe unthawed. At least we escaped any burst pipes this time around. At the same time Ian also tried to fix a leak in water pipe. Let's just say the pipe is fixed, but now the new valve leaks. There were certain utterances about the quality of components that you get here and not being good enough - or at least that is my translation of the utterances. Being slightly deaf is wonderful at times.

Yes it was cold and no you shouldn't take
selfies in the cold. The phone does not like it
nor do your fingers. Hehe! So here I am with
about five layers under a fleece lined coat, a
thermal hat with my hood up ( a rare sight)
alpaca scarf and a thermal layer under ski pants.
It was just about bearable because the buildings
sheltered me from the wind

Ian had taken the precaution of ensuring the battery was
always topped up so it would start on cold mornings. The
short runs to and from our land, of course are not good on
the car. Unfortunately it was not enough

Just as we got the pipes sorted the car started acting up again. By then we were seeing highs of around -8C. As a friend pointed out, that feels very spring-like when temperatures have been dipping to the low -20s with one night down to -28C. But for some reason the increasing temperatures sets off our intermittent fault that we still haven't worked out the cause of. I say "we", what I really mean is Ian and various other folks that at least have some knowledge of cars, I merely nod knowingly and don't usually have a clue. I understand if it is explained to me, but I don't really tend to be very interested in the inner workings of a car, until it goes wrong on me of course. Anyway the car spluttered for a few days in the mornings, until one day it decided not to splutter into life at all. It would of course be a day when we were expecting a visit from someone.

You just have to scratch that itch. Alpaca yoga

It sparkles like a field of diamonds

Fortunately we have some very good friends around here and were able to call someone for a lift. It could have been possible to catch a bus, but we have to take out water and supplies for the day and carrying 25 litres of water all the way to the bus stop is not easy. Ian has been taking warm water out, as some animals prefer it - some prefer the snow! The car, however, is still sat outside our apartment and Ian has had a lift in on the the last few days from one of the neighbouring farmers who also lives in the village.

George trying out his new harness. So far, so good. This is the
start of halter training in preparation for taking them on walks.
Also life is simpler when they are halter trained

Freddie sporting his new harness too. He was so calm

Our visitor turned up as planned and we took him around our land to show him various oak trees that we were worried about. One of them was a reasonably mature oak, maybe about 80 years old, with a rapidly spreading fungal infection. He showed us several places of concern on the tree that suggested it was indeed starting to struggle. We will have the oak removed because it is likely to end up on the barn in the future, otherwise. He also noticed that fungus was starting to appear on another oak nearby.  The other one may have some other trees removed from around it and then we can see if it recovers - depending on what the fungus is though.

Mum and Auntie V looking on

The two unbalanced oak trees are in the centre of the
picture and yes I am out on a ski run. My third time this
year. I have only fallen over once too and that was
because this section was icier than the other side that had
filled with snow on my first run round.

Two oak trees on our land have lost large limbs at some stage but our visitor says they are still okay, but they will be topped to balance them up a bit and give the tree some stability. Also it should encourage some of the new growth from further down. Another oak tree will also be removed as it is fairly close to the road and is hollow. As we were going round our visitor explained how we should trim the small oaks to help them grow into balanced trees, which was really useful. He loved our large oak tree and said that it was protected since it was over 4.5m circumference. We thought they were protected above 5m but apparently that changed. Not that we would even consider cutting that majestic tree down and Ian is working on clearing around it to keep it healthy too.

Snowscapes are so amazing I think. The way they cover the
landscape and change it and smooth out the contours

Chanel licking the salt block. She has been enjoying the
warm water that Ian has brought in from home. Aggie
meanwhile, continues prefers to eat the snow.

Later on in the day we discovered another issue to deal with. Chanel is still struggling with her health and her skin was looking rather scabby. When I got up close to look though I found out it was actually worse than we thought and her fleece was falling off on her legs. Whilst the magic cream I make up had worked really well on the others, it was not having the desired effect on Chanel and so we have started on the big guns now and given her an injection of Ivermectin. In a few days time we will also give her Fiprinol - not something I like to do, but sometimes drastic measures are necessary.

