An international flavour

Nice to see someone on the right side of the fence this week

And so it begins, the month or so of travelling, well travelling further than Estonia, which I visit regularly. Last week was a trip to Finland, a country I have never visited before. I went to the airport and got chatting with a guy I met. Over lunch we talked about our week, of village life and alpacas and then we went our separate ways. Oh wait a minute! That was my husband. You may remember that last week was our 35th Wedding Anniversary and he was in the UK visiting grandkids and doing an alpaca course. We met for an hour and a half before he had to go to put the alpacas away and I had to go through security to catch a plane to Helsinki. I was a little late arriving at the airport because I was trying to do some last minute jobs but at least we did get to spend some time together.

I gather it has been wet while I've been away

Veronica looking sprightly

I arrived in Helsinki with the instructions to get the train to the main train station and then my friend and her daughter would meet me there. I had made some attempt to find out what to do but in the busyness didn't really sort it out properly in my head. Normally that would be a recipe for disaster but I figured that by now I would be able to work the system out, I've travelled about enough in European countries. There was a lady by one of those "Welcome to Helsinki" signs and I stopped to ask her how to get a ticket for the train. She directed me to where I needed to go and told me the machines would be on the platform with guards in bright vests to help. She finished with a very cheery, "Welcome to Finland." Sure enough, the guard was down there and helped me to purchase the correct ticket and directed me onto the train, that just happened to be pulling into the station. Sorted! I was on the train on the way to Helsinki centre and for the first time in a week, I felt relatively relaxed.

I posted this picture last week of the pond filling up. It has
been so low over summer and finally the water was up to
the cattail rushes

Now let's play spot the rushes. The pond is now oeverflowing.
In fact all three ponds are overflowing, including the middle
one that doesn't hold water that much at all

Who are you looking at?

My friend, who is Indian, sent me some vague details about waiting inside the train station for her, which puzzled me until I got there and I found that it wasn't a huge place, even for a capital city. It was interesting doing some people watching while I waited. Helsinki has an integrated transport system that reminded me of our time in Copenhagen and so it was fairly easy to understand. Even easier was the fact that the signs were also in Swedish, which I can just about read, as well as Finnish obviously, which I can't read more than a few words of and only if they resembled the very few Estonian words I know. So after a short trip on the Metro we arrived at her apartment and my place to stay for the night. It was only a short stay but I was well looked after and my friend made sure I caught the right bus in the morning to the institute where I would be doing a presentation.

I wonder if it is going to be hard to tell these two apart?

A golden leaf shower

I was a bit worried about the presentation because of the lack of time I had. I had hoped to have my talk more worked out, but it went okay. It also worked well with the Dutch team who were from a project working on a similar theme to ours and so we had decided to collaborate with them on the workshop. I was very pleased with the response that our project leader had to to my presentation though. She told me that she was happy because she knew what a steep learning curve it had been for me, especially after joining the project late and she felt I had really "got it." I can't do much better than that, so I was happy enough.

A golden view

It has been windy today and so many of the leaves are now
on the floor

After lunch in the canteen, it was time to catch the bus up north. Again it was easy to book... twice! I somehow managed to click on the wrong time but fortunately the costs weren't astronomical even for a nearly three hour bus journey booked on the day. That's the way it should be! So my next stop was Mikkeli, the regional capital for Eastern Finland. Most of what I saw of Finland was from the bus and my impression was of a lot of forest, which was glorious golden colours interspersed with the deep green of spruce and pine. The towns were mainly modernist steel and glass buildings but wooden buildings in the countryside.

Did I say it had been wet?

