A drive, some chillis, and enjoying being here still

Yet again it's been two weeks since the last update, two weeks where I've just not had time sit down and go through the photographs (and a couple of videos) that have built up over that time. It's been busy with work, for sure, but also and more importantly I've been taking a little while away from this desk to spend time with A and to enjoy being here - the previous month I could have been on a space ship circling the planet for all I've got outside. So, because of that change, it's a much more relaxed Beard that is sitting down to type this. I do hope it doesn't take very long to write up, though. We'll see.

Around the place

I'm going to go back to the non-consecutive grouping for this; when you've got 14 days to cover it doesn't make sense to try and write it "diary-wise". So here goes. Around the place - the garden, the kitchen, the dining room, the hobby and, not least, the views. What a place we live.

Icicle Radish ready for the pot

And now they are in that pot

Lots of stuff from the garden

Needle through a hot pepper

All strung up

Working in the garden

We're in harvest at the moment so A has been making great progress preserving and making use of the produce we have grown; she's made more soup with the Icicle Radish, and spuds from the garden, and some of this went over to The Little Lady next door I think. It is so tasty. She's also strung and hung the hot peppers and chillis from this year, this before we've even touch those that she did last year! We'll have to start making more use of them I think. She has also dug up every potato from the fenced garden and we have now got two huge vats full of spuds, with sand clamping them, to see how well they last over the winter; we had so many we couldn't actually fit them all in the tubs we had spare so there's a lot of spuds in our future (not a hardship - they taste great!)

A late blossom on this tree; doomed to fail sadly

This hornet took refuge in the truck bed of Thomas

Chickens drinking from the watering hose

Wild flowers in the orchard

Wood chucking, with "helpers"

It's remained warm here until just the last couple of days and so the daily watering round has continued until very recently. It may indeed carry on again as it's been a glorious day today. Anyway in the orchard one of the trees got a bit confused and blossomed, which was lovely to see but a bit of a waste as now the temperatures at night are getting well into single figures and we're even having to bring our plants in pots inside. The hornets are also starting to struggle, bouncing off the windows all night and settling wherever they can once they get exhausted. So long as they don't get inside it's OK - they are huge. The temperature has been such that the chickens are getting thirsty (they have many buckets of water spread around the land, before anyone suggests we are letting them go without) and they have begun to follow me around the orchard and drink from the watering water near the trees. It's funny to watch them chase me. There are some lovely wild flowers still in the orchard, though my focus was slightly out on this I still love it with the closed flower in focus in the background. The job of throwing the wood inside and stacking it is ongoing; I've done a couple of throwing sessions and A has done a few stacking sessions - we're close to completing it though the weather we've had this week has paused this task briefly.

Rather hot for September

A lovely early dawn, with the stars still out

Rain on the windows

Chickens taking shelter under the trailer in the storm

This picture has not been filtered or processed at all

This one has, but look at all the colours!

Beautiful double rainbow from the roof terrace

The storm moves on into the distance

Another following in its wake

We lit the fire

We played a game or three, and what fun it was!

As I say the weather has been on the change. Last weekend A went out with a friend for the night and when I went to get her it was 35 degrees as I was leaving the land. The next day was also lovely, I was up early (as I have been a lot with work on my mind so much) but the day after it was torrential with some amazing thunder and lightning and heavy rain. The best thing, though, was while it was still raining the sun came out really brightly and there was the most amazing strong rainbow - the brightest and clearest I think I've ever seen, and another ghost of one right next to it. I was running around the house like a loon with different lenses trying to capture its beauty. I thinkit came out well enough. For the last two nights we've lit the fire in the Lounge, not so much for warmth but for comfort as I've taken two evenings away from my desk to spend some much needed time relaxing with A. We played some games of SBG and had a brilliant time together; very very needed.

Mountains march into the blue distance

This road is so bad... off road vehicles only, surely...

.. oh, and those. Obviously

A rural signpost

Beautiful wooded view

Another lovely meadow flower

Last Saturday was a busy one for us, it is going to cover two whole paragraphs. During the day we went on a drive in the morning and it was an epic one. We headed up over the mountains to the South and West of us and got completely lost, driving over some very dodgy roads and at one point accidentally driving through someone's gate and into their front yard. Literally over the top of the gate (it was just a pine pole laid across the road) and snapping it in two. Fortunately the lady owner (who was sat on her porch with a WHAT ARE YOU DOING! look on her face as we made our entry) was lovely and just asked to buy Louise off us. It was such a great drive, though longer than we originally planned, and again helped me to relax and us to enjoy being in this wonderful country once again.

Venko and Ivan

Can finally see the drummer

A guest appearance on the microphone

During a break, the hat takes centre stage

I worked that afternoon and then in the evening we were out to see Venko and Olden Beat playing at the cafe in town. We were both quite jaded however it ended up being an absolutely superb night. We stayed almost until the end and enjoyed every second of it. One of the girls from the bank, who I know likes live music as we've talked before, was there and even got up and sang for a bit. The venue was outside on the terrace and it was warm enough, until just about midnight, for us to not feel chilly in our shorts and vest tops. Lovely. Talking of Venko he dropped past here just now with his family for the first time for ages (our fault; we were supposed to invite him in August but I didn't stop working once) and that was a very lovely visit as well. We are blessed where we live and with the friends that we have.

