For those of you wondering if we've moved in to our 'castle' yet, here's a pictorial report of how things are going... and I suppose it will be patently obvious that we are NOWHERE NEAR moving in! Nothing has been done to the house yet, we are still consulting with various building firms. Opinions range widely about how much work needs to be done to the structure of the place - some people are advising us that it's all bad, bad, bad and we need to rip it all apart and rebuild it, others seem to think that things should be approached more conservatively. There's also a huge cultural difference here about what to keep in an old house - most builders seem stunned by the fact that I want to preserve the old floorboards, the plasterwork, the staircase - the number of times I have listened to lectures on the advantages of gyproc and new plastic window frames. Mind you, there's not very much charm to preserve in this old place! One heartening incident recently was when I found the original plans for the house in the city building archive - it was built in 1898 and the facade used to be a bit more ornate (the paperwork was mostly in Russian although the streetnames were in German - our street, Mazā Nometņu iela, used to be known as Kleine Lagerstrasse - "Small Camp Street"!). We will try to recreate the facade as far as we are able - I'll scan the drawing and post it here soon.
The photos are from this weekend when we spent an afternoon at the house trying to plan out some of the spaces. Jem ripped up some lino while the boys watched old 1960s "spiderman" episodes on my laptop. It was cold - around zero - so we tried out some of the old stoves while we worked...

The last two years have been pretty pathetic in the snow department - we have spent the past two Christmases waiting for the snow and having to endure slush and mud instead. Disappointing for a pack of Aussies who think snow is terribly exotic. But at least this year Mother Nature had a romantic and spectacular trick up her sleeve - she decided to hold back the snow until New Year's Eve. This year we celebrated with friends who have a house in the forest at Jūrmala - and before we got there, it started to snow. And snow, and snow, and snow. By midnight the whole world had been turned into a big white fluffy paradise. I went out into the unlit forest by their house with big flakes falling silently all around me in the dark, it was totally magical. In the morning we all woke to a world transformed - everything covered in a clean white, rounded layer - every fencepost and tree branch and car and house. A very fitting way to begin a new year. And the snowball fight we had was also pretty good!
So Gabe, how's about some time in the future you come over and have a white New Year's (or maybe even Christmas) with us?
Oh and here's another shot of the snow, taken yesterday in our new back yard, note the new (unreasonably expensive) fence!

Fancy a dance with death? That's what you have to do for good luck and a prosperous new year around these parts. Last night we and a group of friends went Ķekatās around the centre of Rīga. It's the first time I've ever taken part in this Latvian pagan equivalent of Halloween or the English tradition of 'Mummers' - and it was fantastic!
In Latvian traditional culture the time of Ķekatas stretched from late autumn to early spring - the time when everything is the darkest and you are waiting for the sun and warmth to come back to the land. People would get dressed up as gypsies, animals, and even "death" (the grim reaper) - and go from house to house singing and dancing and being generally boisterous. Ķekatas bring good fortune to any house they visit - provided you treat them nice! You have to let them in when you hear them knocking at the door - be kind to them, offer them treats to eat, alcohol, dance and sing with them. Each Ķekata character has its own role to play - the bears growl in all the corners of your house to bring it luck, you have to dance with "death"for health in the new year, the crane asks you riddles, the gypsy tells your fortune, etc.
This tradition isn't really that easy to practice in a capital city where people bar their doors and turn on their alarm systems - so we picked friends who we knew would understand what we were up to and danced around the city. As you can see I was the grim reaper, Jem was a squirrel, Mikus and Matiss were bears, our other friends were a motley assortment of cross dressers, gypsies, goats and others. One of the best parts was when we were hammering on the door of one friend, who was taking her time in answering, when the neighbours opened THEIR door - so we danced into their apartment- only to find out that they were also acquaintances of ours who have moved to Latvia from Australia! Weird coincidence.
Walking from one house to the other we also made sure we did some twirls with random passers-by - some of which understood the sentiment and graciously participated - while other people (the security guards outside the parliament building in particular) grumbled and chased us off. Spoil sports!
To my joy the boys also got into the spirit of Ķekatas - they started off a bit freaked out by the costumes and disappointed that the whole ritual was more about singing and dancing rather than getting lollies (I had explained to Tiss that it was a Latvian equivalent of Halloween), but as the night wore on the boys were more and more in their element, and their calls for "going home" changed to "another house!!".
Anyhow, suffice it to say I have a bit of a hangover today after dreaming strange, colourful and noisy dreams. I certainly now understand the tradition of Ķekatas more than theoretically. The whole concept of masking/taking on another personae does help when you have to barge into other people's houses or dance with complete strangers! It gives you a lease to act the way you ususally wouldn't! And it's fun! So here's to more Ķekatas next year...