Ice crystals

I still feel amazed to think that this is our
place, our land. It almost feels like a fairytale

This year is a special year for Latvia, it is 100 years since they first declared independence and it is also now our 10th year in Latvia. We arrived on the 4th March 2008. It seems appropriate that we went to the hotel this last week to meet up with a friend who we have been going to see for ages. Not quite a celebration but it is somewhere we used to frequent more often when we first arrived. Unfortunately our friend's husband had flu and so we didn't get to see him.

The alpacas are getting fluffier

The sheep are putting on a lot of fleece too

It is also Estonia's 100th year and the former President in celebration of their Independence Day likened Estonia to a wild strawberry - not well known but when you get to know them they are well worth the find. I can relate to that, both the fact that wild strawberries are quite amazing, so fragrant and Estonia is quite a precious jewel of a place and worth the find. I am pleased I have had the opportunity to get to know more about the place and some of its people. A friend of mine had posted the article and she asked me how I would describe a Latvian farm and my first response was like a garden tended with love and care, because a Latvian farm is more than just a farm (actually that is true of many farms if people would only stop and talk to the stewards of the land), it is a home where people are rooted into its fabric. It is why when a farmer loses his land, he loses a piece of his heart, his history, his work and maybe the work of generations before him.

Tellus in reflective mood. The colours are like those in the
renaissance pictures - not that you would see many alpacas
in renaissance pictures though 

Tellus practicing his ballet dance steps

The moon at sunrise

I am not sure if it is the winter sunshine, or just turning a corner in life somehow, but once again my thoughts are racing away. I feel less like thinking through treacle and more like trying to swim with a tide of thoughts that threaten to carry me away, or coming at me so fast I hardly have time to catch them and examine them. Fortunately somethings are coming together and starting to make more sense, which is good news for getting my papers written - well as long as I can keep myself focussed on those. I think part of the reason for unstopping whatever was plugging up my thought processes is getting back to the ideas that first sent me in the direction of doing research. I feel like I am beginning to tie my faith back into my discoveries about communities. Another aspect was meeting someone else whose faith guides her politics in our area. I met her last week for the first time and she inspired me and helped me to realise I'm not alone in my desire to see the best for the area.

There's a pond in there somewhere

Eyre in reflective mood. 

On a blog I follow by Martin Scott there is a section called "The Stages of Faith" which makes a lot of sense to me, especially as it is possible to go through more than one revolution of the stages, as we go deeper. It mentions hitting a wall, which seems appropriate at the moment as that is kind of what I was trying to describe last week. I'm not sure if the wall only appears at one point though, as the schematic suggests; I think there is a possibility of struggling through to the next phase due to hitting other walls too. A friend of mine on Facebook picked up on my comments last week about just coming out of a place of struggle. She asked some good questions and prayed for me too. What was fantastic is that she deliberately tried to avoid making suggestions but focussed on those questions, which is definitely helpful to me.

Aggie

Freddie is quite a sweetie, and you can see a video of him on
our Facebook page here

Other events that have got me thinking is firstly I am in the process of applying for a job with a Christian charity. The application process also asks some good questions that take me back to my core and make me ask, "What is important to me in my walk with God?" Secondly was joining in a forum of Christians who are interested in making a difference politically. Whilst I do not want to be a politician, I do believe in engaging with the political process and encouraging the younger generation to do so too, so that has been a good for stimulating the old thought processes. At least these have been positive steps forward mentally, even if we could do without the other issues.