Thelma not happy about being photographed

Me with my lovely new hat

A distant hawk of some kind

Thomas with a flat

There is the culprit

I'll leave you with a few other picture from the week that didn't quite fit in but I did want to share. First of all is the look Thelma gives you if you see her sleeping very cutely and go and get the camera - she was not impressed, but still didn't move more than that eyelid to glare, then back to sleep again. I've bought myself a new hat and I wore it on the drive we did last Saturday. It's wicked! The other day A was stood on the balcony and saw a group of four or five birds of prey swooping around. They came back for me to get a photograph, though at a distance. Any twtichers able to identify this bird? Finally A went to go shopping and found Thomas had quite a flat tyre. We spotted the nail immediately. She was able to get it fixed at a local garage (after we pumped it up to get her there) for 2 lev. Pricey.

There you are - long delayed, but hopefully enjoyable for you to read.

Cheers

Working, London and a birthday

It's been a while since I updated as I've been so incredibly busy with work. I actually haven't got all that many photographs or videos at all from the last ten days as it feels like all I've done is travelled or sat at this desk. Now I am sat back at this desk for you lovely people getting this update written. I hope you appreciate it.

Tomatoes and peppers from the garden

One batch completed

A box full of beer

Goodness inside

A bearded man with a beardy bottle of beer

Out for dinner again

My Beef Iskander

She got pancakes with chocolate sauce

The update is bookended by tomatoes. Lots of tomatoes. Our raised beds (and the long bed down the side of the fenced garden) have started producing a huge harvest. These pictures are from a week ago last Monday and as I type this A is making more preserve to follow this lot. I'll get involved once we have to take green tomatoes off as I want to make some more chutney this year. I had another awesome arrival as well that day as my beers from Islay Ales arrived after being safely couriered across Europe. These have now gone into storage to wait for cold weather and Christmas. I was working all day, which will become a refrain during this update, and we headed out for dinner to have Iskander and Kunefe. Unfortunately they didn't have Kunefe (which outraged A) however she made do with some very lovely pancakes.

Getting ready to start on this

The Beorn as Man figure

A beautiful sunset

I've got a picture of a lovely sunset from the Tuesday, as well as evidence that I tried to do some hobbying that day, gluing together the Beorn and Bear model which A is going to be using once I've finished it. On the Wednesday we had a delivery of wood, the second batch, which Bekir came over with and we dumped outside the garage for us to eventually store inside as our long term supply. And that is it, other than working. I really was very busy in the job I'm doing at the moment and it was a bit rubbish with me stuck to this computer and A sat downstairs.

Sat on the 5am bus again

The seat I always get

First night dinner

I'm a trend setting hipster, donchaknow

An awesome and exciting group of people

Two colleagues hard at work

The alarm went off at 4am on Thursday morning as once again I was getting the early bus to Sofia to fly to the UK, though this time to London for business. The bus journey was pretty scary as the driver kept trying to over take on blind hills and corners and having to swerve to avoid killing us (and oncoming traffic) and then on the flight just as I managed to drop off some kid came screaming up the aisle, stopped, and yelled back at his dad and so I was rather shattered by the time I arrived at my hotel, post train and underground. I had a shower, a nap, then made it into the office for a brief conversation with the guys there before taking myself for beer, a burger and a read. The next day was the beginning of the main meetings and I was most impressed with my "hipster laptop bag" (seeing as we were in Shoreditch) but less so with the breakfast. The next two days passed in a blur of meetings and discussion but were so super productive and it felt really worth while having travelled over. We went out for a meal on the Friday night to a very nice restaurant and after that had a few beers at a pub as well.

It rained. Hard.

Thelma doesn't like thunder storms

Melon grown in our garden, and Oranges - A trying to keep me healthy

Home made bread butty, brought to my desk

She's an artist!

A celebration whisky that the week is over (for a day)

All in all it was a great weekend but by the time I got on the plane back home, after a 2am taxi pickup for a 3.30am bus to Gatwick, I was pretty tired. Sadly once again I struggled to sleep on the flight and then on the bus as the air conditioning on the bus didn't work when the bus was driving fast (and they do like to drive fast). Still I was home half an hour ahead of schedule and so happy to be back. After a shower the first thing we did was get into the pool and we lay there for a fair while relaxing and enjoying being together again. The next day it rained and rained all day, with a storm as well (which Thelma was very unimpressed about) but I didn't see much of it as I had entered into my really busy schedule of 14-16 hour days that I have kept, with barely a break, on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday this week. It was worth it as I was able to demo the software I was writing yesterday afternoon and people seemed very impressed. A has taken the week off which is frustrating as I'm so busy however she has discovered an incredible talent for drawing and has produced loads of superb artwork through the week. Such a talent!

A getting ready to unwrap her presents, with help

Sat on the balcony having a brew together

We're about to harvest all them there tomatoes

All of them!

Mixing up a storm

And so to this morning and what a morning it was. It is A's birthday today and so I woke her with coffee, puppies, and pressies in bed. You wouldn't really have known who was supposed to be unwrapping the presents as Thelma in particular did most of the tearing. She then settled down to chew and all the bits of paper while A relaxed and we both laughed at them. Such funny girls. For the first time for ages A and I went onto the balcony with our morning brews and sat and enjoyed the warmth, peace and quiet, and relaxation. It was lovely. Then it was time to go out and harvest the tomatoes which I mentioned earlier. We managed to get a lot, and there are loads still not ripe (and even some flowers still blooming!). Before she got on with processing them, and I came upstairs to type this, we went onto the patio with a brew and A played tug with both Rambo and the girls. They love that toy! Since then I've quickly typed this and A has put two HUGE pans of tomatoes on to cook down. Brilliant.

I'm going to leave this there; it a few hours SandS turn up to puppy sit and we head out to a hotel for the night and I cannot wait! I'll see you again next time, thanks for reading.