HOW TIME FLIES, WHEN HAVING FUN

How time flies by I have just checked the date of my last blog and I have been silent since the 16th of March, now I know some will say thank goodness he's quiet. But for those who have missed me {bless you} I'm back.!!!!!

I often quoted that " procrastination is the thief of time"and I've procrastined enough!!!!! { well thats my excuse anyway},,

So what has happened here at Upes Iela since my last blog, well the snow went and left us with a mess, mud ans slush everywhere, but that goes with the transition from winter to spring. "Spring shows us what God can do with a drab and dirty world" {Virgil A Kraft} {a member of the cheese family I suspect} and boy!! has He done it.

Valerie spent Easter in England with our family, leaving me on my own at home,  BUT !!! while she was away, I had a "slight " accident with the car and a parked lorry [which had been there for ever] whoops!!!!.. I was collecting the children for Sunday club,  and was turning the car round, and because of the mud on the back window, , I didn't see the lorry as it jumped out and hit me,   smashing the back window, !!!  OUCH !!, [Roger never actually owned up to any of this,   well,,not to me , [val]---,  till  later on !!]    anyway !!   120 lats and 4 weeks later , we had a new window,  the moral of this story is,=  always keep your back window clean,    I did redeem myself tho,by building a new fireplace in the sitting room,  [from reclaimed materials].

Pauline and Norman came back with Valerie,for a weeks holiday which turned out to be 2 weeks, due ot some "minor" interruption from a small island in the North Atlantic, and a bit of dust !!!!,, so we put them to work !! Pauline weeding the borders, and Norman and I set about building a  deck/pergola/eating area, using more reclaimed wood, from the old sauna/shed. at the bottom of our garden, much of this has been reclaimed when Mark and Alison  stayed,  [many thanks to all for your help], it is now progressing, [all be it slowly] .as the picture shows,

The firepit, is by courtesy of Valerie, she made it  [unaided] and loves to light fires in it,   and she's very proud of it,,,,

Thanks to our neighbour Edward,our ground was ploughed, cultivated and ridged ready for spring planting,  we now have carrots, beans, onions,cabbage ,cauliflower and of course potatoes, and they are all growing well,   oh yes!!  not forgetting strawberries as well, 

Our flower borders are doing well and we have the most beautiful Iris, and many other things, it always surprise me that after such  cold weather and the ground frozen solid , that anything survives at all.

                                                                                                                                                              The storks all came back, and repaired their nests, and now they have babies,we have also seen several pairs of cranes, we have the house martins nesting on our house again and we have a pair of swallows nesting in the barn,Birds are singing , what seems to be like 24 hours a day, even at midnightwe can still hear the nightingale,and around 4.30am, the cuckoo starts along with the dawn chorus, !! and it is daylight then [not that we get up at that time, ha ha !!]

        We have visited  our friend Egil's english classes several times,over the past weeks, on the last occasion we were asked by the class if they could visit our home for an end of term BBQ, and celebration, assuring us that they would bring everything,!!!!, and indeed they did, right down to the matches, salt and pepper, plastic plates etc,,,,oh and the food, !!!!   we introduced them to some English things,   Scones, strawberry jam and cream,  cornish pasties, and apple pie and custard,  which went down a real treat, all topped off with champagne !!!! mmm !1 wonderful,,,, it was a great time, 

We had a bit of a scare with lilya,  she was quite poorly,for a couple of days, so we took her to the vets, who told us , it was a virus,  Parvo-virus,!!!!!!!!!!!! [which we understand, can be fatal , within  a few days] !!! panic , panic!! anyway 7 injections and 4 tablets later, her temperature was right down, she was eating and "pooing" [sorry about that bit]  as normal,   all costing around £25,[that also included an innoculation ] all seems ok , and no more vets visits are needed, thankfully, !!

Indoors, Valerie has been very busy,, painting floors,[much cheaper than carpeting]  it has made such a difference, luckily we had some warm days so the windows and doors  could be left open, as it was a bit smelly, there are still 2 more rooms to do, but they will have to wait, as the weather took a turn, it started  one eveing around 10-30 with a wonderful thunder and lightening storm,  what a show it was !!!!!!

There have been several visits to "our restaurant" called the Raspberry, eating out takes on a new pleasure now, when you dont' have to take out a second mortgageto pay for the meal,  the last occasion , was when Andrew. Michelle and Thomas came to stay,

 

we also took them to see Rundale, , Bauska castle, a ride on the tram and a trip to Riga and the sights, ending up at the Lido for a meal      ,BUT !!!!!!  the highlight of their visit was has to go to the man we saw , on  the beach,  at Jurmala, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!He gave us all the most entertaining 30 minutes we have had for a long time,   for some 25 mins, he performed a "warmup routine" which must have included every muscle in his body, repeating several amusing exercises more than once,  before entering the sea, [ you can walk for more than 100 metres into the water before it even reaches " the whoops " spot,, you know where that is ??]  at which point he launched himself into the sea, ,, swam for all of 2 mins  then walked out , looking as if he was washing himself............ only to repeat the exercises all over again as a warmdown, at this point we left the beach, with aching sides and tears running down our faces, ,, I leave you with this picture of him, 

    

 Oh yes!!,, WHAT is this thing called The World Cup ..   when working in a large garedn centre in England, I was always amused by colleagues, who for most of the year, had little or no opinion on some sprot, they would suddenly become experts in, tennis, F1, football etc... knowing how or why those actually participating in the event, could do better, perhaps, they needed their ego's to be as inflated as the much over paid, over exhaulted sprots person they were setting to right.   this is just MY opinion of course,,,,,

just to let you know !!  13 Upes Iela  is a football free zone, !!!  

I promise it won't be so long a gap before the next blog installment,