A brave new world

Preparation for moving berry bushes

 Well if you read yesterday's blog, you will realise that the wee one, did go down for a sleep for me, but first of all I thought I would start off with some ideas that struck me earlier this week, just for a change. As Christians we often have a reputation for doom and gloom. It is well known that many think that we will be whisked away while the rest of folks are left in a deep, black time of hardship and struggle. Few will make it, so the thinking goes! I did think that at one time, but a few years ago I had my ideas challenged and I am back to the belief that God intends to renew this Earth. Revelations 21:1-4

Sunflowers looking good in the early autumn sunshine

Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death” or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’

Yumm! Mushrooms

This week I read an article about the way that science fiction can influence tomorrow's scientists and engineers. When the writers start to imagine a more positive outcome, then that inspires the future ideas that can be made into reality. That should be true of the Christian community too. When we get hold of the idea that God is interested in renewing and not destroying this world, then we are more likely to be inspired to work towards that and take better care of this planet and its people. I think it helps when we think of the Lord's Prayer where we say "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven." To me that means we are meant to be a part of bringing God's Kingdom to Earth, not in a dominating, violent way, but in a peaceful, renewing way. That is something that inspires me and something that makes me want to work towards a more positive future. So what are your thoughts? Does it give you hope and an optimism for the future?

I don't think we will be eating these ones though

Anyway onto the regular day to day stuff of life here in Latvia. This week I have been mostly cleaning. Our home does rather suffer over the summer and our daughter and family were due to arrive on the Friday and so cue cleaning time. It's nice to be able to sit somewhere that is tidy for a change. Part of the challenge was trying to make the house a little more baby proof, since this is the first time that one of our little grandchildren have visited whilst mobile. Our grandson did visit last year, but he was just a tiny baby and our other adopted granddaughter is old enough to leave things alone or not try to eat everything in sight.

Not the sort of wildlife we really want to see

Nor this. Some kind of fungal disease probably

Intense concentration picking those
tomatoes

Our little granddaughter has spent a couple of days out on the land and in the garden and so it has been rather amusing to watch her and have her "help," she got really dirty picking up potatoes and helping her Mummy put them in a bag, then finding worms and stones and ....... Afterwards she also lent a hand with sorting through the potato harvest with her Mummy and Daddy, so  I suspect we are going to find one or two potatoes in some strange places. Our little granddaughter and I have been for lots of walks to see the alpacas and the chickens and on one ramble we made our way back through the greenhouse. She stopped at the tomatoes and tried to pull off a green one and so I showed her a red one she could pick and we took it to Mummy. Later on that day she set off by herself and took the watering can and started pulling off tomatoes and putting them in it, even got some red ones in there.

A watering can, just right for picking
tomatoes right?

A happy wee soul

Besides helping with the potato harvest our son-in-law helped me to pin the alpacas down whilst Ian clipped their toe nails. White alpacas with fine fleece have toe nails that grow at rather a rapid pace and, just a few months after they were trimmed when we sheared their fleece, they were back to needing a trim again. Herkules, unfortunately escaped out the door with me desperately trying to cling on and Estelle bucked a little when she was having her's trimmed and ended up catching me on the backside, just below the belt line. It was just a scratch, albeit a deepish one but everyone found it very amusing. Had to resort to the vodka for that though - for cleaning the wound of course. Agnese also got her toe nails trimmed for the first time and at one point when she was protesting we thought that Snowdrop, her mother, was going to spit at me for tormenting her child. Fortunately she didn't, as we talked to her gently to calm her down.

The marigolds are still looking good

Harvest moon

We have had yet another leak from the apartment upstairs at our other apartment. Fortunately our daughter and son-in-law spotted it and took appropriate action in the evening. The next morning we had to go and talk with the neighbours and the lady of the apartment was distraught that it was happening again. We had to insist on them turning their water off for the weekend, so that it didn't continue, which made us feel awful. We did offer to bring them up some water if they needed it, but they said others would help. The fitting that was leaking looked new and we wondered if this was the replacement for the part that burst the last time and totally flooded us out. We do despair at times and this is one of those time when I wish I was fluent in Latvian and could deal with the company myself and tell them exactly what I think about them and their workmanship.

