It's becoming an autumn ritual for us - almost every year when the leaves turn golden we go to the Tērvetes nature park and go for a walk in the fairytale forest complete with wooden sculptures of Latvian storybook heroes, mushrooms, dwarves and elf-sized cubbyhouses. Kids love it. Every time....
Autumn fashion show at Mikus' ki...
A Latvian wedding tradition is for the bride and groom to choose a vedējpāris to acccompany them in their wedding ritual instead of a bridesmaid/groomsman: the vedēji are a couple who are already married, who the bride and groom are close to, and whose partnership they admire or respect to some degree. The vedējpāris traditionally do a lot of the organising of the wedding - MC functions, getting together parts of the ritual, pitch in with work and finances and whatever else is needed in the whole...
Had to write this down to remember it.....This morning, after sharply hitting my head on the corner of a window, I must have responded with a string of expletives. Whilst trying to rub the rising lump away Mikus came up and asked innocently, "Was that cheeses you wanted?" - ...
We have been impressed by some new stencils that have appeared on inner-city Rigan footpaths a few nights ago. The stencils are huge – about 1 metre x 1 metre, and feature a famous Latvian storybook character, Spriditis, a little boy who sets off into the world to search for luck and happiness, only to find that it has actually been at home all along. The slogans are very in-your-face and relate to the mass exodus from Latvia that is happening at the moment. This highly political subject matter,...
Now that the boys have started new schools/kindergartens our daily routine has changed considerably. I work in the mornings, and then around lunchtime race to pick up Mikus from kindergarten. The other kids stay there until around 5pm, but we did not want to leave him there that long - mostly because he's only four, and I think it is important for Mik to have more time at home with us for a little while longer. This has proved to be a great step - because Mik and I are spending a lot more time...
