Planning the route

There are many ways to skin a cat and, apparently, almost as many to get from England to Bulgaria.

When I first started thinking about emigrating there were a couple of decisions which I had to make and (while regular readers of this blog will already be aware of which decision I made) I did for a while weigh up the choice between driving myself and all my stuff over or getting a container and either driving a car, or flying.

MORE choices!

I was inspired with the container idea as one of my best friends was in the process of arranging a move to Australia, and indeed went last year, and the cost for him to do so seemed very reasonable. If it cost that much to get a container from England to Australia, surely it would be cheaper for England to Bulgaria?

Not the case.

So I decided that I would buy a truck (Thomas) and a trailer (no name... oh I'll have to sort that out!) and a roof box (don't be silly) and only take with me that which I could fit in these vehicles. Most of my stuff is whisky, books and records, but I do have a large desk and a hard wood dining table which I want to take.

I think that this decision point could be different if you are moving with a family, or want to take all your furniture and white goods with you but that was never my plan; I'm moving out there to start a new life not to drag my old life along with me...

Once this decision had been made I then had to choose which route I would take. It is here that I have some more advice for you. Lots of people have driven from England to Bulgaria. Lots. And they like to write about it (just like I am) so your best bet is to not rely on everything I am saying (my needs may be different to yours) but just go and talk to people. One of the best places I have found so far on the internet to talk to people about many things in Bulgaria (I have used it to ask about potential towns, and also met Chaz here who has helped me with architects) is MyBulgaria.info. You can easily search on there for multiple threads discussing the various routes and the pros and cons of each route. There are also some excellent facebook groups which you can go onto and I have learned so much from these people. This is my favourite.

The following is merely my thoughts based on the specific circumstances I am in.

The route via Romania

The most popular route by far, and the one which I considered first, is that going through Romania. At about 2000 miles (from my door to the school front door) it is nearly the most  direct route and it allows you to stay always within the limits of the EU. This is useful for passport and insurance purposes. The bad part with going through Romania is the roads are not good quality, and make Bulgarian ones look like super highways. Also, and this is the biggest issue for me, I have heard of too many attempted car-jackings for my comfort. I am going to be bringing my entire life with me and I do not want to lose it, particularly my whisky collection.

For these reasons I have pretty firmly decided against going the Romania route.

If you head north from Calais to Belgium then arch down Belgium,Holland, Germany you will avoid the French tolls, through Germany, Austria, Hungary and follow the western edge of Romania into Bulgaria across the bridge, North of Sofia, motorway from Sofia to Burgess now open exit at Yambol. Roads good all the way even the road south within Romania, the worst road is from entry into Bulgaria south to Sofia. Good luck.
- advice from a facebook post

The route via Italy and Greece

Having discounted the Romania route I was not sure of an alternative but a couple of people, E included, suggested travelling south through Italy and getting the ferry to Greece and then driving up across the new pass and new road which, fingers crossed, will be open by next year. This route has a lot to recommend it, not least the fact that my parents by now had been roped into driving with me and both my mum and I have the same dream; to visit Lake Garda.

This route has been shifted to accommodate a visit to that lovely lake and the idea was to get to Lake Garda one evening and spend the entirety of the next day enjoying that region, and only leave the day after to go on down the the ferry to Greece. The distance for this, including this detour, is about 2300 miles door to door so it is a longer way.

While I have not completely discounted this route yet it is now my second favourite because I looked at prices for ferries and it came to close to EU700 for the 8 hour crossing! Which is a large amount extra to pay just to visit Lake Garda. There is also the consideration of extra pressure on the drive that we will have to be at Brindisi for a particular time to achieve that ferry crossing which, if there were bad traffic or even if we broke down, could really effect our success.

trailers and caravans can be a real pain, impounding is quite possible, you are better off with a van, I know several people who had difficulties as they are supposed to have their own numberplate or at least documents which we do not have, make enquiries before you go with the AA or RAC at least, Also bear in mind that some of the countries enroute are dodgy, we had our motorhome broken into while we were in it asleep in Germany (EAST) and all our paper money stolen at a motorway service area, the thieves are experts! and some foreign police are happy to issue you with silly fines, not helpful at all, just because you are a tourist they aren't friendly. I have been via the overland route and via the Greek route (ferry from Italy) ----nicer not nessesarilly more expensive 12 hour ferry trip saves a lot of miles and can be cheaper than channel crossing
- advice from the same faceboook post