Flowering onions

Sofie, off on her night travels

Today we got to look after our little granddaughter whilst Mummy and Daddy went on their own to Riga. She was a little treasure, she didn't moan and was a happy little soul most of the time. She certainly was very easy to look after and giggled a lot. Not bad considering that the most contact I have had with her is via Skype and Ian even less so. It will be nice to see her a little more often now that she will be living in England, I shall be looking forward to their visits.

Major Fowler on guard

Some debate on this, but I think it is a hornet's nest. Quite
incredible really but something to deal with over the
winter

Jerusalem artichokes looking good

 

And it's a ......

A set of candlesticks

No not another new grandchild, the next one is due March, so not long now. I mentioned last week that Ian was getting into the woodworking lark with his pole lathe and so each night last week he would come home and show me what he had been making during the day and so far he has presented me with a candlestick or two most nights. The lack of tools has been restricting what he can make, so no beautifully turned bowls yet, as he doesn't have the right kind of chisel for that (isn't that always the case?), I must admit though there are some very nice, original examples, but how many candlesticks does one need? Looks like he could have quite a career ahead of him as a candlestick maker then! At least the activity keeps him warm and he is enjoying the creative process, he is now even eyeing up the very sorry looking oak tree that lost a large branch a few years ago for it's potential for candlesticks. He could make a set of similar candlesticks but there is one guarantee, no two will ever be the same, so not much good for a matching pair. The only other problem we now have is how to dry them without them splitting. He doesn't have enough to kiln dry them, it seems a bit much to boil them for hours and then air dry for three months, treating them with alcohol can't be cheap either and so there is the last alternative air drying them for six months. So don't rush to order them just yet.

Oh look! It's a candlestick made from
oak. I actually quite like this one. I also
thought that Ian could do some wooden
beads for me. I bought an e-book
Wee Felt Folk that uses wooden beads for heads of the wee folk. Perfect!

Over the years of living in Latvia, and Colorado before that, means that we have begun to get more used to extreme winter preparations and we get better prepared each year. When I mean extreme winter preparations, I don't mean the arrival of a snowflake or below freezing weather for more than two days. I am talking about below minus 20C (-4F). These temperatures cause us particular problems at the moment as I have said in previous weeks the car still needs new glow plugs. We are getting there, the garage now have three out of four and hopefully this week they get a full set! When the temperatures are set to get very low we decamp up to our other apartment since it is a ground floor place; Ian takes the battery out of the car and brings it inside, he covers the engine with a blanket and puts a heater in the place where the battery was. The previous weekend we saw temperatures of -25C and the car started like a dream using this preparation. Quite remarkable as the car has been struggling to start at -15C and when there are animals to feed it is necessary to make sure the car works.

Leaking into the walls above the window, it then trickled
along the window top and down both sides of the window.
A bit worrying when the weather gets so cold. We need to
make sure the water is out of the walls before we let the
apartment cool down

This weekend was a little more exciting that having to prepare for -25C though. Our doorbell rang and thinking it was one of my female neighbours who comes around quite a bit, I opened the door still dressed in my thankfully thick and fluffy dressing gown. Outside stood our neighbour from our other apartment to tell us we had a leak. Ian was nearly ready to go out to the land and so he hurried up and went around. Our neighbour who told us about the leak followed Ian into the apartment and they both looked at puddle on the floor in the toilet. We know we have a slight leak from some of the joints - a problem with poor componentry in this country at times - but it wasn't that that was causing the problem. Ian then noticed the water coming down the wall and raising his head upwards he noticed it was coming instead from our neighbours apartment upstairs, he turned to him pointed upwards and said "Jūs" (pronounced yoos and means "you"). Our poor neighbours face fell, he thought it was us that was leaking into his basement where he keeps his wood. He dashed upstairs to turn off their stopcock and by gently turning it on again found the leak was from the pipe leading to the meter. There was no sign of the water upstairs, it had all been trickling down under their floor and into our apartment.

