It's been a busy week

As the title suggests, it is a week since my last update and it has been a busy one. Again, as is the way of it when you are alone and there are no men around making huge amounts of progress, there is a mixture of lots of paid work, lots of running around feeding animals and keeping the garden alive (only just at times).  So here is a little more from the garden.

Tomato harvest

The cherry tomatoes are being harvested every day at the moment, or at the very least, every couple of days. This has been the biggest harvest so far however, and that bowl is a big one. I have around the same again to collect tonight after being away for a couple of days. I am not entirely sure what I will do with them all, but you will see over the weekend update as I am going to have to make a start on them on Friday.

New plants

I bought about nine or ten of these lovely little plants for along the front of the lawned area the Mister has been trying to keep cut back for us. They have really started to bed in and the flowers have popped out of late. As they bush out, they will be lovely.

Blue meadow flowers

I think these are my favourite wild flower around the School. They remind me of a cornflower, but are not, as far as I am aware.

What are these?

This is a tree that stands just to the right of the patio and every year it produces these spiky seeds. If anyone can tell me what these are and if they are edible, I would be grateful indeed.

Sick banana tree

Sadly, the banana tree that we bought just before winter has not taken particularly well outside. It is looking very poorly and even more so since I took this photo. I am unsure as to whether we have watered it too much or too little, but the trunk has lost a few layers and has gone a little floppy. I'm gutted.

So the majority of my time is currently being taken up with paid work. I have gone back up to four days a week again, which in hindsight was not a good plan given that I have twice the work to do around here now. Hey ho, we live and learn. The only task that I have got done in the couple of days I have not been working at me desk, is the wood stacking. Here is the pile.

Start stacking

And here is all my hard work. It took a lot of effort.

Another hard day's work

Only kidding. I did actually get stuck in and in this heat, it really was a chore! I should have got someone in earlier to do this for me. I am afraid to leave it when I am away because it will be sods law that it rains continually in that time! Anyway, not a bad start.

Ok, I did more

So the main highlight of the week was a barbecue party we had been invited to by our friends with the hotel up north. This has been something that was being planned ever since I arrived in Bulgaria and sadly, the Mister has unavoidably missed it. He was gutted, as was I. The barbecue was on Sunday evening and I was to arrive at lunchtime, puppies in tow. I was up at 5.30am. All of my daily chores had to be achieved by 9.30 and I did not want to have to rush, so that was how it was. Watering completed, chickens fed and watered, Rambo sorted with extra food and extra water, puppies fed, bags packed, car packed and I myself had to shower and eat. It worked out that I was even able to have a half a pot of coffee before setting off to the local supermarket, picked up some ciders and dog food to leave with them for the period I am away in the UK and Ireland and we were off.  It was a very hot day yet again and the drive is a fairly simple one that I can probably do without the SatNav now, but I used it anyway. Along the route we normally take they are doing some roadwork, major stuff and the last time (which I had forgotten about) we sneaked through the "blocked road" to save the diversion. This time however, there was a very insistent man with a stop sign telling me that I needed to take the diversion. Well, that was fun! One diversion sign and I was released into the deepest, sandiest, flattest part of Bulgaria with no further signage telling me where to go. What an adventure.

I took what I later worked out to be a wrong turn and ended up through a few little villages where the roads became gradually worse and also, narrower. Deep joy! I ended up here. At least it was pretty.

Lost in paradise

I drove across the dam in the hope that there was another road that would open out on the other side. There wasn't. There was enough room for a couple of scramblers to come screeching down the non-road and so I had to turn around.

Beautiful

With the SatNav refusing to recalculate a route and telling me that I must go back to the other (shut) road, I was beginning to get a little antsy.  Louise was picking up on my concern and was also getting antsy. It was an antsy 15 minutes.  I drove back through the villages and pulled up at the side of the road, pulling out my phone (thank goodness I now have a Bulgarian one with internet). I pulled up the maps and switched on the GPS and was able to programme the thing in to take me closer via another village. Finally, some progress.

