THIS WEEK FROM MOUSE TO PIG

I'd like to start this weeks blog with a competition. It has a real prize for the winner!!!! The question is how many nuts does a mouse have. Naughty naughty!!! we won't even go down that road. Whilst working in the garden the other day tidying up for the winter and working my way through the compost heap, I came upon these. Some small mammal had been so busy hording hazelnuts for it's winter stash. Now I know Cadburys take 'hazelnuts whole hazelnuts and cover them with chocolate' but this little mouse had hidden them deep inside my compost heap, I couldn't pass up the opportunity and thought,  I feel a competition coming on.So the question is how many nuts were in this store? Yes I did count them and have the answer in a sealed envelope locked in a safe place, I just hope I can remember where I put it. NOW FOR THE PRIZE. The winner will receive, one weeks free accommodation at the five star (*****) resort of 13 Upes Iela, yes completely free of charge, { conditions do apply}and no it is not 'timeshare'.

 

                 Answers must be received by the 20th of November 2011.

In my PS. last week I mentioned that we were off to see a show in Riga this week so here is the full report.
  Valerie is a fan of Radio Skonto, one of Latvias most popular radio programs, and while listening to it the other day she caught the name of  an American gospel quartet,who we listen to each week on a Swedish TV channel. Checking it out on the Internet she found that they would be at the Riga Kongress hall on the 1st of November, tickets could be bought online,so here was an opportunity not to be missed. With my birthday just passed, our wedding anniversary next week and Valeries birthday due shortly, we could roll these up together with Christmas,and with a McDonalds { last of the big spenders} meal give ourselves a present we could enjoy.
Booking tickets online is supposed to be a simple task, and finding the sight to do it was, but that was when it all started to go downhill and fast.
Step one check out the seating plan and choose seats,  check
Step two place order, check {sorry the seats you require are not available, I know I just chose them and booked them}!!
Step three go back to step one.!!!
Sorry connection broken!!!!!!!!
Step four return to booking site and go through steps one and two again!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry  your Gmail log in has expired you need to log in again,!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and so it went on but eventually I had successfully booked,paid and printed tickets.

Erni and Signaturesound in Riga on Tuesday

 The good thing about the whole saga was it prompted me to phone our Internet providers and ask them to check if we had any problems with our modem {think that's what it's called} anyway it's the box that sits outside with a sticky up bit on it} Bearing in mind this was Saturday morning Janis the boss said he would have someone come to see us, no not next whenever we have someone available but within half an hour, true to his word an engineer was with us, he checked,  fiddled and did what engineers do I guess and Bingo!!! we now have Internet that is working well. As we rely on things like email,Facebook and Skype to keep in touch with family and friends this is a real blessing, and one of the things we take for granted until it goes wrong.
But I digress, back to our trip to Riga, the good thing about booking when I did was we didn't have a long wait, so Tuesday saw us all dressed up with somewhere to go. We have found the best way to approach Riga is on the tram and with this in mind we drove to the outskirts of the city and boarded the number seven tram, which would take us  the central market  and just a short walk from McDonalds.

The central market Riga

 Here you see the market {according to Wickapaeda} the largest market in Europe housed in five Zeppelin hangers it's a virtual Aladdin's cave. We were not looking for gold or treasure but something much more mundane, ground cloves and allspice, try as we might we have been unable to find these two in the supermarkets here, would we be lucky? As Latvians would say 'but of coarse' and sure enough there it was on display with dozens of other spices, 100g of each plus another find glace cherries cost us the princely sum of 82 santimes, and we were on our way, for the per show dinner. Five minutes walk away found us in McDonald's. The last of the big spenders that's me, a fifteen  minutes walk and we were at the venue with plenty of time to spare.
The concert was just the best ever and with about a 1000 others we enjoyed almost two hours of  music of all shades from very loud up to date ear splitting gospel music to soft gentle four part harmony old and new songs all performed with feeling. As the concert came to an end the group performed a piece and encouraged the audience to join in and as we all sang they left the stage, this we found to be a very moving time, we were then treated to an encore to bring the show to a close. Everone  rose from their seats and started to move twowards
As we left we found the whole group of singers and musicians in the foyer waiting to say hello,sign cd's tickets or whatever and shake hands or have a hug, in Valeries case two hugs from the man himself.
 Walking out into a clear cold night. As the trams run until midnight took a romantic stroll through the park, the way the trees have been lit and the autumn leaves still hanging on them made it look really lovely as we made our way  back to catch  tram .The Autumn leaves and the lighting A great end to a great afternoon and evening.We arrived home about midnight
Monday morning brought us back to earth with a bump, and a leaking shower which had be taken out and replaced, but that's a story for next week. The other highlight of the week was the purchase of half a pig,which I had to collect from the farm I had to put my butchers hat on but it is now jointed and packed away in our freezer.

WELL IT CAN'T BE BUSY ALL THE TIME.