Our well has filled up very rapidly and is a bit murky. The
moles have been digging tunnels nearby and so instead of
filtering through the soil, the water has been running
through the mole drainage system

I was meant to be meeting up with the Senior Education Officer on the Thursday morning but he had go to a seminar in the very north of the country and so changed the time of the meeting to the evening. We met in the city centre, which was only a five minute walk away from the bus station and we chatted over a cup of tea... and chatted.... and chatted. We both worry about the closure of rural schools. I from the community impact and he from the impact on children who have to spend such a long time on the bus to get to school. We decided there is definitely a need for more research on the topic. I think there is a problem when there is an EU policy that is working towards encouraging more young farmers and then a national policy of closing down schools before the young farmers get established. They need resources for their families too for them to thrive.

Looking through the shed

So embarassing! No peace when you are trying to use
the toilet

I have a friend who lives about 40km away from Mikkeli but he knew people in the town, so he organised for me to stay at the home of a young couple. I did get chance to see my Belgium/Italian friend briefly and he and his Finnish wife took me to buy socks in the centre as all mine were getting holes in them - not good in cultures where you take your shoes off at the door. Anyway my hosts didn't have a car and it was getting late after the meeting, so the guy who I was chatting with ordered me a taxi. That 8 minute drive cost me more than the three hour bus ride. Oh well! Such is life! At least it got me there and that was the main point. I was immediately made very welcome by my Russian host and found much to chat about. You may find a theme here! It seems that much of my week was spent chatting.

Mr. P. delicately nibbling on his leg

A restful place to be

With my meeting already over, it meant a relatively free day. Both of my hosts were working although the Finnish wife worked more in the evening and so she cooked me lunch. It was a bit of a damp day and so it didn't seem to be too bad to just be able to get on and work. In fact it was nice to be able to just concentrate on the work itself and not wonder what other chores I should be doing. It was nice not to have to cook for myself either and I was well fed the whole week by all my hosts. It was a delight to be able to stay in the home of a young couple who are working out their faith and thinking hard about what that means. We finished our conversation with the conclusion that the most important part was love and wisdom, and most important of course is love. Not a bad way to finish really.

You can see where the boys have been eating. It would be
good to get them onto the green grass, but they are already
fat, or at least some of them are.

The leafy lanes of Mikkeli suburbs

The next morning I booked to go back to Helsinki on the bus. I decided I wouldn't take the taxi but walk. My hosts had gone to work and I sauntered around the leafy lanes and by the lake. As I was taking pictures of the lake I got a message from my Belgium/Italian friend that my host was trying to get in touch with me, but Messenger wasn't working so well on my phone. He said he would come and pick me up from the house, but I told him I had already left, so he and his friend came and picked me up from the side of the lake instead. It turned out well, firstly because it was beginning to drizzle a bit and secondly the leafy walk was at an end and the rest of the walk would have been more boring. My host apologised and said he didn't know if his friend was able to help or not and that's why he hadn't mentioned it. As he left he told me the Finnish name for restaurant/coffee shop and indicated where they were and wished me well.

Leaves in the lake

Another view of the lake

I was met off the bus by a Finnish friend who had time for a cup of coffee and we talked about theology and environmentalism. It wasn't long as he didn't have much time, but then again, neither did I. I was heading towards the workplace of a Latvian friend of mine, who has stayed in our apartment a couple of times and now lives just outside of Helsinki. I got near the workplace a little early but found a rather nice bakery and so stopped for a cup of tea and a piece of cake. My friend turned up and we went to find her family and set off to the leafy outskirts of Helsinki.

Well something is of interest

A forest garden

My friend has been in Helsinki for a couple of years now but she and her husband have only just bought the house. It is a cosy little place that has a forest for a back garden. Such an amazing place for children to play. My friend and her husband still have their Latvian accents but her children, especially her little daughter, are fluent in English with an international accent and a just a twang of American.  The little girl read her school book to me, it was funny hearing stories of Kipper and the magic key again, as this was something my own children read at school.