However, I cam to this "road" and thought it was all happening again. I had no food and only one bottle of water. I was beginning to panic when I realised I was meant to stay on this road for 4.8 miles! Anyway, I put my trust in TomTom and off I went.

Off-roading

Finally, after a very slow and bumpy ride, I emerged at the ever familiar winery that we pass on our way to their gaff and the sense of relief was immense! We were not going to fry in the Bulgarian desert after all! (I know, a little dramatic, but it really was very remote).

I arrived at Chaz and Ivan's somewhat hot and bothered and was immediately handed a beer and told to get in the pool. They were both busying themselves with tidying and cleaning and food preparation, refusing to accept any help, so after about 30 minutes, I gave in to the orders given and got in the pool. A very welcome treat.

The party was slow to start, with people arriving from around 3pm onward in dribs and drabs and it was a very relaxed atmosphere indeed. The puppies were loving all of the attention, as usual.

It clouded over

The sun did disappear for a while and we actually thought it might rain at one point, but it blew over and all was well. The drinks flowed, the craic (as they say in Ireland) was great and everyone had a blast. They all even cheered for a photo before it got dark.

Happy people 

Later in the evening, much later around 2am, at which point I had had enough to drink and was flagging quite badly, Ivan was giving belly dancing lessons with a towel wrapped around his waist. I laughed so hard that I clearly couldn't take an in focus photo, but I wanted the memory here anyway.  It was hilarious. And such great fun.

Belly dancing lessons

Belly dancing done, I realised that he had not been in the pool all night and so I decided he should. Not having enough strength to drag him all the way to the pool, Chaz came flying across the terrace in a rugby tackle and threw him the rest of the way in, fully clothed! Funniest thing ever. It was all in good humour and he and I swam and nattered for a while before I took myself off to bed at close to 3am.  Shattered.

The next morning's lethargy was wiped after a few dips in the pool at 8am and throwing ball for the pups, who kindly let me have a lie in.  Then at 10.30, I was set to head off again, this time via a different route.  All went swimmingly and we arrived home around 2pm at which point I was fit for nothing more. I had a cuppa in the lazy boy, did the much needed watering as the plants we all wilting and I was in bed very early. 

Tuesday dawned with paid work, there was a little more wood stacked but only a small amount and the usual chores and today was mostly work again. I have typed this up in the early evening so as to get it done and hopefully have some time later on to relax. I am off to put the dinner on collect any more tomatoes that may be ripe enough. Then tomorrow will dawn and we do it all again. Thankfully, tomorrow is my last day of work and I may have a little more progress for you over the weekend.

Leka nosht xx

Grim weather

Thursday evening was where I left you and what a beautiful end to the day. It was still a bit cloudy but the golden sunset was just stunning.

Sunset

Friday morning was the usual routine of coffee and collecting the men. They got stuck straight into their respective jobs and made great progress as always.

Cracking on

More plastering

With changing my hours at work, Friday is now the new shopping day and I quickly had another brew, let the puppies out for a toilet break and headed into town. I prefer Thursday morning shopping as it is less busy, but I got through the pain with the help of a fresh croissant.

It always takes me a longer time than I anticipate when i do the shopping and I can never work out why. Maybe I get distracted or maybe I spend far too much time looking at the offer aisle. Anyway, it was almost 11.30 before I arrived back at the school and I had a phone call from our friend when I arrived back to see if he could borrow our ladder in order for him to gain access to his new building. Of course. They arrived soon after to collect it and also a drill and off they went to sort it all out. It is nice to be able to help.

Rambo was showing a big interest in what was going on in the kitchen. I hope he hasn't been lining up his seat at the breakfast bar or he will be sorely disappointed!

Rambo

After the exertions of the shopping trip and coupled with the fact that it was raining and grim outside, I spent the day playing with the puppies in the living room. I think they are feeling a little more neglected since I have been here alone and they are getting a bit bored. We lit the fire and had a right old time. Dinner was a much craved steak and chips. This is probably the only thing I miss. The steaks are not generally very good here; it does not seem to be something they eat a lot of. So when Lidl have these in, I do like to grab a couple. It tasted better than it looked!

