This is my blog about emigrating to Bulgaria. It starts with the idea and will take you through all the steps I am taking to create my new life in this wonderful idyllic country. Thank you for reading.
Please make use of the comments box to ask questions or suggest blog subjects too :)
Another day, and half the week is gone again, and we're still on with the balcony work.
Fog welling up out of the valley
Bekir welds the second column in place
The view from the balcony
Sally up a ladder getting string
Bekir measuring before cutting
The welding machine has overheated
The day dawned cold, actually cold, which is unheard of in June over here. Fog in the valley and a chill breeze. The men were quite late again and soon I'll probably need to have a word as they are getting later and later and losing more of the morning every day which isn't helping as with me not earning we can't afford to waste money. Anyway, they got stuck in when they did arrive, welding the columns in place underneath the first return beam and then getting started on the second. It was around then that the welder that they were using overheated and had a big problem - Bekir is sure he can fix it but this meant Halil and Sally dashing back to their village to get Sally's welder which was more time out of the day. Not ideal.
When they got back I recognised this machine as the one that was used many years back now to repair the gate, powered by a metal coat hanger thrown over the power lines. It is scary, with a bent piece or wire acting as a switch by being stuck in across the fuse gap. It works, however, and allowed the men to get back to it. I filmed as they lifted the second to last long beam into place and slotted it in and then they cut and lifted the next two columns to support it. Once these were in place they fitted the two long cross beams between the return beams and then finally they cut and started to fit the small columns in the centre of these long beams that will support the ridgepole. I missed a lot of this as I was having an interview for a job (fingers firmly crossed).
Halil sanding down the wall
Sally doing the next layer of plaster
Drilling holes for the supports
In place, just needs some legs now
The main frame is nearly complete
After their afternoon coffee it was raining really heavily so they came inside to do a few inside jobs. Of course not long after the rain stopped but I wasn't unhappy as the two jobs to do was first to finish the plastering in the guest room, which we need done before we can tidy and move some stuff back in from the corridor, and the new bench in the tool room for my air brush. Halil first of all sanded down the first plaster layer then, while Sally did another layer of plaster, he went to help Bekir with the bench. Tomorrow there will need to be a little metal work done to put a couple of legs on and my bench will be ready for me to start learning to airbrush. I'm very excited.
So there you are; another day done. Here's to tomorrow and not-late-men and lots of progress again.
I've been putting off doing this blog, for various reasons one of which is I've not had time and the other is a lack of motivation.
However tomorrow the workmen are back and so this blog will return with a bang as I try to do regular small updates on their progress; we really do have a busy year of building and renovation work planned.
I'm not going to write much, nor am I going to really attempt to review the many many pictures and videos I have collected since the last update that will now sit in the folder relevant to this update for such time as we decide to go back and look.
Suffice to say that the memory of the events of a year ago are high in all our minds right now; Rosie is ten days off being a whole year old, and then we are mere days off the anniversary of my father's dreadful accident and passing. It is a bittersweet time of year and only Rosie makes it better for any of us.
A glorious autumn trip up to the tower
Louise in the snow
The Old School, early winter 2019
Flaming cake with our hosts
Finally, pegboard
So let me swing through my pictures and drag some out as it has been far from a horrible time; indeed we've had a lovely year notwithstanding the above. We took ourselves a drive up to the radio mast that we can see from The Old School and also overlooks our Moutain House and that was glorious in the autumn colours; it was lovely to get out as a family also. In early December there was a dusting of snow however that is the only snow we've seen really (apart from tiny skiffles) all winter so far. It has been an unseasonably warm winter, yesterday was up to 20 degrees and glorious sunshine. I was hoping for lots of snow but it has not happened. Come Christmas time, Rosie's first and a magical time of year, we had a lovely social with some local expats and some local non-expats. It was great to be able to get out and share the time with them, and Rosie was of course a huge star. I was able to get my pegboard up in the tool room finally, after many dramas involving incorrect or damaged orders.
Rosie clearly thinks her daddy is Daddy Cool
Family Photograph par excellance
Proper tool for chopping up a goat leg
Ready for the oven
The family together on our Christmas walk
The Main Attraction - Christmas Dinner and it was amazing
Christmas Day itself was magical, from the morning routine of a present each and then get dinner started which was an amazing leg of goat from Bekir again. Then out for our walk along to the headland and then back to enjoy the rest of the presents. It was lovely. Looking through these pictures brings it all back to me, and that is the true benefit to me of this blog; I get to relive excellent moments and they help me to realise what a lucky guy I am, and what a wonderful family I have here.