That is an amazing ants' nest

The lake near my friend's house

We had a lazy Saturday, waking up late - well late for me anyway - a leisurely breakfast and of course lots of chatting, a walk around the lake - because there are lots of lakes in Finland, and a film night. I felt so relaxed it was a wonderful way to finish off my time in Finland. The next morning was an early start and I woke at 4:30 and decided it wasn't worth going back to sleep for 20 minutes. My Latvian friend drove me to the ferry terminal and hugged me goodbye. It was so much easier catching the ferry than going to the airport. In Riga I had to queue for 3/4 hour to get through security, at the ferry terminal it was just a matter of pulling up the email with the QR code, scanning it and up we went. No security and all my bags with me. Easy!

Not sure if this boat will be going far

Lots of boats by the lake

I arrived in Tallinn about 9:30 and met up for coffee with an American friend. We talked about faith and life in general before she helped me to get on the right tram to take me to the bus station for my bus to Riga. So on a damp and dreary day I headed home. Getting plenty of work done and dozing along the way. The bus was about 20 minutes late and I was panicking just a little. I had just enough time to buy my ticket, go to the loo and get some water and an apple (the most humungous apple you ever saw) before catching my bus back to my village. It was dark when I got back and Ian was waiting for me near the bus station.

The lake bottom is solid rock

So here I am, back in my caravan, after a fairly laid back day. A bit of work, catching up on emails, podding some beans and starting to think of the next trip, which is only a few days away.

Happy Anniversary

A bit hard to see here, but the bunch
was really quite pretty. The
candlestick still needs polishing though

It has been an anniversary type week this week. The first anniversary was the anniversary of the day we met which was on October 4th, 32 years ago, first day of the first term of our first year at Sheffield University. I was studying Pharmacology and Chemistry and Ian was studying Physiology, little did we know we would be working in such different fields, literally, 32 years later. In other words what we didn't know was that I would be studying for a PhD in participatory development in a landscape architect department and Ian raising alpacas on a 13ha farm in Latvia. Ian surprised me on this particular anniversary, first he remembered (have to confess to forgetting myself sometimes, so I can't make it sound like he is always the one forgetting)! Second he brought me a bunch of flowers that he had picked off the land and lovingly tied with baler twine into a rather nicely arranged bunch actually (we counted up how many times he's got me flowers and I do have to use both hands to count them). Third he made me another candlestick. He was trying to make a bowl, but it wasn't working for him and he needs some more practice on the pole lathe, but still not a bad candlestick anyway.

So here is a picture of the big day. We didn't have formal
pictures, just ones taken by friends and so there is none
of us by ourselves without a background of folks, which
sums up the day really. It made me realise though that I
had better scan these pictures in and save them somewhere
as they are deteriorating quite fast now. 

The second anniversary is today, October 6th just 30 years ago we were married. If you think Ian looks thin now, you can see he was a whole lot thinner when I married him. Actually so was I! Funny that, who would have thought. To say it has all been plain sailing would be to tell a lie and of course there have been ups and downs, but I'm pleased to say that the journey has been good and he's not bad to have around you know! He's also put up with my hormones along the way, which could make treading around me rather a delicate operation and I have put up with his angry moods as he struggled with being on-call and the general working conditions as a technician in the hospital, where he used to work, when he had a regular job. We've weathered the times when money was in short supply and enjoyed the few years when it was abundant. We've enjoyed living on the edge in many different ways and wouldn't know how to fit into "normal" society if you told us. I think all in all, we work pretty well as a team and that's the way it should be after 30 years don't you think? To celebrate we went out to the hotel for a meal and rounded it off with the hot French chocolate cake, as you do. Saved me doing any cooking anyway.

The end of the season look. All the tomato plants bar the ones
destined to feeding the chickens are pulled up now and the
grape vine hacked back to the wire. Just the peppers, drying
seeds and autumn crops in there now. We have things like
 mizuna, rocket and radishes for a late salad or adding to a stir fry.

A picture that captures our present right now, with buckets
and crates everywhere. The top green crate is full of apples
that are bruised and need dealing with soon, the bottom
is full of small squash that will need freezing, the bucket is
full of the last of our tomatoes. Only one for a change,
usually we have far more of the green ones left. 