Steak and chips

Saturday, again, was very cold and it was raining consistently throughout the day. I pottered around mainly and Himself will be most annoyed because I didn't take any photos whatsoever. What I did do was  to make a start tidying up a little bit in advance of our guests arriving. The more I do now, the less of a rush I will have next weekend. We had to empty a suitcase for him to take to Islay and so I transferred the clothes that had been, quite frankly, dumped out into the guest room, into another suitcase. Again, the fire was lit and the rain continued. It is so very difficult here when the rain comes at the weekend as most of the chores that I want and need to do are outside. However, I did manage to get on with a little surprise task which I cannot show photos of anyway, so all was not lost. In the afternoon I baked a ginger cake and for some reason, this one is the best I have made yet. I am not quite sure, but perhaps the fact that I did not use the electric mixer has helped it. It is a much lighter and fluffier cake this time.

Sunday arrived and I was geared up to have a busy day. I did not want to sit around for a third day. Despite the forecast of rain, it held off very well indeed. Although this was not inspiring me when I first got up!

A grim start

 With all of the rain there is one benefit:  I have been saved from the twice daily watering round, so it is not all bad. The little seedlings on the balcony have started to show a little more growth now also, which is great. They will be later crops, but I am hoping for a long and late summer.

Late pepper plants

Whilst out having my coffee on the balcony I was feeling very cold and went to look at the thermometer. I got a shock. Look! Minus five. I had forgotten it had got broken whilst the work was going on around the balcony. I definitely do not want to go back to those temperatures any time soon.

Broken

The first task of the day was to have a look, trim and hope for a bit of a recovery on the banana plant we had bought. It really has not been looking great over the last few weeks and the end of the main leaf keeps going brown and drying up. I cut the dead ends off and the dead leaf and generally trimmed it all back as far as I thought I could without cutting into fleshy stems. It does look better now than it did and I have increased the amount of water I have been giving it also. Seems to have done some good as there is a new leaf coming up. This will be a learning curve for us. An expensive lesson if it all goes wrong.

Sad banana plant

New growth

The puppies had been having great fun following me around all morning so far and I cannot remember where I went to or what I was doing to have left them alone in the living room. I could hear Thelma playing with one of her toys though and she seemed to be having a fine old time. It wasn't her toy. It was our inflatable mallet we got given on the night of the fireworks last year. Teeth marks mean no more air. Naughty puppy!

Trail of destruction

It was still quite early in the morning and even before breakfast I decided to get outside. I have had a small tidying session around the front, but there is still so much to clear away after so much work went on.  We will get there eventually.  The puppies were straight on with their favourite game at the moment; lizard hunting.

Lizard hunting

As I have said, things are really starting to hit a growth spurt. Sadly for me, the weeds and long grass are excelling at this and the whole garden looks a little bit like a jungle at the moment. Obviously if it remained dry for any length of time I could probably have kept on top of this, but here it is.

Jungle 

Whilst planting out some seeds a couple of weeks ago I had moved some pots over onto the table tennis table as I thought they were not going to come. This one has, at long last.  One of the blue plants I had planted months ago. Perhaps the weather just has not been suitable until now?

Finally growing

In one of the beds we had planted a few carrots that had managed to sprout a few weeks ago. Now there was one plant that looked like it had carrot leaves which we had left and felt very dubious about. It was significantly bigger than the rest and over the last few weeks has grown at an alarming rate. My reckoning was that if it was a carrot, it would be HUGE by now given the size of the upper growth. Here it is. And it is not a parsnip, just a dirty big weed, as I suspected.

Not a parsnip

With the grass being very long around the raised beds, it was becoming more and more difficult to navigate and to keep on top things inside the beds. I took the garden shears out and chopped it all away to allow some access. I would have used the strimmer, but it was all still very damp and that would not have worked very well at all. Plus, it was good exercise.

