2 Latvians, 300 Crusties, and The Loose
(Begin note to self) If ever in future you crave a little attention from the hairy-er sex, DON’T be seen out and about in the company of foxy Latvian 20-somethings. Because you would be just as well invisible. Or worse, Belgian. You can’t get more invisible than the Belgians. They don’t get bombed to rubble in every war because some aggressive power wants to conquer them. It’s not that people don’t like them (though no one does). It’s just that nobody can see them and so it’s natural to think that they’ve entered some kind of sleepy limbo as their tanks roll on autopilot through Flanders from Cologne to Calais. Belgium is like Brigadoon—except it is only visible when someone wants to decree that all bananas entering the EU must be straight or when Israel asks for entry into the European Union. (End note to self)
Now, I know a good few Americans have read this blog (thank you for your support). I don’t mean to cast aspersions on your collective intelligence, but you do have a reputation for being (how do I say this diplomatically?)…well, stupid. You might fire right back, “But you’re American, Mollie.” And that’s a fair point—but, really, who here had the foresight to defect 10 years before the Bushevik rise to power, eh? So for the benefit of you Americans, I’ll tell you a bit about Latvia.
Latvia is a tiny country sandwiched between Estonia and Lithuania. It makes up one of the Baltic states. I realise that some of you are thinking, “Isn’t that where Bill Clinton bombed back in the 90s?”. No, that was the Balkans. Some others of you may be wondering if the Baltic states were “them yankees” who voted for John Kerry back in 2004. To you I have no reply except to shake my head sadly and wonder just exactly how you managed to get your socks on this morning, let alone find your way to my blog. No, Latvia is in Europe on the Baltic Sea, and was until 1990 part of the Soviet Union. In school and in the movies we were told all sorts of lies about the Soviet Union, not least that all the women were great lumps of blini-eating field labourers who were good at javelin throwing and that sport where you hurl cannonballs at each other. They looked like this, and we were content to keep eating 2 meals a day at McDonald’s. It was all a lie, of course.
The average Latvian woman actually looks like this.
And now that they’re in the EU, they’ve come to Ireland to take all our men. Last weekend I drove Elina and Sanita (above) down the country for The Weekend in the Woods—2 days in the forest making baskets in knee-deep mud and midges. But more about that later. We spent hours fighting Dublin rush hour(s) traffic, and I made the mistake of playing The Republic of Loose album for the girls. For those of you who haven’t heard The Loose, you can download their album “Aaaah!” legally somewhere, or just buy the CD. They are funky and f**kin’ doorty as they say in Dublin. Though Elina and Sanita have more than fluent English, there were some terms I had the dubious honour of translating for them: “jism”, the name given to the religious practices of the followers of Jennifer Lopez, and “circle jerk”, an ancient tribal dance ritual favoured by the Greeks. Well, the Latvians loved this, and spent the rest of the weekend slipping the word “jism” into most conversations (which probably accounts for their popularity).
After deciding that camping in the rain wasn’t really our thing, we headed down to The Village house in Cloughjordan instead. Cloughjordan is almost directly across Lough Derg from Bealkelly Wood, the venue for the weekend. By the time we got to Tipperary, we were famished so stopped first at The Turban Indian restaurant in Nenagh. I’ve been there several times before with friends, and was used to the passable food and the surly service. The owner/manager/waiter guy seems always to have a scowl carved into his face. He usually gives 2 broken poppadums between 3 of us and half portions of dip. He virtually throws the main course into our laps (you can see what’s coming, can’t you?). There have been many times I’ve had to pick vegetable biryani out of my cleavage and dhal out of my hair. Well, what a difference a couple of Latvians makes! He smiled…no wait. He beamed. He asked us how we were. He pulled out chairs and gave us extra poppadums. Sanita’s tandoori was served hot, and was placed in front of her gently and with aplomb. Our water jug never emptied. What was going on here? I hadn’t yet realised that I was caught in the zone of The Lativian Effect. The Latvian Effect states that “for every Latvian woman there is a radius of not less than 1m in which anyone standing within that zone is by reflection treated with politeness and respect. The Latvian Effect is known to be unstable and may be rendered ineffective when alcohol is present”. This is similar to the well-known Best Friend Effect, and in no way means that men will take any particular interest in anything you have to say, but that at least you’ll be guaranteed an invitation to the good parties (as long as your best friend is coming too).
