Do Indians play Rugby ?

A warning to all yea you are visiting Riga - when you are walking along the pavements and you come across a piece of red an white striped of plastic tape - BEWARE ! - because somewhere on the rooftop are persons "sweeping" the snow of the roof and onto the pavement below.

God help the unwary as these guys have no regards for the unsuspecting passerby - who if caught will get a serious dollop of snow dumped upon them.

As for these roof cleaners, clearly there is no Health and Safety laws in Latvia, as they work without safety harnesses, and at best simply have a rope attached around their waist, to prevent them from joining the snow on its downward journey.

The weather has been a bit indifferent of late, with temperatures hovering between -3 to -5, but we were graced with a little snow, which always brings a little winter charm to Riga.

In deference to my English and Welsh friends I will make no reference to Scotland destroying England, and the Irish dumping on Wales, during the Six nations Rugby on Saturday and Sunday.

But for now I will bask in the Glory of the Calcutta win - knowing Scotland it will be short lived glory.


Now a question why is it called the Calcutta Cup ?
and the answer is -

On Christmas Day 1872, a game of rugby football, between 20 players representing England on the one side and 20 representing Scotland, Ireland and Wales on the other, was played in Calcutta.

The match was such a success that it was repeated a week later: the game of rugby had reached India. These lovers of rugby football wanted to form a club in the area and the aforementioned matches were the agents which led to the formation of the Calcutta Football Club in January 1873.

The Calcutta Club joined the Rugby Football Union in 1874. Despite the Indian climate not being entirely suitable for playing rugby, the club prospered during that first year. However, when the free bar had to be discontinued, the membership took an appreciable drop. Other sports, such as tennis and polo, which were considered to be more suited to the local climate, were making inroads into the numbers of gentlemen available.

The members decided to disband, withdrew the club's funds from the bank, had them melted down and made into a cup which they presented to the RFU in 1878.

The Calcutta cup was presented to the RFU to be awarded for the winner of the annual England vs.Scotland international.

So now you know !

As ever we could not watch the Scottish game, but as ever we gathered in Paddies to watch the Welsh game, but not without a little technical difficulty in actually getting the game onto the screen. German football - Yes - Olympic Ice Hockey final - Yes - but the Rugby - well eventually ! - no matter a good afternoon was had by all.

During the week, we confirmed that the planned "Marita" day will be held on March 19th , upstairs at Paddies ( back room has been booked), with goodies down in the barbecue area.

As I indicated previously the objective is to raise money for Marita and her son Edwards, to facilitate there future in Australia. It will be good afternoon, so spread the word - please - the more the merrier, but also if you are planning to attend please let me know, as we need to let Paddies know the probable numbers.

The rest of weekend was spent watching a young man ( J...... English but with Sierra Leone blood) sitting in Riga, with a device connected via the internet to a developer in India trying to make the device work, by uploading software to the said device. I still find it amazing that with the advent of the internet how the world has truly turned into a global village.

Update re Zvennieki - we have decided to go ahead and buy a new cooker, and we will hopefully deliver said cooker in mid March, so if anyone would like to join us - let me know -we need strong persons in order to carry cooker into the kitchen when we get there.