The route via Serbia

The final option which I have open to me (other than some I really don't want to do, including going through Bosnia and Herzegovina) is to drop down through Serbia to avoid Romania and the problems on their roads. The issue with this is Serbia is not part of the EU (the lucky beggars) and so travelling is a little more complicated when you include that on your itinerary. For starters (and this is covered in another blog post so I won't go into detail here) my rabbit Sassy is perfectly fine to transport across all the European countries however Serbia has no agreement to support this. The other thing is going to be how they feel about me transporting my substantial whisky collection through the country and finally I will need to make sure all my insurances are set up correctly for all the vehicles, including the trailer.

This definitely seems to add some complication to the journey but this is all stuff I can consider and arrange before I leave; indeed I am already on with it. The trip is almost exactly the same length as going through Romania (about 40 miles further) and by all accounts the standard of the roads (and driving on the roads) is better than Romania.

At the moment this is my favoured route.

we have driven over about 15 times and have done greece trip long way round and expensive we usually do the france belgium germany austria hungary route more often we use serbia although toll roads time and state of roads make it worthwhile we have done romania a couple of times but prefer serbia we go from newcastle to svilengrad near turkish border
- from the same (yes the same) facebook post

So what now?

As you can see above there are options and I have not finally narrowed them down. The one thing that I have done is bought the tickets for the ferry from Dover -> Calais so the date of my departure is set in stone. Which is very exciting. All the routes require me to get from England to the mainland and actually there was another decision point here; go to Calais or Dunkirk. I had some advice that Dunkirk would be the best idea and you can see logic to that for the routes going through Belgium (Romanian and Serbian routes) however there were two reasons I chose otherwise. First of all, I am still not decided between the Italian and Serbian routes. Secondly, and most tellingly, the ferry times for Calais suited the thoughts I have had for that leg of the journey.

I have a list of phone calls to make to various embassies to ensure I have the correct documentation and insurance and whatever other paperwork and fees they require and these will be done over the coming days. I also have to finally decide on my route and then book any other ferries which may be required.

All of this will be blogged about, I promise.

I'll leave this one here now for the moment.

Buying on eBay

This blog post has it's origin in a couple of things.

First of all I realised a little ago that I had missed something out of my "catch up" (which is wont to happen when you don't do your blogging in real time) that I had not talked about the time I almost bought a place off of eBay and secondly, I still find myself irresistibly drawn to looking at the listings on there and thinking "oooh I could afford that!!"

So to begin with my experience of eBay. This was the first place I went to when the thought to move to Bulgaria entered my head and it was eye opening. You can buy a place off eBay (and I know of a few people who have done this) for as little as £3000 and it will be pretty much as described (in the main).

There are a few large vendors on eBay and the main one is Investment Link. If you go onto eBay you will not be able to avoid seeing their houses. The first thing I did before really considering anything was a little bit of research. I went to the list of previous customers of Investment Link and contacted three or four asking them for a brief response describing how happy they were with the service / the purchase / the after care etc etc. You hear all sorts of horror stories about buying things from eBay and they aren't what was advertised so I would suggest this should be your first move also, whoever you are tempted to buy from.

The replies were informative. One person didn't reply at all, one came back with a glowing recommendation (though they did admit that they had bought several houses through them; which is a recommendation in itself) and the last person said the process had been fine but when they got to the house the "internal toilet" was actually in the garage.

I was tempted to point at that yes, actually, that is inside... but yeah....

This is (at the time of writing) offered on eBay for £840

So that left me happy that this organisation was to be trusted and it wasn't long before I saw my opportunity. One of the first properties I'd ever seen and liked was a walled compound in the north of the Rhodope and I had watched it all the way until it was sold. This was really the first house I saw which I said "actually, we could do this!" I am trying to remember exactly when it came back on the market (because of a waste-of-time buyer who never completed on the deal) but I think it was after the first visit so I was convinced I was going to emigrate. Even thought the location was not ideal at the prices that these places go for I was thinking it would work as a base, should I not find anywhere in my first choice location, and would be worth taking on to potentially rent out or sell after a minor renovation.