When we got back to the pub in Cloughjordan, it was thumping. There were the usual elderly men propping up the bar, and their wives around the fire. Add the three of us, and we made seven. As I was getting the drinks, a couple of middle-aged farmers arrived and sat with the girls. And this is what I returned to:
Mollie (drinks in both hands, in armpits,and under chin): Here are the…
Farmer 1: So you’re from Latvia? Ooh, what’s that like, then?
Sanita (tossing her hair): Oh, it’s okay.
Farmer 2: And what’s the main export?
Elina: Last year it was grain and timber, but tourism is now overtaking the exports as our main income. This is in part due to our entry into the EU and our relatively low cost of living plus a GDP of USD26 billion.
Farmer 1 (pupils dilated): That’s fascinating. Did anyone ever tell you your eyes are like pools of water in which the wood nymphs frolic in an ancient Macedonian fable?
Elina (with a scornful “here we go again” look): You just did.
Mollie (hopefully): Someone once told me…
Farmer 1 (turning back to Sanita): And tell me, is there a Latvian language?
Sanita: Yes, there is. It’s not like the languages of any of our neighbours, but is similar to the extinct Old Prussian language.
Farmer 2: Would ye speak a little to us?
Mollie: I studied Russ…
Farmer 1: Oh yes, please speak some Latvian to us.
(Mollie exits stage pub door)
By morning it was pissing rain, and we set off for Scariff and Bealkelly Wood. The Weekend in the Woods hosts traditional skills courses like blacksmithing, green furniture making, herb lore, and dry-stone walling, and is held several times a year at the bottom of a mountain in a private forest (some of you may remember my mentioning the silversmithing I did last October). The forest is owned by a man called Del, who happens to be the oldest living crusty in the world. He’s 238 years old, has been growing his beard for 220 years, and has never washed or pulled the twigs out of his hair. Del kicked off the weekend by calling together the crowd in the rain, and warning us of marauding horses and deer. Apparently the night before, a curious horse found his way into an empty tent, set up camp, and had a roaring fire going by the time the tent’s owners returned from the compost toilet down the way. There were a few rules we were asked to adhere to:
1) Respect the wildlife
2) Leave nothing but our footprints
3) Try not to smoke the marijuana whilst holding an axe or blowtorch
In the crowd, the hundreds of English crusties from West Cork nodded knowingly, and one dreadlocked boy with an eye patch said, “Just hold the blowtorch away from you and you’ll be alright, man.” His one-armed friend cried, “Right on, bro!"
When we finally slipped and slid our way to the basket-making hut, Peter the basket maker asked us in a joking-yet-serious way to be on time tomorrow. Sanita told him that we were actually on time, but that we stopped to listen to the introduction talk. And Peter replied, “Where’s that accent from? It’s so beautiful.” Oh good crap.
Basket-making is great fun, and even the worst basket maker ends up with something lovely no matter how unintended. Luckily everyone’s baskets were different, and all beautiful in their own ways. My basket on the second day was wonky and all wrong until it was finished—and I think it ended up as the nicest in the class. I hadn’t felt that all day, though. I had a terrible headache, I was cold, and I was fed up with getting all my weaves wrong. My attempts to get help often went like this:
Mollie: Peter! Can you…
Peter: Just a moment Mollie. Elina, you’re doing wonderful work there. Let me just show you something fancy you can do to make your basket a bit special.
10 minutes later…
Mollie: Peter, I really could use some…
Peter: Sanita, would you like me to show you the same thing?
20 minutes after that…
Peter: Now we’re nearly out of time. You should all be finishing off your borders and doing your trims like Sanita and Elina have done so beautifully here.
Mollie: Peter, what comes after I finish the base?
At the close of the weekend, there is always a raffle with items donated by all the instructors. I had my eye on a suggan stool and a family of wooden animals made on the pole-lathe. At a push, I would have been happy with a scrap of woven wool on offer. I did win something—I usually do well in raffles. It was a big bag of rocket, which I’ve eaten for my lunch for the last 3 days. But what sort of a prize is rocket? Rocket is a weed. Elina and Sanita didn’t go away empty handed either (of course they didn’t). They were given another bag of rocket and a bottle of Elderflower wine for being beautiful Latvian hussies. They didn't even buy raffle tickets.
And then we crawled back up the mountainside to the car through a cloud of biting midges, finding dry footholds where possible and started the 3-hour journey home. Sanita shouted, “Loose! Loose! I’m Greedy! Jism! Loose!” in much the same way as Elliot shouts, "Schnappi! Schnappi! Das kleine Krokodil aus Nil!" . The Loose were in the CD player, the sun had come out just in time for the workweek, and we were off.