Path cleared

 As I was collecting the cut grass into piles for the wheelbarrow I got beckoned by next door to go over. They had guests. The guests were the ladies we see every year and who come to take a tour of the building. I think one of them was the librarian here when it was in operation. They love seeing the progress we are making. Off I trotted to have a coffee and a piece of lovely bread.

Growing puppy

Gosti

One of the ladies is the daughter and granddaughter of the two either side of my neighbour in the photo. She goes to university in Sofia and spends the summers here working. She speaks very good English indeed and was able to translate anything I did not understand, which was a lot!  Perhaps we can practice our language skills on each other in the summer. That would be nice.

When I left and arrived back home I was very tempted to call it a day in the garden.  It was still cold and a bit miserable weather-wise, but I gave myself one last task for the day. The second jungle. It is important for me to be able to get into the vegetable garden when the rain finally stops and so I set to work on clearing the first section of walkways.

Another jungle

Trimmed

So there you have it. I was relatively tired when I finished but obviously lizard hunting is much more exhausting!

All to much

It is now Monday morning as I type this last bit. I was lazy last night and had other things to do and phone calls to wait for and so I decided to postpone my post. I don't think I will do that again as I have struggled to remember everything that happened! Anyway, onwards - another busy day ahead here.

Lek den.
A x

Much scraping

I'm sat in the lounge with my new cushion lap-tray keeping the laptop from overheating my legs and the balcony door propped open to let fresh air blow in. The only sound I can hear is our ducks shouting and yelling that they want feeding, which is actually pretty standard. It's been quite a busy day, actually weekend, and it's nice to sit down and contemplate what we've achieved, which is quite a lot.

Thursday

Of course the last update was written up around lunch time on Thursday however after I published we did do a few things. My migraine continued to annoy me all day and didn't really shift properly until Friday morning. I did work, though, and didn't lose the entire day so it wasn't a total write off.

Rambo in his kennel

Thelma trying to get her stick back

We're still struggling a little bit with Rambo's behaviour when cows are in the lane or whatever; he's getting better and now barks while standing in the middle of the garden, rather than skidding around near the fence jumping around and terrifying them. On Thursday the mobile shop was quite late so A headed over to get our bread, taking the puppies with her, and Rambo stood by the gate howling. This is another bad habit he's got into. I shouted from the window of Room 13 for him to stop and to come in and he walked over and climbed into the kennel, which we've just left to one side; I've not seen him in it before! He did it again when I called him after A got back. A bit later on, to continue the canine theme, Thelma brought one of her sticks inside which is normally against the rules but A played with her with it for a bit before taking her back outside. Thelma likes to get a good grip of the stick and then hang off of it, tugging using her body weight every now and then. She's very tenacious.

My new favourite side; grilled chilies

A's favourite dish; the Lamb in the Oven

My favourite dish; Lamb Kavarma

In the afternoon SandS came past for a short visit which was really nice. We gave them two boxes full of our eggs (as we're so overwhelmed) so I hope they like them. That evening rather than cook we decided to head out to our favourite restaurant for dinner. This was a really good idea, particularly as A drove both ways. I was still pretty much exhausted and wiped out from the migraine and struggled with the rudimentary Bulgarian even to order my food. I decided to go for my favourite dish, which is called Lamb Kavarma and is a fantastic local speciality stew type affair. Very tasty indeed. A once again chose Lamb in the Oven which is just superb as well. We love this restaurant very much, with the excellent service and superb food it's just brilliant, and only a five minute drive away. When we got back I didn't stay up but headed pretty much straight to bed and A came through later having stayed up a bit reading.

Friday

I woke up on Friday feeling a lot better, after a full nights sleep. That was the worst migraine I've had for a long time, in terms of the length of time it continued. I hope I don't get another like it any time soon.