Well back to the present now. The time since I got back from Portugal has been rather nice, with bright sunny days and crisp mornings with many a frost. Came as a bit of a shock one morning when I headed into Riga so I could meet up with a couple of people, go to the dentists and then head up to Tartu. That meant  first of all a 6:40am bus, which usually means Ian takes me up in the car to the bus station, only this time he discovered he had to defrost the car first and I was just on time to catch the bus, as opposed to having a few minutes to wait. It makes us realise the descent into winter has really begun in earnest and emphasised by the sight of geese heading south. The Swans will be next and then it is the anxious wait for the first snows. The winds have definitely been chilled and so out have come the leggings and roll neck jumpers. Ian even had his thermals on and the heater in the caravan.

An additional shelter for bags of alpaca poo - a valuable
commodity

The girls were moved nearer to the boys. Here Estelle
is taking an interest in what the boys are doing, let's
hope that is not an interest leading to leaping fences. If
she is pregnant then that will be the last thing on her mind,
but if not......

The trip into Riga was good. I got to meet an old young friend, or is it a young old friend? Anyway, she is still a wee slip of a lass really, but we have known each other for a while now. I always enjoy meeting up with my crazy friend, although this week we were much more civilised, as we had coffee in a cafe instead of stood outside in the seriously minus temperatures in the middle of winter, like the last time. After meeting her, I met up with another young lass, who I was hoping would be able to help me with some work towards my research. We had a good time chatting, but I have a feeling that is not going to get anywhere. We'll see! At least I did get to hear of someone else interested in doing some research towards their Masters this last week, where she will be use the type of research that I am directing - for want of a better phrase, so all is not lost. I wish the next appointment was as pleasant as the first two, but a trip to the dentist is not my most favourite of activities. The appointment to be fair went fine and the rogue filling was sorted, but not the tooth that cracked a while ago, for this I would have to go back three times and will cost around €300 as it involves root canal treatment and then a filling. Errr! No thanks! It doesn't hurt and €78 for the filling was bad enough, as that is nearly four times the amount I pay in the sticks. I realise that is not necessarily the best treatment, so somewhere in the middle would be much better to my mind.

The boys have a spot with the currant and berry bushes in it.
We are still trying to work out if this will do them good or
a bad move. Still I won't have to do any pruning and the
boys seem to be enjoying walking through the bushes for
a good scratch. Don't worry, we have other bushes.

Weeds all trampled and dead wood definitely knocked over
amongst the raspberry bushes. 

Something seems to be attacking the hornets nest,
obviously taking advantage of the drowsy state of the
insects.

Some of the markers of the changing seasons are escaping and argumentative animals. The grass always runs out sooner and is not as tasty and at this time of the year the grass is definitely more appealing on the other side of the fence. Fortunately we don't feel the need to freak out when they escape as they don't go far and are easy to entice back. Although Ian was a little concerned when he showed some folks around recently, some of our neighbours who hadn't visited before, as the sheep had disappeared, fortunately they had only gone around the corner of the grove that is growing near where they were supposed to be. Ian thinks the neighbours who came for a visit came from the block of flats that are nearby or it could be the farm. In the Soviet times when they collectivised the farms they built blocks of flats for the workers and hence you get these dwellings that don't seem to fit in a rural location, but should be in towns. The older lady seemed to be able to follow what Ian was trying to explain, although his Latvian is very, very limited, so maybe she was actually from the farm and not the flats. One day we may be able to converse better with our neighbours and then we will know for sure. It is taking some adjusting to when people feel they can just appear on the land, they don't have quite the same sense of private property that we do in the UK and in some ways that's okay, just different. Well as long as they respect fences and such. Although thinking about it, farmers in the UK have to account for rights of way that run across their land and so they do have to expect people traipsing through from time to time, so maybe it's not that much different.