This was the worse part that kept
dripping all day. There is a hole
that the pipe obscures that Ian
made to make it easier to drain

Well the rest of my day was spent keeping a fire going to warm the place through to dry it out, and using our vacuum cleaner to suck up the water that carried on pouring through the holes and down walls for much of the day. It wasn't gushing but dripping from many points meaning we had a swimming pool in the bathroom, a puddle that stretched out of that room into a pantry area, water coming in over the fire area and forming a puddle across the laminate in the kitchen. Fortunately it missed the electrical points - narrowly, but at least it did miss. It is also fortunate we had the vacuum cleaner and a dehumidifier to help dry the place out. We can't say for sure what the damage is yet, definitely repainting needs doing but the kitchen needed a fresh coat of paint anyway, which is always a problem with a wood burner and then there is the toilet ceiling that needs sorting out. Apart from that, so far the laminate looks like it escaped damage, but we don't know how much got wet and if it will start to buckle later. We are going to pop up and set the fire going a few more days and run the dehumidifier for the week and see what happens.

Yes! You've guessed it! Another
candlestick, this time made from alder. Mind you I think this is
my favourite

I suppose it has been quite an exciting time all in all, thank goodness not all the excitement was bad news, in fact some of it was very good news. I heard last week that my PhD proposal has been accepted by Tartu University in Estonia. I feel like this is going to be the start of a whole new adventure and I've no idea where this might lead. It does mean I will have to spend some time up in Estonia, but Tartu is a lovely place to be, so that's okay. At least for much of the time my research can be online hunting through journals for literature and speaking to people about participatory development and what they understand about that and since my research centres on the Latvian rural environment then that will be fine. It is one of the joys of the type of research I do, it means I get to talk to lots of interesting folks about subjects I really enjoy.

The sun beginning to rise

I have been acting like an unpaid company secretary again, I'm even getting to the stage where I don't even need to ask my neighbour for some of the information as I already know it. So what do you want to know about the Latvian wood trade? It's interesting and quite informative really, it helps me to understand business better in a rural area and shows me how things can work together, which is all useful stuff when I need to know how the rural environment functions, especially since wood products are some of the biggest exports from Latvia. At least hopefully one load of wood where I helped to negotiate the deal should be arriving this evening at its destination. Unfortunately there was a delay at the port and so it is a little late, but that's what happens in winter. And don't worry, I am not being taken advantage of, one good turn deserves another and my neighbour helps us out in many ways and it is nice to facilitate a fledgling company to get off the ground.

A frosty scene

Talking of wood products we also had to declare how much wood we cut from our forest to the State Forest Service this week. The system is not really set up for the local person just caring for the forest. It would be okay to just clean the forest of small diameter wood i.e. less than 12cm as long as enough is left to be classified as a forest, but we have some bigger trees that need cleared out to make room for other trees and some larger trees that are on our fields and need removing. To clear the larger trees means we need special permission to do that, it is easy to get, sort of, as long as you travel thirty miles to get a certificate to allow you to do it, but then every year you have to declare how much you have cut; well not a lot really! The expectation is that well over 10m3 of wood is cleared a year for this certificate, but we clear less than that, but we still have to go through the procedure. To put it in perspective, in Denmark we bought  2 x 2m3 crates to run our woodstove that heated our large living room every evening in the heating season. We still had wood leftover from that after the winter. Now of course we have a wood fired oven now that we run every weekend and a woodstove occasionally and so we need some wood but not 10m3. Even so it is only the large pieces of wood that need to be tallied, in reality there is more because we don't include the smaller trees. Complicated heh! I can understand having the checks and balances, because it stops people clear felling when they feel like it, it has to be approved and the forest has to be of a sufficient age to do that, then there are regulations that means you have to make sure the forest is rejuvenated properly and not just grows into an untidy mess. A healthy forest will give plenty of wood in its lifetime as weaker growth is removed to make room for the larger trees. Hopefully one day it will all be online, or at the very least we can post the information. As for all of that wood we cut out, we won't waste it, I mean there are candlesticks to make, but also fences, woodstores, alpaca accommodation for when we increase the flock and ......... oodles of projects to do. Now where is that paper to start writing the list?