(Begin note to self) Next time, bring some Belgians. (end note to self)
To find out more about Latvia, crusties, or The Republic of Loose visit your local library or click here:
Latvia
Crusties
Loose
Now, I know a good few Americans have read this blog (thank you for your support). I don’t mean to cast aspersions on your collective intelligence, but you do have a reputation for being (how do I say this diplomatically?)…well, stupid. You might fire right back, “But you’re American, Mollie.” And that’s a fair point—but, really, who here had the foresight to defect 10 years before the Bushevik rise to power, eh? So for the benefit of you Americans, I’ll tell you a bit about Latvia.
Latvia is a tiny country sandwiched between Estonia and Lithuania. It makes up one of the Baltic states. I realise that some of you are thinking, “Isn’t that where Bill Clinton bombed back in the 90s?”. No, that was the Balkans. Some others of you may be wondering if the Baltic states were “them yankees” who voted for John Kerry back in 2004. To you I have no reply except to shake my head sadly and wonder just exactly how you managed to get your socks on this morning, let alone find your way to my blog. No, Latvia is in Europe on the Baltic Sea, and was until 1990 part of the Soviet Union. In school and in the movies we were told all sorts of lies about the Soviet Union, not least that all the women were great lumps of blini-eating field labourers who were good at javelin throwing and that sport where you hurl cannonballs at each other. They looked like this, and we were content to keep eating 2 meals a day at McDonald’s. It was all a lie, of course.
The average Latvian woman actually looks like this.And now that they’re in the EU, they’ve come to Ireland to take all our men. Last weekend I drove Elina and Sanita (above) down the country for The Weekend in the Woods—2 days in the forest making baskets in knee-deep mud and midges. But more about that later. We spent hours fighting Dublin rush hour(s) traffic, and I made the mistake of playing The Republic of Loose album for the girls. For those of you who haven’t heard The Loose, you can download their album “Aaaah!” legally somewhere, or just buy the CD. They are funky and f**kin’ doorty as they say in Dublin. Though Elina and Sanita have more than fluent English, there were some terms I had the dubious honour of translating for them: “jism”, the name given to the religious practices of the followers of Jennifer Lopez, and “circle jerk”, an ancient tribal dance ritual favoured by the Greeks. Well, the Latvians loved this, and spent the rest of the weekend slipping the word “jism” into most conversations (which probably accounts for their popularity).
After deciding that camping in the rain wasn’t really our thing, we headed down to The Village house in Cloughjordan instead. Cloughjordan is almost directly across Lough Derg from Bealkelly Wood, the venue for the weekend. By the time we got to Tipperary, we were famished so stopped first at The Turban Indian restaurant in Nenagh. I’ve been there several times before with friends, and was used to the passable food and the surly service. The owner/manager/waiter guy seems always to have a scowl carved into his face. He usually gives 2 broken poppadums between 3 of us and half portions of dip. He virtually throws the main course into our laps (you can see what’s coming, can’t you?). There have been many times I’ve had to pick vegetable biryani out of my cleavage and dhal out of my hair. Well, what a difference a couple of Latvians makes! He smiled…no wait. He beamed. He asked us how we were. He pulled out chairs and gave us extra poppadums. Sanita’s tandoori was served hot, and was placed in front of her gently and with aplomb. Our water jug never emptied. What was going on here? I hadn’t yet realised that I was caught in the zone of The Lativian Effect. The Latvian Effect states that “for every Latvian woman there is a radius of not less than 1m in which anyone standing within that zone is by reflection treated with politeness and respect. The Latvian Effect is known to be unstable and may be rendered ineffective when alcohol is present”. This is similar to the well-known Best Friend Effect, and in no way means that men will take any particular interest in anything you have to say, but that at least you’ll be guaranteed an invitation to the good parties (as long as your best friend is coming too).
When we got back to the pub in Cloughjordan, it was thumping. There were the usual elderly men propping up the bar, and their wives around the fire. Add the three of us, and we made seven. As I was getting the drinks, a couple of middle-aged farmers arrived and sat with the girls. And this is what I returned to:
Mollie (drinks in both hands, in armpits,and under chin): Here are the…
Farmer 1: So you’re from Latvia? Ooh, what’s that like, then?
Sanita (tossing her hair): Oh, it’s okay.
Farmer 2: And what’s the main export?
Elina: Last year it was grain and timber, but tourism is now overtaking the exports as our main income. This is in part due to our entry into the EU and our relatively low cost of living plus a GDP of USD26 billion.
Farmer 1 (pupils dilated): That’s fascinating. Did anyone ever tell you your eyes are like pools of water in which the wood nymphs frolic in an ancient Macedonian fable?