While I'm on a roll with breaking the blogging drought, thought I'd share some snaps from our brief outing yesterday on 18 November, Latvian independence day. We have all been grossly sick with a cold/flu/fever thing so there was minimum celebrating at our place, but we did manage to make a pilgrimage to the freedom monument to put down some flowers for Latvia. Tiss insisted on two red flowers and one white (like the Latvian flag). Afterwards he also insisted that we "go to that big yellow "M" over there" (meaning, the golden arches), which after a lot of umming and aaahhhing and saying that he really should be eating sauerkraut or piragi on day like today, we broke down and bought the kids happy meals all round. Why not make it a real celebration, we figured, and for the kids - there's nothing better than McDonalds, they get it so rarely... I drew the line when the lady at McDonalds offered the kids little paper McDonalds flags - I thought a Latvian flag in one hand, and McD's flags in the other would be pushing the celebration a bit too far.

It's finally happened - we are now the proud new owners of a house in Āgenskalns, Rīga. This time, I'm worried I've bitten off a bit more than I can chew! The deeds were all signed off about a week ago and since then I've been racing around trying to organise a fence to be built around our patch of dirt, to get the house insured, to find an architect, an engineer, etc, etc, etc. None of these tasks has proved to be easy. If the price of fences in Rīga is indicative of the kind of prices we will pay for renovating, I'm afraid we will still be heating with 8x wood fire stoves and have no bathroom long, long into the future! Needless to say we have a bit (!!)of work to do before we move in. But I'm hoping that in a little (or a long) while we will have a semi-habitable house to move in to. I must admit that I am a bit excited - no matter what all those "oh-my-god-you've-bought-a-piece-of-shit-with-sloping-floors" people say. I happen to think sloping floors will be easier, I will always be able to find the kid's marbles when they roll away. And I think peeling paint is just charming! The prospect of having a back yard is also very exciting. We have already planned where the swing and the treehouse will go., Matiss and Mikus are very enamoured of the slag heap in the yard which I haven't told them will be going very soon...
Ps. Thanks for the "Wiggles" beanie, Oma, Mikus loves it and refuses to wear any other hat. I think he looks a bit ridiculous in it - like a parakeet - and tried to hide it whenever we were going out, but he keeps insisting that I find it for him!

Well we finally settled on a name, in the end Tiss insisted on calling our new kitten Fizzgig (after I showed him a pic of the character Fizzgig from Jim Henson's "The Dark Crystal") - so she gets called Fizzy most of the time. Kinda suits her because she is very effervescent! I'm amazed at how social and playful a cat can be - that's kittens for you I suppose. Fizzy follows me around like a puppy most of the day, crawls into my lap at any opportunity. When I am working she sleeps on my desk with her head on the mouse mat so that I bump her head with my hand every time I move the mouse. (yes, its gets irritating!). She is incredibly patient and tolerant of the boys, she plays with them readily, her favourite toys are marbles that she bats up and down the hallway (even at 3am) and pretty much anything the boys are playing with. She has moments of total craziness - racing through the apartment, paws sliding out on the lino - and definitely has a strong character of her own. Matiss has started drawing series of cat pictures while Mikus' favourite toys at the moment are six little plastic cats he got a the toy store. So there you go! An irreplaceable family member already!
(Oh by the way, Māra F., thanks for the antique tsar-era basket... its now Fizzy's favourite place to sleep...)