EIGHT YEAR'S ON

 All power to those who can sit down each week and write yards of words but sorry I can't. So here is the latest offering from 13 Upes Iela.
Do you know where you were when Elvis died or J F K was shot maybe you can pin point just where you were when man landed on the moon,some folks are made that way, But only two days stand out in my mind not counting Valerie's birthday {couldn't forget that could I } wedding day and the kids birthdays. One is 9/11/2001, the other was 22/10/2004 this was the day on which I was introduced to Stelpe,who would have thought that 8 years later we would be sitting in our own home in that very village with so many friends.
When Anna was born there was some verses of a psalm that were on my mind it is Psalm 37 v3--5 {read them when you have a quiet moment} Throughout our married life we have sought to live by this principal and am happy to say IT WORKS.
Well on to more happenings here, over the last few months we have seen concerts in the open air theatre, trips to Lithuania and the UK along with the teachers annual  day out, we have joined in a 50 year wedding celebration, been to a funeral and been inspected by gardening experts from Vecumnieki  So as Julie Andrews  would say ' Lets start at the very beginning, a very good place to start'.

My new toy complete with trailer

Many of you will remember how often I have bemoaned my lot when spending so much time cutting the grass, well now instead of taking day's to do it, I am happy to tell you I can cut all of out lawns in a matter of a few hours, thanks to what Valerie call my new toy!!! At the end of June I took delivery of 'an essential piece of gardening equipment' a smart ride on mower,

 This is as near as I can come to living a boyhood dream of being a tractor driver, and it fills me with 'Deep joy' just to cut grass now. (I know little things please little minds etc etc)

Our winter fuel

In early July with the help of a young Portuguese man I finished splitting all of our firewood, this year we had 15cu m half of it is now stacked in the wood store ready for the winter.


 The other battle of the summer is a problem gardeners in the UK never see,the dreaded Colorado Beetle. despite trying to grow organic veg and fruit I still have to use one dose of spray to try and keep these little beggars down they still need once daily walk through the tater plot to pick off adult beetles, miss out a day and in a few days you can almost see a plant disappear before your eyes.

Those of you who have visited us will know that our dinning room adjoined the kitchen, now we have moved it to one end of the  sitting room, so we can call it ( in estate agents talk) the lounge/diner but it works well and TV dinners on our laps are a thing of the past. Oh yes the old dining room is now called 'the quiet room cos nothing happens in it.[it does have a settee in there tho]




The first two weeks of August we visited family in England. Spending quality time with Andrew,Anna and Mark,and of course  our grandchildren,,,it was good to be looked after so well by them, yes we do miss them all but quality is always better than quantity. We also caught up with friends who we have not seen for several years.

The anniversary couple

No sooner than we returned home we were off to meet with our pensioner friends two of whom were celebrating their Golden Wedding Anniversary. We all met at Visvaldis and Ilga's nursery on the sunniest of days and enjoyed good food, singing and dancing accompanied by a young man with an accordion.
Also just two weeks after our return our garden was due to be inspected by a group of people from the villages within the Vecumnieki Pagast  (District) so with the grass long enough for silage and two weeks worth of weeds we had our work cut out getting the garden up together,( but we did have a cunning plan!!!) we plied them with homemade cake, scones and jam all fresh from the 'Stelpe Kitchen' it must have worked as on the 23rd of September we were awarded a new certificate for our efforts and four bags of potting compost plus a day out to visit the best kept village in Lithuania ( more of that later)
We receive very little post (Ahhhhhh ! I hear you cry} in the way of snail mail, but when checking our post box on the 11th  I was surprised to find an envelope which contained our first Christmas card, yes Anna had done it again she likes to make sure we get at least one on time, it is sitting on our mantle piece in pride of place.

Getting the fire going

One of our friends enjoying her picnic

The pensioners meeting for September took the form of a sausage sizzle at the open air theater we do know how to have fun!!!!





Watch out for my next offering 'Two outings and a window'!!