So there's only one more day until we fly out to Oz - a trip for 6 weeks - haven't been back for three years. We are very excited here and frantically trying to get everything organised before we go. The boys can't wait to get to this legendary land that they hear about all the time that neither of them can remember. They are also looking forward to meeting all the kids we keep telling them about - and animals, beaches, theme parks, etc! Jem and I are also looking forward to it. We are wondering if anything will have changed - people here (Aussies) have been telling us that we will be shocked by how expensive everything is in Australia, although I don't think anything like that could shock us, considering we are currently living in a country which clocked 16.7 percent inflation last month!!! Now THAT is shocking. Jem suspects that the EASE of life in Australia will seem very alluring - a part of that never-ending equation we are pondering, regarding the advantages of life in both countries. The HEAT and SUNLIGHT is certainly something we are pining for, and seeing old friends, and having friendly strangers in the street and museums geared for inquisitive children, meat pies and sausage rolls, Milo, takeaway chinese, garage sales, bare feet, mangoes, frangipani flowers , passionfruit and thunder storms. Hopefully we get to enjoy all or at least some of these when we are back. So for those of you in Oz - see you soon (if we survive the flight)! And those of you in LV - see you when we get back!!!
PS. i wrote this a few days ago but forgot to post it - we have now arrived in Melbourne in one piece, very jetlagged, shall post again soon with pics of the great sunburned land

Māra (my gorgeous friend and fellow blogger and perhaps maybe one day sister-in-law) has 'tagged' me to this book challenge thingy which seems not quite as bad as all of those chain letters I have a habit of rejecting...

You've got to:
1. Pick up the nearest book of at least 123 pages.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the 5th sentence.
4. Post the next 3 sentences.
5. Tag 5 more people.

So I've done it, this is a quote from the "God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins:

"It is indeed fabricated from start to finish: invented, made-up fiction. In that respect, it is exactly like the gospels. The only difference between The Da Vinci Code and the gospels is that the gospels are ancient fiction while The Da Vinci Code is modern fiction."

So there'ya go. Interesting.

Now, as for tagging 5 more people, that's tough, as not too many people I know actually have blogs. So here we go, if I tag you then feel free to send me the answer by email, or as a comment, or not participate at all ;)): Jon Smedes! Courtney Smedes! (don't make it the same book you two), Joel Smedes! Gerry Smedes! and, lets make it another Smedes... hmmm... JULIE SMEDES! Go go go!!!

If kids are about anything at all, they are about teaching parents patience. And about letting go the reins now and then.
Tiss is now a gorgeous five, which means that in Australia he should have started school this January. I have been a little worried about the fact that in Latvia, kids start school aged SEVEN - so he's got a whole two more years of bludging before he starts his official schooling. I've been worried that he won't learn to read or write before then. But lately he has begun to prove all of those wise people right - the ones who have told me that things like an interest in letters or literacy just 'happens' in kids at their own pace. It's not something you can rush or force on a kid. Of course you can try, but you run the risk of it backfiring, and making them hate the thought of reading.
So at home we've been going slowly, slowly, with gentle nudging... For a while now (about 2 years!) Tiss has known his alphabet, but only recently has he started putting letters together. Thanks to our knowledgeable friend, Mara, we've been encouraging Tiss to do "think spelling" - when he gets the urge, to just write, write, write, however he can, no matter what the spelling is, so that he practises his letters and sounding out words and gets used to the idea of writing and communicating with letters. It doesn't matter if the words aren't spelled right. Or if there are no spaces between words. We'll get around to that a little later down the track. So this little gem (above) is what he wrote today when he was in the middle of an imaginative game. If you are trying to decipher, you need to keep in mind that in places he is writing English words with Latvian phonetics; and that for Tiss a "TH" sounds like a "D"... Anyone know what it says?

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...