Sassy keeping warm in the cave I made her

An all round miserable start to the day

These needed moving upstairs

So A got on and moved them

It was a pretty grim morning, cold and very overcast, and not very inspiring. When I went to open the curtains when I got up I was most pleased to see that Sassy was inside the hutch I'd made for her last year. She stayed there long enough that I was able to get my camera and get a good picture. I didn't stay outside long, though; it really was cold. I decided, after breakfast, to head into town to do some chores and go shopping for a few supplies for the work bench in the workshop, my task for the day. After spending much more than planned in the builders shop (I misread a label for some brackets and thought they were 8 lev each but they were actually 21 lev each; never mind) I headed into the centre and managed finally, after much amusing interplay from the people behind the counter, to ship the box back as a postage paid return. As I walked back to the car I was really annoyed at myself for not bringing my camera; there was some sort of pageant going on in town with marching bands and a choir. I always tell myself to never be without a camera but sometimes I still forget. When I got home I found that A had been really busy. We are trying to get the kitchen cleared out so we can start to put units together and she had carried all the rolls of insulation up into the roof while I was out. What an effort.

Ready to cut the board in half

Making sure the brackets are perfectly level

Grinding the screw tips off

The finished work bench

My new toy

A planting out brushwood seeds

After I got myself settled from my trip out I went into the workshop to start putting up my workbench. First of all I cut one of the sheets of plywood in half using the circular saw. This was really easy, though I am missing the one saw horse that broke last year; I'll have to pick another one up as I had to shift and juggle three to get this one. Once I had them cut I then carefully put up two of the large shelf brackets, with A's help, perfectly horizontal. After I'd put the third one on the wall A pointed out that I had put them too high so I started again and got them at a better height. The screws I was using were too long for the thickness of board and so they stuck out quite a long way so I got the grinder and cut off all the protruding tips. I hasten to add that, after A had taken this picture. I put some eye protection on. It didn't actually take all that long to get both lengths of plywood mounted and secure, with thick legs in place to keep it really solid. I then put together the band saw that I'd bought which proved to be a bit more difficult than anticipated and by the time I'd done that I was ready to collapse. While I was working on this A was outside planting some of the sagebrush seeds I've bought so we can have these lovely plants surrounding the basketball court. Talking of which at this rate I'll be digging out and doing that job myself; there's still be no communication from the building firm at all about it; I'm losing my patience with the guy.

Saturday

We had a lovely slow start to the day on Saturday which is something we don't do often enough. It's nice to wake up with no alarm, just the light of the day starting to brighten the room (we've got the curtains open all the time now, as I like it) and then to lay there and not rush out of bed. There's so much to be getting on with, though, that it isn't something we can luxuriate in very often.

The stack of plasterboard to be lifted into the roof

Our new fire, closed up

The doors open back very wide

Details inside the hearth

I can summarise Saturday morning in one word; plasterboard. As I've mentioned we're trying to get the kitchen cleared out and the next step in this process was to shift the pile of plasterboard that was next to the reservoirs up into the roof space. We took it easy and just did it in small chunks of effort, taking regular breaks for a drink and to rest our backs. The thing with this place is it is just so big and we had to carry these sheets from the kitchen (at one end of the house) along the corridor then up two flights of stairs and across the roof space into the centre where we were stacking them. It took some time. We did have a longer break in the middle when I headed down to town to pick up some paint and betonkontakt for finishing the ceiling in Sassy's room (more on this later) and also to send some money for a lovely fireplace we spotted for sale on facebook. It's the perfect size and opens out its cast iron doors when in use, while shutting up tightly when not so drafts are excluded. It was quite a lot of fun trying to explain what I needed from the lady at the ekont however we worked it through, with google translate help, and at the end she high fived me; the locals are just amazing and so welcoming it's heartwarming how they react to us.

Safety first as I pull heavy plaster off the ceiling

Lots of rubble on the floor

Half way through scraping the ceiling

With the plasterboard all lifted into the roof I got on with the next job on my list; starting to scrape the ceiling in Sassy's room. I realised the other day that my order of work was wrong for finishing this room and before I put down my linoleum I need to have the ceiling finished. Here I had two choices; I could put a suspended ceiling in or I could scrape, plaster where the old plaster had fallen down from dampness, and then paint it. I chose to do the latter and so I got on the scaffold, put my hard hat on, and began to pull down the loose plaster. There wasn't all that much so then I took the hard hat off and carried on with the scraper, removing all the loose paint and dust so I can apply a new coat more easily. By the end of the day I had done about half of the ceiling which was good. I swept it all up and took some buckets out to put in the village rubbish bin however Usmivka came dashing out and told me to put it on the side-path, which is getting a bit muddy. I shrugged and did as he said.

