A heatwave

I'm sat writing about a heat wave while wind whips the trees outside and thunder rumbles all around; said heatwave has broken today. The forecast is for this to be a brief respite and the sun will return tomorrow. I, for one, am definitely hoping this is the case; I love the heat and clouds depress me. Anyway, rewinding from today back to Thursday....

So much home grown food - amazingly tasty!

A very pleased with her first two corn

A pretty full set of seeds on the cob

Happy to harvest from Sally's tree

Not many fruits this year

.... I had a late call on Tuesday which meant I had to eat dinner, munching while I could mute the microphone. It was a good call and hopefully will lead to some more income to support us here. The food was superb, A had made rice wraps with leaves from my vine which is growing fast (and even has some fruit coming, our friend popped past on Thursday as well, coming to the end of his time renovating his place down the road, and he spotted the nascent fruits. I'll grab some pictures for a future update as I have none just yet. While we're on the subject of gardening we've had the chance to pull the first corns off the sweetcorn plants which A has done so well with again. We had these for lunch and they tasted amazing; hopefully the rest will continue to grow well and my parents will enjoy eating them. That's the main aim, anyway. Last night I spotted that the few plums on the tree Sally saved were ripening so I picked those fruit and added them to the boxes now stashed in a freezer.

Lots of rubbish piled under the stairs

An old knackered desk I found buried in there

Lots of coal dust being dug out

There's a task which has been on my task list for months, ever since I got back from working in England the last time, which was to clean out the mess under the stairs which hadn't been touched since that first few months I was here. I was prompted to actually get this done by the heat in the garage, where our preserves had been moved to, which really isn't a good thing for them lasting well. We are going to turn that little area under the stairs, which stays about as cool as anywhere in the heat we've been having, as a long term food storage area. There's a fair amount to be done before we can finish this off as a new floor needs putting in and the walls and ceiling need sealing, so I can't move things in there just yet however the worst of the rubbish has been dug out and dumped outside and now it'll wait for proper builders once again.

A stunning start to Wednesday

Setting out the insulation for the first attempt

Watering going in, and we were EXCITED!

Shortly afterwards a little less excited

Another load of stones delivered

A smoothing over the stones to follow a string guide

I'm hotter than I look

Of course the main subject of this update must be about the heat; for three or four days the temperature hasn't dropped below 30 degrees, even at night it has felt like, and it's been glorious indeed. With the forecast the week before we had ordered an inflatable pool from Amazon however it was being really slow to ship so I decided to order one for next day delivery within Bulgaria and on Friday it did turn up. I dashed down to collect it, picked up a load of insulation panels to set it on, and as soon as I was back we set it up and started filling. It didn't take long before we realised that the patio, though the flattest part of the land, was far too sloping for this pool. We emptied the water and had a bit of a chat about what to do. Finally it was decided to build a base of stones as level as we could, put the insulation over the top, and hope it was sufficient. I pulled out some 100x100 beams as a frame and then during my lunch break from working I hauled 10-15 wheelbarrows of stones across to A who was poised with the rake to smooth them out. It was REALLY hot work!

The grandson proudly stood by our platform attempt

Stones underneath the insulation

Happy to be refilling the pool

That water was COLD!

Laying back and loving it

I can just about swim underwater in it

A has been loving it also

Very much the best way to survive a heat wave

38 degrees in the shade; lovely

Emptying it, again

The pool during the storm this afternoon

We attracted attention from the neighbours with our efforts and the Little Lady came over with her grandson to check out what we were doing. He was most impressed and wanted his picture taken stood in front of the little platform we had made and she was astounded at the effort we were putting in during the heat of the day. We knew what we were doing and quickly got the water pumping back into the swimming pool. By the end of the working day I was able to get outside and jump in and we spent a large proportion of the weekend relaxing in the pool during the really hot days. We have been running the filter which has worked really well and A headed over to some friends on Sunday morning to pick up a chlorine tablet as we're waiting for our dispenser and tablets to arrive by courier. Unfortunately our attempt at creating a flat platform hasn't been massively successful and the stones were sliding out from under it by the end of yesterday. I'm hoping to get Bekir to come out for a day or two to build a solid platform on which to set the pool so we don't have to keep emptying it and rebuilding the base; as it stands we did half-empty it last night in preparation for both the storm today (so it wouldn't over-fill) and because we'll have to at least redo our stones if Bekir cannot make it over to do something permanent. It's such a waste of water, though.

"If you put me in the water, I'll roll in dust"

Just before her shower

Louise with her huge smile, and Rambo with his

Neither of the puppies are particularly water dogs (ironically Rambo loves water but he'd burst the pool so we won't let him in) but they have both been in and swum around a little bit, cooling themselves off. Thelma is most amusing however as she jumps straight into a dust bath as soon as she gets out of the water and gets filthy immediately. Louise was swimming back and forwards between me and A which was very sweet. They aren't huge fans, though, so we don't keep them in for long. Louise would rather be hanging out with Rambo.

This cheese and jam starter was superb

Our friend Ivan warming up

Guitarist for Renegat, tuning up

The night gets started with Olden Beat

Ivan singing his song

Venko rocking with the kid on the drums

Renegat rocking the house

Flame effects for Renegat

Last song with fireworks (which made us jump!)

The final band - Wild Horses

We have had other excitement this weekend as well as the pool; Friday night is a big celebration in Bulgaria called "July Morning" which involves all night music events. Last year we were at the lake watching our friend Venko play and this year his band was playing again but this time at the cafe in town where we've been going more recently. After our exertions getting the pool ready we had showers and got dressed up and headed out relatively early to have food at the bar before the music started. This ended up being a brilliant idea as the food was very good; we'll be going there with my parents I think. We found a table, ate our food, and met our friends and were introduced to some of his friends that we sat with talking through the night; this guy actually lives in America and had very good English. The music was superb, with three very good bands playing (I didn't get a video of the last band unfortunately) and we stayed until just before midnight when it was time to get back to the puppies. One thing I'd forgotten until just now was the final two songs played by our friends a young kid, 10 years old, joined them on the drums; he was really very good indeed!

Just a bit of a storm approaching fast

Thelma really didn't like it

Heavy rain across the valley

And so we come to the end of this update; the heatwave break seems to be over already as, since mid afternoon (when it got so dark I had to put lights on in Room 13) the storm has blown past and now we have bright sunshine, though with clouds on the horizon. While it was here it was pretty hefty and the puppies were less than impressed as usual; Thelma cuddled up to A for quite a long time and refused to let go while the bangs and crashes were near. The best thing was we got rain which the garden really needed; I always think rain is far better than just direct watering. Of course that's probably it now for a month or two.

Tomorrow is my last day working at the contract I've been doing, and then the day after my parents arrive. I'll be back with an update but I don't know when. Until then, thanks for reading.