My eldest son is a list man.  Like his mamma, he likes to write lists of jobs to do and tick them off as they get done.  Yesterday he came home from school with another lurgy, and luxuriously wrote the above list of things he could do at home to keep himself amused.  Notice the fact that of all the things on the list that have been ticked, "ly down" (sic) is not one of them.  (BTW., I know the list above may seem like a complete failure in terms of spelling for a 9 year old, but I'm not too worried considering he reads and writes in Latvian at school.  Lord knows where he learned to read and write in English).
We've all been sick lately, especially Jem, who went multiple rounds with sinus infections and antibiotics of various strengths.  That's probably why I haven't had time to visit blogland for a while.  Mind you, we've ALL been sick, except for this young man.  And may I remind you that he doesn't eat ANY VEGETABLES.


Here he is dressed as an oak tree for kindergarten's autumn concert last week.  He totally surprised us by singing a solo, taking the lead in all the musical numbers, and generally being the kindergarten concert diva.  Turns out there's hope in the world!

I have also been writing lots of lists lately - because I fly to Brazil in a couple of days for field work.  Last time I went to Brazil for work it was a very intense 2 weeks of interviewing and recording and travelling. The closest I got to a tourist experience was pressing my face up against the window inside the car as we sped past Ipanema beach in Rio, watching all bikini babes and tanned hunks sunning themselves in a passing blur.  We did get 1/2 an hour out to see this dude, though, which made up for the rest of the time working.


Yesterday night we celebrated 11/11/11, like every year we lit candles along the wall of the Riga castle, and released a little raft of candles into the black swirling expanse that is the River Daugava.  Usually this would be my annual post about the darkness and how difficult it is to handle, for some reason this year it's been relatively warm and light and we haven't descended into the depths of late autumn despair yet.  It is interesting as the boys get older to see how they have soaked in our family celebrations - I've noticed that this year they both expect certain things to happen, and now we have family traditions that I can see continuing for many years to come.

When we first moved to Latvia, I was totally enamoured by the drastic change of seasons, which I had never really experienced, having grown up in sub-tropical Brisvegas.  This means I was also totally besotted with chestnuts and acorns - still one of the best parts of autumn.  For the first few years, when Tiss was a wee tot, I would take him to our local park with a little plastic bucket and collect acorns.  Or more accurately, I would collect acorns, and try to make Tiss take an interest.  He couldn't care less, however, and just wanted to run, run, run past the oak trees, past the maple leaves raining down in golden sheets, past the chestnuts in the hedgehog-shells.  So I collected acorns, and pretended my kid loved them, when it was actually me.  Shiny brown nuts that had little "hats", which clunked comfortably in your pocket and could practically be used for currency.  I would imagine that each of those pointed nuts in my pocket could grow up as big as the huge, hundred-year oaks around me, and I felt rich.  I was lucky enough to be made a godmother a few years ago, to Zīle - which is a girl's name, but also the Latvian word for a bird (a Tomtit), and also the Latvian word for acorn.  Of course, when I was told Zīle's name, I was over the moon, because the bird didn't come into my mind - only the absolute perfection and unlimited potential stored in the tiny package of an acorn.

And then there were the chestnuts. Every morning walking on the footpath under sprawling beech trees I would look for the green spiky cases on the ground - and would subtly walk faster when I saw them so that I could pick them up before any school kids did.  Break open the shell and inside would be a sleek, rounded, heavy chestnut - glossy and perfect - sometimes big, sometimes two small ones grown together.  Mind you, I never saw any other adults doing this - except for once, when a middle-aged lady in a camel coloured trench coat raced up and snatched the fattest chestnut before I could get there - oh yes, I remember!

As the years progressed I slowly got used to this decorative autumnal bounty (the chestnuts in Latvia are not the edible kind, like the ones in the UK), and enjoyed seeing how the nuts were used by kindergartens to make necklaces, animals, counters, money for play shops etc.  My own kids didn't really "dig it" the way I did, however.  Until last year.  This year and last year I have been secretly delighted that Tiss eventually caught the bug.  This morning he put his jumper on for school and a rain of acorns fell out of his pockets and bounced down the stairs, and I just smiled.  Last saturday when we rode to the park, Tiss spotted a chestnut tree in the distance and opted out of the skate ramp early so that he could go and hunt for chestnuts.  These pocketfuls, combined with Mikus' obsession with bottletops and miscellaneous bits of junk, which regularly come out in the wash, are stuff that parent-collectors dream of...


PS. These are pics from last year.  Which can be seen in more detail in this post.  This year's haul yet to be captured :)