I love the symmetry of sunflower seeds. These are drying
for seed for next year. The rest are drying for seed for
the chickens over winter.

As I mentioned, I made a trip up to Tartu again this week. It was an opportunity to see both my supervisors and thrash out some details for the year ahead. For them both to be in the same place and free to see me is a little like waiting for the stars to align and so I took the opportunity while I could even though it was at short notice. I also got the chance to meet the young man who will be doing some of the research for me in Estonia. I was quite pleased to hear my supervisor telling the young man that I brought certain skills into the department from my development background and teaching experience. It does make me laugh to hear someone say I have teaching experience, which I do, but not in the conventional classroom setting, as it involves teaching in churches, sunday schools, workshops and my own children. Still all valuable experience though for what I'm doing now, reaching out to ordinary men and women in rural areas. On the way back I stayed overnight with a friend and his family in Sigulda, I took the opportunity to discuss the house plans to see if we can take it forward a bit more, we seem to have come to a bit of a halt with that at the moment.

Oh yes! More apples. Should keep the
animals busy for a little while

My studies to date have sure made me question the role of aid and I have covered topics where people have debated if aid is any good at all. An article in the Financial Times by Ernesto Sirolli is on the one hand very provocative in stating that aid is not working and on the other hand is honest enough to state that as an aid worker he made a mess of things. In the article there is a quote by a Zambian born economist Dambisa Moyo who goes so far as to say aid is malignant. Sirolli argues that aid is best when it is in response to the people themselves and meeting the needs that they see in developing entrepreneurial ventures. I definitely see that providing the kinds of resources that people feel they need is a whole lot better than benevolently providing what we have either cast off or feel they need. I do see one flaw and that is where the entrepreneurial spirit has been squashed out of people, that is where I see a place for the kinds of aid that breeds hope and develops people's ability to work together and that takes time. Still that is better than blithely handing out goods to make us feel better.

Whose my mummy?

So here is Agnese in front, we know this is Agnese because
we named her, but who is it behind? Is it Veronica or
Snowdrop? We call her Snowdrop and she is not the mum
of Agnese. The lady facing into the wall is Agnese's mum
but is she really called Snowdrop or is it Veronica as we
have been calling her? Hmmm!

We had a bit of a shock this week, we might have got the lady alpacas mixed up. We bought three alpaca ladies and were given another alpaca for free, because she was old, back in October of last year. The old lady we had put down in May of this year, because she never really recovered from unexpectedly giving birth in January. Unfortunately baby died five days after being born. We then knew that two of the ladies were pregnant and they gave birth in May, one baby survived and the other did not. We decided to microchip the baby Agnese and so the vet came round to have a look at our animals, particularly one of the boys who is struggling with a skin problem and the mum of the baby to check her udder, as it is a bit swollen. Before microchipping the baby, she checked where the chips were put in the ladies. She couldn't find Estelle's chip, but she found Veronica's and Snowdrop's, only there was a problem. The names we had been calling the ladies, didn't match with the chip numbers, they were the other way around.  Now Ian is trying desperately to remember why he thought they were named the way they were. The old lady was easy to identify, as she was black in colour. Estelle was easy too, she was the youngest by far and not pregnant. Now this wouldn't matter too much, but we have got a young alpaca that needs to have a correct breeding line identified. We know who the father is for definite, but is her mother really called Veronica or is it Snowdrop? Not sure how we sort that one out yet.

This tomato was big enough to feed five of us on our
ham sandwiches

The dishwasher, aka  Joanna! (I only found out this week
that aka is actually an acronym for also known as. I just
thought it was a word. You live and learn!)