On the border

Hi there to all my devoted followers {all four of you}well after all it's quality not quantity that counts isn't it? It has been a very quiet fortnight since I last wrote, no concerts,parties or gatherings of any other nature, The highlight of the last few days has been the visit of a dear friend Barbara,here we see her doing the tourist bit, with one foot in Latvia and the other in Lithuania, the Lithuanian border is just 20 minutes away from us and it's always a fun thing  standing in two countries at the same time. It was Barbara's first time in Latvia so we wanted to show her as much of the countryside as possible and Wednesday found us up early and heading for Varakalne to visit our friends Kathleen and Ian.  We woke to a cold frosty morning with quite a thick mist but the sun was trying to burn it off.{strange term to use as a mist is fine water and you can't burn water,probably we should say the sun was trying to evaporate the mist} anyway in places the sun had been successful and we were rewarded with the most wonderful views of the Daugava river and countryside where the mist lingered in the hollows between the hills. Ian is working to make a small farm of their plot                                                  

The Daugava it really is a beautiful river

He has sheep goats and turkeys one of which is destined for our table at Christmas,we always look forward to visiting them and see what progress has been made, the only downside is that they live 190 kilometres away. A good time was had by all and and our visit was over all to soon, and we had to make our way home, now the last time we made the journey we were rewarded by the sight of an elk in the forest, so telling Barbara to keep her eyes  peeled and she might just be lucky to see some Latvian wildlife, half way home we came upon a fox just strolling across the road,he stopped, looked at us as if to say, what you doing here!!,then calmly walked off into the trees. Then almost home we saw the  tail end of two deer, better that we saw them at a distance, as we have had our brush's with large animals when traveling, first time when a group of wild pigs ran in front of us, the grand daddy of them all ran straight into the front wing of the Mazda and we sent him bowling down the road only to watch as he jumped to his feet and made a hasty exit into the woods. The second was a deer which again ran right in front of us and made a mess of our bumper. she must have had a bit of a head ache,
So many times when we have visitors we find that they just want to relax and rest in the peace and quiet of our home,we are so blest that they feel able to slow down and recharge their batteries so to speak. With all the busyness of life we can offer a complete change.So apart from a visit to Bauska and lunch at the Raspberry restaurant we spent time playing games reading and just catching up on all the news.{as you will gather, lots of talking went on over the week.
    We have now lived here for three and a half years,and if asked what have we learned in that time, I guess it could be summed up like this. We don't need a telly in every room,we are grateful for all the blessings God gives us,to take one day at a time, to expect the unexpected and appreciate those around us.

Apple blossom in spring

Iris in summer

  OK enough of being philosophical, back to the nitty gritty of day to day life, the mundane,the sweeping of leaves or the washing of clothes, the what shall we have for dinner or tea, you see we can't be partying and gallivanting about all the time, we still have chores to do,chickens to feed and the dog to walk.









What have these two pictures got to do with being busy, absolutely nothing at all but I like them and hope you do to,

Just one thing before I go, to those of you who read this I really appreciate you taking the time to see what I ramble on about, but please please leave a comment to let me know you've visited my blog. 



PS.Oh yes I almost forgot We have another concert to go to on Tuesday  'Erni Haase and Signature Sound' in the Rigas Kongresu nams {Congress Hall} Now how could that have slipped my mind!!!!!! check them out on Youtube, there grrrreat as Tony the Tiger would say.
Will let you know how we get on.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

GETTING THINGS DONE

Well it's official now, the cold weather is here, this morning when I opened the curtains the lawn was white, I know when reading friends postings on FB that some of you have already had icy windscreens and snow is forecast for later in the month, but here in Stelpe we don;t want any of  it thank you very much. Anyway can't do much about the weather can we?, so if you can't beat it join it so I did, put me vest on, trouble was with the work we did today I was over heating {was going to say sweating like a pig, but some wise ---- will tell me pigs don't sweat}
When ever we have started doing something in the house, half way through we say we should have taken a picture of what it was like before and the what it's like when finished, well have I got news for you!! two things no three things we have before and after pictures, for you.

Once  this chest held a young girls hopes and dreams

                                                                                                                                                                    Our  very good friends Kathleen and Ian, when they moved to their small farm found  amongst the things left by the previous owner this chest, sadly in need of some TLC. Here in Latvia these chests are much sought after, there origin dates back to the last century and were called Hope chests, we were able to find out more about them on our visit to Jelgava.

The full discription of the dowry chest

                                                                                In the tower we visited there was a chest on display and a discription, although called a dowry chest, the more popular name is a Hope Chest. the picture tells the official version of there use.

Now a blanket/ bedding chest

After some hard work

 Now I freely admit that I am not a carpenter and Mr Long the woodwork teacher at Uckfield Secondry School would {if he were alive today} totaly agree with me. But I am quite proud of the restored chest that we now have sitting at the top of our stairs, the perfectionists among you could find fault with it, but do I care? not a bit.                    

