Flowers for the teacher

Its September the 1st, and in Latvia that can only mean one thing, its time to get on the good clothes, select a few choice flowers, and prepare for a new day at school. All over the country the children are flocking back, ready for a new term - but today is the special one.

It was quite a sight to watch this morning, as children of all ages returned to their scholastic studies. Regretfully it is also a sign of the impending Autumn - but at least for today it was a pleasant 20+ degrees.

As my frequent readers will have noticed the blog has not been updated for a while (ten days), but I have been otherwise engaged.

But back to current happenings - Zvannieki have MOVED !!!! ( well almost).

As I mentioned previously they have had the offer to buy a new home, but in the meantime the current owners gave their permission that they could move in right now. So they have - the key reason was that with beginning of the new school term, it was so much easier to be based so close to Cesis, and to get the children booked into there new school.

There is still much to move, cookers, fridges and all of the furniture etc, but as usual they are simply getting on with it, and coping as best they can. They seem to think that it will take about another month or so to fully move all of their belongings and furniture.

The plan to purchase is going ahead, and once this explosion of activity has died down, then J..... ( Vicar with a heart of gold) will start discussion with Rietumu bank re bank loan to purchase the property. But is is not an amazing turnaround, from having a landlord who has proved to a bit of a dipstick, to having, at least on a temporary basis a landlord who clearly cares.

I hope to met up with J..... and S.....(Canadian mother of one) next week to see how or what we can do to assist. But I have told them that until they legally own the property, we cannot proceed with using the funds donated by Rietumu Bank to build the new kitchen etc.

Other news - B......(Teacher with attitude) is BACK amongst us - and appears to be having a bad time with the newly introduced smoking ban and J.... ( Irish and likes cigarettes) has left his paying occupation to set up a new and ingenious enterprise. He is going to marketing a plastic bag, a very BIG plastic bag, into which you can stick a car ?? - Why you might ask, well just look at the damage the hurricane Katrina caused - so now now when a storm is approaching you can stick your car in the plastic bag, tie it to the house - and bingo it will not get wet - crushed perhaps ! - but not damaged by water - hmmmmmm - not sure about this - but who am I to question the logic, particularly when Americans are one of the target markets.

But I for one wish him all the luck and success in the world - after all he nearly gave us the floating bus, which I personally thought had some serious potential, albeit with a few risks in the case of accidental door openings.


He will still be based in Riga (so the ladies can breath a sigh of relief).

Well the weekend approaches - and hopefully I will be able to indlge in a quiet beer this evening De Lacy's - before the weekend avalanche of cretins descend into our midst.