Ligo was great! Zanna and Denis found babysitting for Mira and made their way Jurmala. Along the way it occurred to Denis to contact an old school mate Carel who lived in Jurmala. He was having a Ligo party and we were set. Initially we thought we would leave Alex to baby-sit Olivia but then we discovered that Carel had a daughter. Olivia was in like Flin. Alex on the other hand was deep into an online game of Dragonshard and we content to play on his own.

We arrive to a clearing sky after a rainy day. Carel and his wife Veronica were preparing 'shashlik' (shish kebab) and we were off. After a few shooters of Ukrainian pepper and honey vodka one of Carel's neighbours, a real character, Zed arrived. Zed spoke little English but could speak in a Scottish accent. In addition he had this amazing Haida tattoo of a bear on his arm. This was special. Here we were in Latvia and we come across the indigenous art of the Queen Charlotte Islands on the west coast of British Columbia, Canada.

Finally when we were thoroughly watered and feed we ventured down to the beach to check out the Ligo festival.

There was much hooting and hollering and finally we came across an essential ingredient to the Ligo fire jumping ritual, an illegal bonfire.

Legend has it that if you can jump over the bonfire three times it will bring good luck. Now you can see by the size of the bonfire this was not for the faint of heart. But as usual the ‘Dangerfield’* of the group Denis Gorshkov, man with broken leg, began running at the fire screaming like a madman. Up into the air he hurled himself across the fire and safely to the other side. That man is lucky, I think.

Next I realized that I was having some real problems with some tough bugs on the Active Networks project and felt that this ritual may just give me the boost I needed. My job depended on it.

Back and forth I repeated ran jumping over the fire. One, two, three the crowd of on lookers counted.