Starter Smallholders

Cutting brushwood into smaller lengths with a bow saw, using your knee as a rest for the wood. What is the inevitable result? Blood, of course. Having cut a not-very-neat triangular flap off the top of my thumb, I dissolved into worry. Not about the cut, which was obviously not too bad, but whether I dared risk a provincial Latvian hospital, or needed to head back to Riga and cut our weekend short. I needn't have worried. Our local hospital was modernised recently, and is considerably nicer than any I have visited in Riga. And every cloud has a silver lining - my inability to work the lawn mower or grip any tools left me free to deal with the student reports that I was supposed to be spending time on last weekend.