Sharing traditional Rakiya with The Other Brother
A blurry picture of all of us together
Just part of the amazing spread of food
And then there was New Year and we celebrated once more at the neighbours with lovely wonderful company (poor Usmivka was unwell, but he still showed up) and Rosie being a star. She slept briefly in the other room in our travel cot but woke just before midnight and so was able to enjoy the fireworks with us outside before we headed back home. It was again a lovely evening.
New Year also marked the end of a year long project to take a picture every morning; here is the video. Please watch it and enjoy. I have dedicated it to my dad as he would have loved watching it.
A peg board with tools on it
Full on crazy winter plumage
Rosie prefers me without hair
Hobbit Hole in progress shot
Rosie our darling and delight
This year I got my tools onto the pegboard and made a good start tidying the old tool room to be ready for the workmen to make it into Rosie's bedroom. I also got fed up of my winter plumage so shaved it all off. I've started a YouTube channel (go subscribe - I publish videos about three times a week and am having a BALL) and am currently working really hard to create a present for Rosie for her first birthday - a Hobbit Hole designed to recreate the home that Sam made with his Rosie Cotton after the War of the Ring. It is a labour of love and I hope she loves it as she grows up. Talking of which Rosie is walking (well, running) and becoming quite a handful and is a joy and a terror in equal measure.
I'm going to leave it there; this blog has prompted tears and smiles while writing it; I hope that you enjoyed reading it.
From tomorrow I will aim to do a short post every day showing progress once again; it's such a good feeling to be getting things done on the building once more.
I'm once again a week later starting an update than I expected to be; it has been such a busy week, during which I've come down with a cold which has sapped any spare energy I may have had, and so Saturday morning after a day off yesterday and I've got the energy to begin. A lot has happened and as I sit here now we're without workmen until next year with pretty much everything done that we wanted for this year.
Hopefully this will be a picture heavy update with fewer words - let's see how well I achieve that.
Blocks and cement turn up for the new wall
The scaffold is finally taken away as well
Sally saving the hedgehog
We are running out of sand, it seems
Foundations for the wall
Bekir finishing the basic parts of the wood store
Petchka in the Art Room
Fiddly work doing electrics on this old light fitting
Waiting for the water, chilling in the winter sun
Monday was just Bekir in the car with Sally following behind, not long behind either, in the truck from the builder's yard which brought blocks and cement and took away the scaffold. After this Sally got stuck into finishing the job that Okhtay had started, making the trench deeper and wider before he started on the footings. He found a sleeping hedgehog in the brush that had blown into the trench and at my insistence put it somewhere safe. It disappeared not long afterwards so hopefully it found somewhere to sleep. Bekir was working away inside finishing putting the wood storage up and then securing the petchka pipes in A's art room. His final inside task before going to work with Sally was to fix the electrics inside the light that is going in the porch. It was a cooler day but at least it was dry so cement work was possible.
Chips of old brick to fill the gaps
Making very good progress
Guest Room Petchka
The Games Room
Lovely patterns cast by the new light
Most of the rest of the day was taken up with building the wall around the humanure; the wood I was using was, obviously, rotting and only lasted about 3 years so this was quite an urgent task. With the big cement blocks it didn't take much time, though of there was some element of extra work put in to improve the strength of the walls. To end the day they secured the pipes and, while I didn't know he'd done it, Bekir put up the light in the porch. When I went to feed Bekci and Rambo that night it was a really pleasant surprise to see it hanging and lit.
An attempt to prevent the dust getting EVERYWHERE
Bekir showing how thick the wall is, roughly
Starting to chisel a hole
The hole gets bigger, while Sally clears the rubble
Using the correct tool
Lunch time status
Tuesday morning saw A and I up on ladders around the kitchen putting up dust sheets in preparation for what was going to be a filthy process. They did an OK job but fell down rather quicker than we hoped. Anyway the hole in the wall between the kitchen and what was the tool room, but would now become bubba's room, was to be begun. At first Bekir used his hammer and chisel and when I pointed at the big breaker he said no he didn't want to use it however as you can see eventually he gave in; some of those stones are very hard indeed. By lunch time we had half a door way - half way through, I mean; these walls are about 60-80cm thick!
Bekir just bashed a hole in the wall
Sally checks it out as well
The demolition continues
Getting ready for the lintel to be built
Such a dusty process
Bending the metal for the lintel
The lintel is created
Where we were at the end of the day
We had Emma and family over for a visit, which was lovely, and as we were stood in the kitchen as they were leaving there was a big crash and the first block fell through into the kitchen. There was cheering and laughter and then Bekir set some padding down on our kitchen tiles before carrying on with the knocking through. With the help of the breaker, and a lot of effort, the end of the day saw us with a huge hole in our kitchen wall and dust everywhere. Sadly I have no pictures however that evening we met up with our very good friends Lee and Melly for Iskander Kebabs and good company; perfect timing for this plan as the kitchen was not fit for use. It was snowing a little bit as we went and when we left so they didn't come back after but headed home straight away; they live a lot higher in the mountains than us.