Parents' hotel hidden in low cloud

It was quite early when I finished that job but I took A's advice to rest and I'm glad I did so now. I chilled out on the sofa for a bit and then it was dinner time and we had a lovely stew that she had had going in the slow cooker all day. The weather, which had been pretty rubbish all day, had got worse and worse and by this point it was raining quite hard. We had a bit of water coming in by the back door but fortunately nothing came into the bedroom this time. We watched a film and then headed to bed.

Sunday

I woke up this morning to find that A wasn't there; she'd woken up in the early hours and could not get back to sleep. This is normally my trick but today it was hers. I didn't hear her get up or light the fire in the living room which is pretty amazing as it's right next door.

Pre dawn the sun makes itself known

It's still not up, but getting closer

This stream is normally dry

The sun comes up, and I'm not the only one watching

Banana tree leaf looking good

It was a lovely morning and I was out onto the balcony to take pictures a couple of times as the sun came up. A had gone to bed when I got up (she'd been worried about disturbing me by coming in earlier) so I was trying to be as quiet as I could. I did a fair few chores, however, before waking up at the time she requested. I cleaned out Sassy, beat the rugs and hung them over the balcony wall, did the humanure and kitchen waste, washed up, put a load of washing on and got it hung out to dry outside. I also made myself some bacon and eggs and then, when she got up, made her some also. I didn't do as much tidying today as normal as I hadn't wanted to wake her but there isn't much dust around on the corridors anyway.

Reservoirs now in the garage

Drinking my  brew on the balcony

After getting our breakfast down us we went to do the next stage of clearing the kitchen. This involved getting the reservoirs out of the way and we'd chosen to put them into the garage so they are still under cover. This does mean that Thomas no longer fits in there. It's times like these that you are very happy you put double doors everywhere so it's easy to move things around and we managed to shift all three of them into the garage without much trouble. It really was a lovely morning and so we took our brews onto the balcony to drink them. The sun was very warm, though the air temperature never really got above 7 degrees all day.

Dirty grout and decorative tiles

Sunday is our cleaning day and A had been looking forward to it all week as she'd bought herself a new steam mop thing to help clean the bathroom tiles. It came with a grout cleaning tool and so once she was awake enough she plugged it all in (I'd swapped the plug to a European one the day before) and had a go. It worked quite well and she was able to finally clean the grout (and those very nice looking, but difficult to clean, decorative tiles) to her satisfaction. She also used it to clean Room 13 and the living room and it's made a big difference; the result it has given is excellent and it's much quicker to use than the manual mop.

Scraped and dusty hands

Silver hair is a sign of wisdom, right?

Just before my shower

The room, ready for betonkontakt and plastering

For my part I was now up the scaffold again scraping away at the ceiling in Sassy's room, and beginning to wish I'd made the other choice and gone for a suspended ceiling. It seemed to be taking a lot longer today but that was because the first section I had to scrape was actually not that damaged and it was quite hard to get the paint to come loose. The rest of it was much easier and eventually I had completed the job, though the last bit was done with the scaffold on the platform with a chunk of wood under one of the outriggers; precarious. I swept up four buckets full of dust and poured it out (as instructed) all over the side path then went inside to have an long and luxurious shower as I was absolutely caked in dust. The Little Lady had come over while I was emptying the dust with two trees that she said had lovely flowers so while I was showering A planted these out, and repotted the orchid I had bought her earlier in the week. I haven't got pictures of either of these things; I'll try and get them for the next update.

And so this update comes to an end. I have actually taken a few pictures while I've been writing but I'll leave them for the next one as well. Dinner is shortly to arrive in the front room, the fire is burning away really nicely with two puppies fast asleep in their bed in front of it. I'll not be far behind them I don't think