                                                                                                                                                                         So thats the first before and after, the second is the site of the old sauna Oh yes we used to have a sauna complete with the river at the back to jump into when cooked to a turn. Sadly the roof was falling in so it had to be pulled down, thats the published reason for demolition, unfortunatly we had to make umteen frogs homeless three families of mice, and countless spiders and creepy crawlies were without somewhere to hide.

Before

The wood was recycled to make our sittingroom fireplace,the washing line repairs and our outdoor eating deck,oh yes and also the boiler, it kept the house nice and warm on several days last winter. We did finish up with quite an untidy area at the bottom of the field and so we set to work to clean it up .

After

  For those of you who know this site you will appreciate just how I felt having wheelbarrowed all of the roofing up the hill and round to the back of the barn.
I did have some help doing this work Valerie did sterling work raking the ground,stacking bricks and generaly trying to supervise me. We were both cream crackered at the end of the day I can tell you.
PS if anyone wants a job the bricks have got to be brought up as well.

Before

Now for number three the new fence, yep we have a new picket fence across the front of 13 Upes Iela, thanks must go to Mark J and to Valerie again, without their help it would have taken much longer to erect trying to hold a pencil, drill, screw, spacer block and screwdriver whilst holding a pail in place is not a one man job

After                       

To appreciate it in is full glory one must see it in the flesh,  length of fencing aprox 100ft total cost of materials 50Lats a real bargain.

Edward hard at work

 Great job don't think I could do it with a spade and fork

 I cannot lay claim to the change in our field  as Edward ploughed the the veg plot today, yesterday I spent time muck spreading, I cleared the compost heap and if smell is anything to go by we should have taters as big as footballs next year, the ground looks great all the weeds and rubish turned under for the winter                        


                                                                                                         
     So all in all we've had a good week,Now ' all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy' or so the saying goes, and this week has not been all work, Last Friday we met up with friends from England for coffee in Bauska, they were on there way to Riga and other parts of Latvia, for ten days.
     Also we went with a group of local folk to a concert in Ieceva, Harijs Ozols and Santa Zapacka  they were excelent and a good time was had by all, you can check them out on youtube, but to be fair it doesn't do them justice. Oh yes the cost of an hour and a halfs entertainment just 3 lats, not bad eh? So are we dull ? no not a bit, life is good and everyday we count our blessings, and look forward to the next episode of our adventure.
    Well thats all for this week folks,look forward to catching up with you next time
PS Your comments are always welcome

LIGHTS!! CAMERA!! ACTION!!!

A visit to film studios was all part of this week action!

Hi there readers,well whats new from Upes Iela this week?
We were asked back to school to take class's 1 and 2 on Monday this lesson is just for 40minutes not so long, but believe me long enough to try and hold the attention of 11 yep just 11 children aged 4--6 years old, the little rascals ran us ragged, dashing to the loo every few minutes {the girls only, must be something in the female genes} Now we have learned how to say sit down and also be quiet in Latvian but it must have lacked something in pronunciation because when we tried it, it had no effect whatsoever. and we finished the lesson saying never again.!!!!
Now believe me we love these kids and they are a great each and every one of them the emphasis being on the each one but not all together. So on Wednesday when we had to do it all again you can imagine our relief when we found the children all sitting at their desks being addressed by the school principal. We don't know what she said but the children were just the opposite of Mondays fiasco.
          
                                                                                                                            

 On Friday we were invited out for the day
with the teachers who were visiting the
home of Latvias film industry near
Tukums. Oh yes Latvia has a film
industry that is alive and well. We were interested
to see what was on the cards, perhaps we may
rub shoulders with super stars who knows
anything is possible. May be get to dress up and be a film star for the day. Move over Leonardo, I've arrived.                                                                  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
                                                                                   

The deserted streets of Riga circa 1919

The film set mock up river Daugava in the first world war

Yep this is really my new truck with built in air con!!!!

Valerie on the porch of our new house

A real Russian steam train

This was the view we had from our coach we never had time to get closer as we had to move on to our next location, Jaunkoku Pils for lunch.

 The Jaunmoku Pils [palace] a grand hunting lodge built in 1901 for a George Armitstead he was mayor of Riga and a British citizen who helped construct the sewer,water and electric systems in Riga. he also built the first tram line, maybe even the bit we saw in Cinevilla. Any way be that as it may we were ready for something to eat and sat down in a very nice room to enjoy chicken in a lemon sauce with grilled potatoes and salad followed by pancakes with jam and chocolate syrup,not bad for just 4 lats. On our table we were joined by two of the school dinner ladies and when asked for their opinion of the food they said it's not as good as ours!! and gave it 5 out of ten.
The rest of the day was spent visiting Tukums and places of interest in the area including a display of straw animals and small human characters, fruit nurseries and one place of a very dubious nature!!! so no pictures were taken, but all in all a very good day out.
I was determined that if the weather allowed me on Saturday I would get the last cut of the lawn done and thankfully it was fine so for at least a few months the mower can be put away and the lawn rake take over as Autumn passes through and the leaves have to be gathered up,there is always something to do well at least until the snow arrives.