A recipe from one of my friends. Equal
parts of grated ginger, lemon cut up
small and honey. Add to tea!
Makes a nice warming cup of tea,
great for beating off the colds this time
of year. Not that I get many of those!

Last week Martin made the comment on the birth of our new grandson:-

"You deserve a cuddle... then a few more years and he will be ready to work the land with the rest of you!!!"

Obviously the arrival of babies sets our minds to the future and we were wondering what our grandchildren's reaction would be to coming to see us. Will it be oh great we are going to see grandma and pops, because there are animals to feed, land to kick around on, loads of insects to observe and fight off, a pond to study, a forest to walk in, a chance to eat fresh eggs , animal tracks to look at and in winter a chance to ski as often as you like, or snowboard down an old Soviet ski hill for free and ride a sleigh with a neighbour's horse? Or will it be, oh no do we have to go there, there is nothing to do? It's miles from anywhere? No decent shops? We would love to think that maybe one day a grandson would come and share with us working on the land, but neither would we want that to be an expectation on such a young one. A child of reconciliation though would be good out here.

Not a candlestick! Are you shocked? This is for the pull on
a blind and is made from Aspen.

A book I had been waiting for since November finally arrived this week, but it would appear that one of the reasons for waiting so long is the fact that the post lady keeps making mistakes and putting the slips in the wrong box. Now she wasn't responsible for it being out of stock in the first place, but it might account for some of the delay. We are beginning to wonder if she cannot afford a pair of glasses - a very real issue here when wages are so low.

Updated labels to the post - in other words I forgot to add them first time around

It is finished

Our orchard all nice and green

Yes the blog is finished, but also other things too. So first of all sorry for the late blog again, but some friends of ours were free and wanted to look around our land and see what we are doing, so we took a trip back out there and had a very interesting time chatting about land and edible plants, how to keep wild boar away and lots of other things. Anyway back to those things which got finished this week.

The view from my office. The lilac of course
helped the essays to flow, well maybe not!

I managed to get all my course work done and handed in and now I am just awaiting the marks. This finishes the diploma part of the course I am studying, which for those who don't know is Managing Sustainable Rural Development with one of the newest UK universities the University of the Highlands and Islands. I study this online which is why I am living in Latvia but studying with a Scottish University - complicated heh! In the next academic year I have a thesis to write for my Masters, and that will take up the whole year and one I have to plan myself, so no more tutors asking for specific work or for me to read through specific books, I have to find them for myself. Scary!

Yes finished! Rather nice isn't it!

Having finished the course I now switch into gardening mode and I am busy planting up seeds and plants that should have gone out a couple of weeks ago but had to wait until I had time. Yesterday I went out to our land with Ian to work on a plot that we have just turned over for vegetables and we were surprised to see the guys working on our greenhouse (Monday). They only work at weekends usually as two of them are still at construction school and this weekend they only made it on Saturday as one of them at least has exams and needs to study. They really worked hard to finish the framework of the greenhouse on the Saturday, but we resigned ourselves to it only being finished at the end of this week when they returned back home from school, which is why we were surprised to see them in the morning. Well they didn't half crack on with the work and one even had his lovely wife on the job too to make sure it all got done. So it is finished and it is looking good. It looks very sturdy and robust and so we hope it lasts a lot longer than the last one ie more than a year will be very good.

Before they put the plastic on they erected a wreath
of birch leaves. It is a Latvian tradition to celebrate
finishing the highest point of the roof. We will not
go into the other symbolism of it all, I will just take
it as they were pretty glad to get to that point. You
may have noticed that they hung the wreath by
the door when they finished the plastic

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we had given up part of our allotment outside our house to an older lady who had recently moved in, well we have watched in amazement as this lady, who is a pensioner, first dug over the section of the garden which had already been dug and plant it up; she spent many an hour on it. But did she stop there? Oh no! She then started on the patch which had not been dug over in all the time I have known it. Next in line were the trees. This dear little white haired lady was out there wielding a chainsaw and a machete and cleared the branches off to the local fire spot about 200m away. Did she stop there? Nope! Next on the list was a small greenhouse which was erected with a great deal of precision, which you don't often see here. And it goes on, because on another day I wasn't paying much attention,  as I was busy sorting out our garden, but could hear the drone of a machine and just assumed it was another neighbour who I knew was cutting the grass, when I looked up, however, I was absolutely gobsmacked as supergran was out there with a rotavator, not a little one either. Is there no end to what this lady will do?