Another surprise, although not quite such a shock, was some American friends coming to our village. We knew they would probably be coming, but weren't entirely sure when and so were surprised to have contact asking if they could stay that night and then for the following week. We were able to accommodate them on the first night, but the next night we already had a request for a young family to stay who had a one year old and they didn't want to stay in a tent for a conference that was happening in the camp nearby to our land. As we had been really busy, a group of three folks came and cleaned up some of the rooms in the apartment, such as kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, so it was at least liveable in, prior to our friend's request to stay. Which worked out rather nicely I think. So our friends stayed one night and just slung a sheet over the bed to keep it clean and then we directed the young family to the apartment for the next night. We kind of got talking and it was midnight before we got to our own bed that night, but the young couple were so intrigued about what we were doing and seeing the alpacas, they organised to come and see us the following morning out on the land.

A humongous caterpillar. I think it might be an elephant
hawk moth. Certainly big enough

We have found that the addition of the new extension to
the alpaca house has resulted in rain running off the roof
and into the alpaca house, causing the bedding to become
saturated. Ian has now dug a trench around to try and take
the water away and it is getting its first test tonight.

The next morning our American friends came to help us shift bales of hay - the last load of good or at least reasonable hay, up to our neighbours barn for storage and just as we were finishing the young couple came for their tour of our land. Their little fella loved all the animals, but was completely fascinated with the chickens. It was quite amusing to see how captivated with the chickens he was, he was obviously not aware that chickens can be seen in many places, but he won't often get to see alpacas in Latvia - well not at the minute anyway.

We found the cranberries this week. Not ripe yet, but still
safe inside our giant lobster pot. Surprisingly enough no lobsters yet! 

The barley was chopped up in a garden shredder and it
seemed to do a good job of separating the seed from the
stalks. The shredded stalks will be bedding for the
chickens and some of the seed will be sifted to get pure seed,
the rest will be give with chaff for the chickens to sort
through in winter. At least the principle worked and next
year we could manage a bigger plot of barley.

Our American friends split their time between us and our friends who live on a goat farm. They helped us with some of the jobs, like gathering in the barley, some of the buckwheat and some of the beginnings of the tomato glut, but some work we couldn't do because of the weather or just too tired. For Ian, especially, it was a good time to sit down and talk about what has been happening, which was a bit like having a holiday for him. It has been a bit of a tough year and so we both feel a bit drained at times and just processing what has been happening was good for us. They also took us out for a meal, something we haven't done in a long time. We have had pizza in the big town, but that was out of necessity and not just because it was a nice thing to do (the pizzas are amazing and made by an Italian and so necessity works too), so having a meal, just for the sake of it was a refreshing change.

Barley seed

Yes that is me, up in the tractor bucket
collecting rowan berries to make rowan
berry jam. It is very tart and goes nicely
with pork, but we like it on toast too.
It is supposed to be good for sore throats,
as are most berries.

The weather this week has either been really hot or stormy. It has been 35C (95F) some days and I have been finding that it is not ideal having hot flushes in this kind of heat. Hot flushes in winter at -25C (-13F) fine, even helpful, but not at 35C. It's a good job they are not real humdingers of hot flushes, just mildly uncomfortable. One storm in particular was a sight to behold though. We are used to torrential rain and I have told you about the gulley washing storms. It is kind of normal from our experience of summers in Latvia, but one night the rain was so hard that it looked like a power shower on steroids. The gutters for the apartment couldn't handle the rain, we are not sure if they are partially blocked or just weren't up to that volume of rain, but they overflowed and ran down the wall of our home. The water then found a gap just under the window and started raining in. Ian fortunately spotted it and constructed a way of catching the water in a bowl, by jamming a tea-towel into the hole with a brush that was jammed against a piece of furniture and then the towel dripped into the bowl. It worked anyway. Ian was worried though about the animals and the barn out on the land and so late in the evening he set back off to the land to see what was happening, only to find out the storm was very localised and there wasn't a problem out on the land, so he arrived back at midnight.

See it really is me!