A snowy scene for the morning
Thelma stole a stick from the fire
Mixing cement the old fashioned way
Repairing what they just knocked down
We woke to far less snow than the forecast had predicted and A was OK to collect the men; it was cold enough but clear on the main roads. The task for the men today was to get the walls repaired and the lintel in place so the doorway could be done to give us a sealed kitchen for the weekend and they made good progress through the day. Sally works so methodically and carefully when he's bricklaying; it's fun to watch. They still refuse to use tools like the cement mixer, however, which does annoy me slightly; it barely gets any use and was not a cheap aid! oh well. The best bit of the day was Bekci getting to explore the snow for the first time and she loved it.
A doorway takes shape
Cement into a bucket...
... and then into the lintel form
A stole the puppy bed because she was cold
A kebab and cheesy chips
The sides of the doorway were built back up straight and then the men started working on the lintel, pouring the cement in with a bucket and carefully tamping it down to make sure it got into all the nooks and crannies. It was a good way to end the day, to leave it to go off over night, but it was cool enough that A stole the puppies' bed and I worried that the cement would still be wet in the morning. Again we had no useful kitchen and I persuaded A not to stand in the cold but that we should go grab a kebab and that is what we did; it was a very nice meal as well.
Rambo and Bekci stroll around the land together
Checking out the snow
The lintel had dried perfectly fine
Bekir fixes the hinges on the side gate
About to fit the door
Making sure it isn't off kilter
Finishing the edges of the door way
Sweeping up the mess
A small electric heater for the bathroom
Sally builds the floor up
Improving the wood storage a bit more
The next day was snowy again but it was melting; A headed out for her normal shop leaving me with the puppies and I was most enthralled to watch Rambo and Bekci doing "the rounds" together, exploring the top bank. She has really settled in, though Rambo is getting more and more grumpy into his old age. Bekir removed the battens around the lintel and then left Sally to fill the gap above and cement the sides of the doorway while he got on with a few small odd jobs like making the side garden gate work easily again. They then fitted the door (which is perpendicular, but the lintel isn't - standard!) and then Sally then got to tidying and Bekir fitted the bathroom heater A'd got for taking the chill off in that room, particularly for bubba. There was quite a gap under the door so Sally laid some cement, reinforcing it with stone chips, while Bekir fitted cross beams to the wood storage so I can easily stack odd sizes of wood on there.
A red sky for a winters morning
There was dust everywhere!
I've hung the bedroom curtains, for once
Bacon and Egg butties and Louise wants some
The Eye is back on the wall
An amazing Sunday Roast
Louise wants her bone
The weekend was a tidying weekend; we blasted through the kitchen together, me dusting and doing some hoovering and A cleaning behind with mop and bucket. It was so dusty, though the dustsheets had helped somewhat, but we took everything off every shelf and cleaned it all. A very satisfying thing to do. I got the curtains up in the bedroom and finally also stuck the two other sections of cork onto the wall of Room 13 so I could put my Eye back up. A cooked the most amazing Roast Pork for Sunday roast and it wasn't just me who was excited - Louise was over the moon with her huge bone.
Bekir showing how solid this store is
Sally does the first of two coats of plaster
The other side is finished off as well
Thelma found the sun
These kebabs are just the best
Monday was a tidying and finishing day for the men; Bekir continued to put cross pieces on the wood storage unit, I was getting him to do every shelf, while Sally was plastering and clearing up and generally finishing off around the doorway. The sun had come back out so Thelma stole A's chair as soon as she left the room - pretty standard. A and I went out to do chores and went for lunch at the kebab place in town which my dad always goes to for his birthday so we took a photograph for him to get jealous of. At the end of the day everything was done and I did get the men to try to put the Old School Sign back up but we didn't have the correct fixings so that can now wait until next year. I took them home while it was still daylight and that is our building work done for the year.
Since then, all of last week when I was supposed to be writing this blog, I've been non stop working and haven't had a chance to do anything very much. I have dug out the old humanure so we can start using the new block and I've also cleared some more of the wood from around the land but both those things I did today. It's been an intense working week and hopefully that's done.
A is over the moon with her new shoes
I'm not sure when I'll be back with the next update; sooner or later I'm sure. We're getting ready for the new arrival so that'll be taking most of our time up I reckon. For now, here's A with her lovely new Doc Maertins! Amazing :)