Inside the greenhouse, looking pretty
sturdy. Ian did find out the hard way
though that this plastic lets the UV
through, unlike the other plastic we had
on that cost four times as much.

Earlier on in the week, dear hubby took me up to our other apartment for some peace and quiet so I could get on with my work because my eye has been bad and I have been ultra careful about making sure I didn't go out when it is windy, as it seemed to set it off again. He took a bit of time to have a cup of tea before toddling off to do whatever he was going to do when he noticed another leak. This time in the kitchen and not the bathroom. Doh! Fortunately we still had some spares and he spent a bit of time getting that fixed rather than doing what he would rather do and that is be out on the land. Good job we also have a dehumidifier for all these leaks we have had. Good job it also appears my eye is completely better this week when I need to be outside a lot.

Our new vegetable plot on the land, mulched up to protect
the plants from the hot dry winds of summer. Just in time
for this plot but our other plots are in bad need of the same.

It has been an active week in Latvia on the political front, first of all the Prime Minister published a book called "How Latvia Came Through the Financial Crisis" with a Swedish economist. Bad move I think! In one way Prime Minister Dombrovskis may indeed be right in the traditional GDP sense of the word and yet he is almost certainly wrong on many other measures. I think that the financial crisis could be over for Latvia, but only because the people are choosing to dig up more land and plant food for themselves to see them through this next winter and not trust in the Government to provide for them or they are just leaving the country looking for work. But I think he is oh so wrong to be pinning his hopes on economic growth as an indicator that all is well with the economy, and I think he is oh so wrong in looking to financial models to get this country out of the mess. A new day is coming and a new way of working and it is happening out on the fringes, out perhaps from underneath the noses of those in power.

10pm at night and it is still bright outside

It does seem funny, however, that on a week that the book "How Latvia Came Through the Crisis" gets published, we are beginning to feel like a bank. We've had four requests from friends and relatives for extremely varied reasons, and we are only too glad we could help, but temporarily for one day we had a cash flow issue too - a case of exceeding daily limits - must go and sort that out. In some ways though, the reason we have had to act as a bank is because the crisis is not over, people are still active in business maybe, but there is not a lot of cash sloshing about. Neither is the crisis over until people get their incomes raised to pre-crisis levels, when cuts are no longer applied to education, police and local authorities, as they continue to be. Only then can we really talk about an end to the crisis and not some arbitrary rise in the GDP.

Ian with good old sudocrem, chamomile
and honey cream. He promises to wear
suntan cream tomorrow when he works in
the greenhouse again. We actually think
we will add fleece or one of the filtered
plastics on the overhead struts to cut
down on the UV inside, otherwise I will
look even worse when I go in.

The most surprising event of the week though was the President calling for a referendum on the dissolution of Parliament. The President, who is elected by Parliament, does not have many powers apart from ceremonial and the ability to call referendums and next week there is an election to decide on whether to re-elect President Zatlers or another to the post making his decision an incredibly brave moral stance. The Parliament voted last week to decline the request by the Corruption bureau to search the house of one of the MPs and this was a step too far for President Zatlers, he stated that the lawmakers should not be above the law themselves and by that act had distanced themselves from the people, which is why he called for the referendum to see if people will agree with him or not. Whether he gets re-elected or not on Thursday of this week there will be a referendum and if people agree with him then there will be another election in October. Interesting times!

Just to finish off I have been reading the lyrics to the song "Joanna" sung by Jon Allen, quite amazing how it follows what we are doing in following new paths here in Latvia. My favourite line is "we'll train our feet to follow the footprints of our dreams," what a great description.