Our shot of the perigee moon

I forgot to mention the other week that I helped my friend who has the goat farm translate her website. She told me approximately what was said and I had to write something that made sense in English along the same lines. It was really hard. My friend speaks perfectly adequate English and we understand her pretty well, but it is still with a very Latvian way of speaking and trying to put that into a more normal English sentence structure, rather challenged my brain and made me realise how long it is since we left the UK. Sometimes I can't find the right words at all and sometimes my own sentence structure lets me down. So anyway, here is the website and if you spot any mistakes or want to make any suggestions to improve the English then you are more than welcome to send me an email.

The swallows are growing up fast. It probably won't be
long before they are flying and then migrating.
Seems hard to believe when they are so tiny.

Other little snippets of news this week includes the ongoing saga of the oat crop. Well it is no more. Ian and I went to see if we could salvage anything and there wasn't even any seed left on the battered stalks, in fact the whole of the field was flattened by the time the wild boar had finished. I guess that is why I am not too upset that African Swine Fever seems to be creeping nearer and nearer to our land. I realise I shouldn't, but the numbers had been allowed to get unnaturally high, by feeding the little darlings through the winter and this is only to be expected. Hopefully nature will right the balance and we we can all live happily ever after again with just some damage every now and again. We are not sure if the wild boar ate the seed or it is just trampled into the ground. We know that at least some of it will have been and so we are going to leave it as it is and wait for the seed to germinate and cover the area, then we can put the sheep on it to manure the patch and hopefully trample the stalks into the ground. At least that way there will be some use from it.

Not to be left out, Estelle and yes, this really is Estelle.
Her ear tag matches the notes 

Ark 4 with the little chicks. This ark may make its way up
to the girls paddock. Ian has noticed that there are a lot
less flies in the boys alpaca house than the girls and he
thinks it may indeed be due to the presence of the chickens.
We often joke that the cleaning team are going in, as the
first thing the chickens do when let out is go straight into
the alpaca house to have a scratch around. The chickens
have been a bit of a nuisance, but if they make our alpacas
lives a bit easier by reducing the flies, then they have their
place.

Ian played bird saviour again this week, this time from the jaws of our cat. After a spell in a shoe box to recover, he let it loose in the woods where it flew off into a tree, hopefully a much wiser little bird. We keep telling Sofie, our cat, "furry things, good, feathered things, bad," but she isn't getting it. She still is getting furry things and demonstrated it today by bringing me a live mouse for me to catch. I wasn't playing and so I don't think she was impressed with my hunting skills either. One day this last week, we could see Sofie was on the alert and watching something. She set off slowly as if on the hunt. I got up to check on what it was that she was hunting, only to find it was one of our new chicks. They are proving to be great escape artists, which is not helpful with cats, ospreys and storks around. I know the ospreys are going to be off soon, as we have seen them gathering and many of the storks have already left, there are just a few who will also leave soon if they are not too sick to do so, but the cat will still be there and so those little fellas had better watch out.

One of the many ospreys we have seen this week. Looking
for a chicken dinner? Good job the new cockerel, seems
to be doing his job.

Close up of ark 4. Definitely a franken ark, made up of lots
of scraps, mainly from the girls alpaca house.

One of my supervisors was at his holiday home in Latvia and so we took a trip up to see them. We had a great time chatting and a lovely lunch with Yorkshire puds - a rare treat for us northerners far from our native land (said in a heavy northern accent, just in case you are having a grammar fit). A colleague of my supervisor works for a Latvian university, but also has a holiday home in the area and so my supervisor tried to connect us up. He rang and rang and in true British style we started to make jokes about this colleague that I had never seen. I had heard him talked about many a time, by both supervisors, I had even had an email from him, but did he really exist? Eventually a little later than planned, someone did indeed turn up, still we didn't see the ID, so the question remains, does the mysterious colleague really exist? Joking apart, at least he is going to try and encourage some of his new students to do a project with me, so I can get the kind of data I require for my own studies. I shall find out whether he was successful by mid-September.