Elina (with a scornful “here we go again” look): You just did.
Mollie (hopefully): Someone once told me…
Farmer 1 (turning back to Sanita): And tell me, is there a Latvian language?
Sanita: Yes, there is. It’s not like the languages of any of our neighbours, but is similar to the extinct Old Prussian language.
Farmer 2: Would ye speak a little to us?
Mollie: I studied Russ…
Farmer 1: Oh yes, please speak some Latvian to us.
(Mollie exits stage pub door)
By morning it was pissing rain, and we set off for Scariff and Bealkelly Wood. The Weekend in the Woods hosts traditional skills courses like blacksmithing, green furniture making, herb lore, and dry-stone walling, and is held several times a year at the bottom of a mountain in a private forest (some of you may remember my mentioning the silversmithing I did last October). The forest is owned by a man called Del, who happens to be the oldest living crusty in the world. He’s 238 years old, has been growing his beard for 220 years, and has never washed or pulled the twigs out of his hair. Del kicked off the weekend by calling together the crowd in the rain, and warning us of marauding horses and deer. Apparently the night before, a curious horse found his way into an empty tent, set up camp, and had a roaring fire going by the time the tent’s owners returned from the compost toilet down the way. There were a few rules we were asked to adhere to:
1) Respect the wildlife
2) Leave nothing but our footprints
3) Try not to smoke the marijuana whilst holding an axe or blowtorch
In the crowd, the hundreds of English crusties from West Cork nodded knowingly, and one dreadlocked boy with an eye patch said, “Just hold the blowtorch away from you and you’ll be alright, man.” His one-armed friend cried, “Right on, bro!"
When we finally slipped and slid our way to the basket-making hut, Peter the basket maker asked us in a joking-yet-serious way to be on time tomorrow. Sanita told him that we were actually on time, but that we stopped to listen to the introduction talk. And Peter replied, “Where’s that accent from? It’s so beautiful.” Oh good crap.
Basket-making is great fun, and even the worst basket maker ends up with something lovely no matter how unintended. Luckily everyone’s baskets were different, and all beautiful in their own ways. My basket on the second day was wonky and all wrong until it was finished—and I think it ended up as the nicest in the class. I hadn’t felt that all day, though. I had a terrible headache, I was cold, and I was fed up with getting all my weaves wrong. My attempts to get help often went like this:Mollie: Peter! Can you…
Peter: Just a moment Mollie. Elina, you’re doing wonderful work there. Let me just show you something fancy you can do to make your basket a bit special.
10 minutes later…
Mollie: Peter, I really could use some…
Peter: Sanita, would you like me to show you the same thing?
20 minutes after that…
Peter: Now we’re nearly out of time. You should all be finishing off your borders and doing your trims like Sanita and Elina have done so beautifully here.
Mollie: Peter, what comes after I finish the base?
At the close of the weekend, there is always a raffle with items donated by all the instructors. I had my eye on a suggan stool and a family of wooden animals made on the pole-lathe. At a push, I would have been happy with a scrap of woven wool on offer. I did win something—I usually do well in raffles. It was a big bag of rocket, which I’ve eaten for my lunch for the last 3 days. But what sort of a prize is rocket? Rocket is a weed. Elina and Sanita didn’t go away empty handed either (of course they didn’t). They were given another bag of rocket and a bottle of Elderflower wine for being beautiful Latvian hussies. They didn't even buy raffle tickets.
And then we crawled back up the mountainside to the car through a cloud of biting midges, finding dry footholds where possible and started the 3-hour journey home. Sanita shouted, “Loose! Loose! I’m Greedy! Jism! Loose!” in much the same way as Elliot shouts, "Schnappi! Schnappi! Das kleine Krokodil aus Nil!" . The Loose were in the CD player, the sun had come out just in time for the workweek, and we were off.
(Begin note to self) Next time, bring some Belgians. (end note to self)
To find out more about Latvia, crusties, or The Republic of Loose visit your local library or click here:
Latvia
Crusties
Loose
posted by Sh! eelag hnaGig at 12:45
3 Comments:
..so we are not going to weekend in Woods in July then.. :(
Are you Belgian? I think not, then.
You are always welcome, as long as the other 75% is not Eastern European! But which part of you is Belgian? If I could choose a part of me to be Belgian, I'd choose my arse.
You're enough of a hippie to fit in with my crowd, so anytime you'd like to come hug a tree with us, we'd be happy to have you.
Commiserations on being being best friends with Carrie from Sex in the City. It's a tough job. Would that make you Miranda?
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