We spent the last week at a family summer camp.  I originally had the idea  because going to camp is a big part of diaspora Latvian life, and some of my best memories come from being at camps as a child. Latvians are good at living in camps, having had a lot of experience at this in the five years following the second world war, when Latvian refugees lived in refugee camps in Germany before being relocated to their new "homes" elsewhere.  Latvian camp in Australia or the USA for us, children of the first generation migrants, was a "shot in the arm" of Latvian spirit, language and culture.
Last year I realised that my kids had never had a similar experience, and so this year we spent a week together living at a boarding school in the country, taking part in all sorts of interesting activities, with us adults also having to organize a few ourselves.
I must admit it was a bit of a shock to the system for all of us.  Although we all had a great time overall, there were certain aspects that took a bit of getting used to.  For me, it was the "happy campers" all around us.  The kind of people who comment completely inane, yet friendly and positive things, to people they don't even know: "Well, we've really earned this drink of nutritious plum juice, because we did such a GOOD JOB raking the grass this afternoon!".  Or, "So, you certainly look like you've had a great family time on the ropes course!".  These comments mainly came from people who were trying to make us fit in and feel welcome, though, and after the first couple of days, I began to get used to their cheery inclusiveness.  I may have even said something equally inane to other newcomers who looked uneasy.
Another interesting aspect was food.  Country food.  Apparently we, the inhabitants of the camp, ate two whole pigs over the course of the week.  Meaning, we ate everything.  Lots of hearty country pig fat sauce and traditional meat made from boiled pigs heads.  Well there's a first time for everything I guess.  There were other interesting aspects of the eating process at camp - the boys ended up trying all sorts of things they would never eat at home (eat the pig fat, Johnny, or there's nothing else for dinner).  I also realized two things about myself, not necessarily positive: firstly, that I have been completely in  control of my own eating schedule over the last ten or so years, and I'm getting old and crotchety and don't appreciate it when other people tell me when I can ingest.  Secondly, that I am addicted to coffee.  Totally addicted.  Because the camp kitchen didn't provide enough of the coffee, dammit, and I found myself in the early hours of the afternoon dreaming caffeine fuelled daydreams.
Despite these few grumbles, though, camp was cool.  The boys loved it, and can't wait to return again next year to meet their new friends and run around in the summer meadows - playing snipers, or cowboys and indians, or "capture the flag" or "Werewolf", or suchlike.  Jem and I also ended up enjoying the company of the happy campers, and the various small personal triumphs that come from teaching others something you know.  We left this morning, Tiss howling about having to say goodbye, packing the car with felted camp crafts, exhausted, sunbrowned kids and memories of a happy week.
So without further ado, the visual demonstration...


Jem and the boys made a homemade bow and arrows, which, amazingly, were amazingly effective.  On the last day they had an archery competition, where Matīss got a prize for the best in his age group.  That's my boy!  One day we went on excursion...




As if Rome wasn't enough - more questions about Jesus.  Tiss ran through this Catholic church reading about the stations of the cross in the the local dialect (which is also different in written form).  Afterwards, of course, came the story about poor old JC and the suffering.  This must be the summer for bible stories.


I was responsible for taking the 18+ kids of the camp traipsing through the country, finding old ladies in their farm houses and interviewing them about life, the universe and everything.


Finally got to have a go at traditional Latvian weaving.  That's it, I've got to get a loom for our country place so I can weave rag rugs.

Summer's flying by... not time for posting.  We have been busy with visitors, the junk in our back yard, eating lots of summer berries, playing paddock golf, working on an online exhibition at work, keeping kids amused in the THREE MONTHS that is Latvian school summer holidays, trying to keep cool in a house with no pool, watching kittens play.  Can I just say that kitten play is far rougher than the way my boys play.  And their mum doesn't seem to mind a bit. A few of these things merit a dedicated blog post, but not now.  I've got a camp to go to!

Miraculously, the temperature has climbed to above zero in the last week.  The air is moist and earth-scented, and the huge piles of dirty snow everywhere are starting to slowly, slowly melt.  Roofs are dripping, and birds are singing, and you can go outside and forget your gloves, or scarf, or hat, and not be in danger of frostbite!  We are all elated that there is an end in sight to the six months of winter we get every year.  So much so that we took a break from endless trips to the hardware store to go on an excursion today.

We obviously don't get out enough these days (except for those trips to the hardware store), because the boys got SO excited before the trip .  Before we knew what was happening they had each packed backpacks with all the essentials needed for an excursion: chips, nuts, a peanut butter sandwich, a jam jar full of water, a towel, a tennis ball, toy binoculars and a mobile phone. Hmmmm.

We went to Ligatne nature park outside of Riga, where you can see Latvian native animals in big enclosures in the forest.  Morning was spent slipping and sliding over 5 kms of icy track, stopping for snack-breaks every 500 metres or so (we managed to stock up on a few more picnic essentials on the shop on the way through - to complement the sandwich and the jam jar of water).  It was glorious - one of those days where you are so grateful for the things you used to take for granted:  for the sun, and the warm(ish) air, and not wearing gloves, and handrails on slippery outdoor staircases.  As opposed to other times we have been there, today we managed to see almost all of the animals - other times there are some that are hiding so effectively that you can't spot 'em.  The best was when we saw a beautiful lynx - orange with black spots, pointy eared, short tail - in the distance, cleaning the fur of her kittens (is that what you call baby lynxes?) with her tongue.

Another dramatic moment was when Mikus lost his glove over the side of the WOLF enclosure.  Murphy's law. There we stood, looking at the forlorn glove about 2.5 metres below us over the edge of the walkway, with a serious-looking wolf pacing on sentry duty nearby.  Of course, Mikus lets up an enormous howl that rivals that of any wolf , and follows it up with piteous crying and snivelling, gaining rapidly in intensity.  Although Mikus' favourite gloves are mismatched (one blue, one green) he is pretty attached to them (or anything else that gets lost, broken, or needs to be thrown away), and both Jem and I knew that we were in for a long afternoon of hysteria if we didn't do something.  I was about to give the "we'll tell the zookeeper and when he retrieves it, we'll drive out and pick it up again, it'll be o.k. darling" speech, when Jem suddenly ripped his shirt open to reveal the "S" symbol beneath.  As I calmed the distraught children, Jem ran off into the forest and came back with a long, hooky stick, climbed half over the side of the enclosure, leaned down as far as he could and after a few anxious moments with all of us shouting "You're crazy"!  "Watch out!"  "Dad, don't!", he retrieved the glove.  One of those moments where you suddenly understand those situations you hear about in the news - you know, the ones where the guy gets mauled by bears after SCALING THE SAFETY FENCE to get into the enclosure at the zoo.  Well lucky for us, things turned out ok!

The rest of the walk was comparatively uneventful - lots of wild boar, moose, foxes, bears, all happily sitting in the melting snow, soaking up a bit of sun.  Like us, I think they were happy for a bit of spring in the air.