I placed my bids and set myself a firm limit which I would not go above. With about ten minutes to go that limit was passed and, despite much heart ache, I did not increase my bid. I lost the house by £35 on a finishing price of just about £2300.

This was a good thing as now, obviously, I have a perfect house which is in the perfect location and has a huge amount of land and is, itself, huge. At the time however the thought was sound and I am sure I did the correct thing; if I had won it for my limit I would not have been out of pocket and I am convinced it was of good stock. I have also, since, had a viewing trip with Investment Link and while the houses were not great the agents were good on the day.

They list this as an "easily modernisable shower" though...

After this one attempt I did not try to buy any more houses on eBay. As I was put onto the mailing list for Investment Link they did send me one which I thought looked good, which was in the perfect location, but it rapidly went past the price I wanted to pay for anything I had not been able to view. I went near that property on the "Viewing trip to end all viewing trips" and I must say I'm glad I didn't buy it; the access to the property was less than impressive.

I'll probably wrap this up now but I did want to observe that from my research it looks like buying property on eBay works really well if you are looking to move to the north of the country, but as you tend southwards it becomes less successful.

I'm trying to persuade a friend who did buy in the north to write a blog post of his experiences so hopefully that will follow this post shortly.

More on the architect saga

The other week I finally heard that the architect I have engaged has started working on the project and I rolled out the Carlton Dance for the first time on this blog.

I did express concern about being premature with this celebration and, as things are moving forwards, I thought a quick update post would be useful to record this progress and what is going on at the moment. Suffice to say Carlton will not be making an appearance this time.

The elevations for the school

The ground floor of the school

The first floor of the school

First of all the good news. The architect has drawn up the plans for the current "status quo" and sent me the pdfs of these via my contact. This is excellent as it is the first concrete sign of progress from her and I am very pleased to have received them. I am feeling so much calmer about everything since things unblocked and, despite the negative news below, I am not panicking like I was. It's amazing just how much of the stress was the "not knowing" not the "thinking I might be delayed".

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

The other good news is that she is on with getting the experts who will contribute to the project arranged. Maybe I should just go through this part of the process again to explain. The architect manages and pulls together a large set of documents called a Project which is submitted to the council for the planning permission. The Project contains architectural drawings of what the end result of the building is going to be but, alongside that, you need plans from various specialist individuals. This includes a plumbing plan, the electricians plan, agreement from any utilities you need for the property and a survey of the property in it's relative position to other buildings.

All of this needs to be put together before anything can go to the council for approval.

The chief architect is a very important person in this process and this is where the first of my bits of bad news hits. Apparently (and this is quoting verbatim from my communication with my contact)

What's worse is that the chief architect has placed demands on it to give you a building permit. But Veselka said that would be fine with that. Will fulfill these requirements and will provide everything you need to chief arc.

I have requested some clarification on this but it looks like the chief architect has made some additional requests and requirements than previously expected. Fingers firmly crossed here that these are not too onerous.

The other slightly (very?) negative is that apparently the nice man at the Obshtina who said "yeah fine you go ahead and make your roof safe, even if it does mean replacing the wood, just make sure you don't change any of the angles" has actually told Veselka "no they can't do that I didn't understand them". Which is a bit of a shock to be honest and also, as you can understand, quite a set back to my plans for getting the roof done before snow.

This roof is NOT going to last another winter

I am obviously waiting at the moment to see how quickly Veselka moves to get the Project finished and into approval. If this looks like it will not get done in time I will probably have to cut my losses and ask Bekir and Sally to make the roof safe for the winter, however that is achieved, to ensure that the rest of the building does not suffer from an uncontrolled and potentially damaging further collapse.

So, as everyone would have guessed and I was aware, things are not going as smoothly as they could but at least they are moving forwards now.

Here's to my next "architects update" being a slightly happier one.

For the last time....

When you are considering emigrating, and even more so when you have decided and have bought a destination house, you will find yourself experiencing something and thinking "wow, this will be the last time I ever do this!".

This happened just now as I stood at the windows of my studio watching the airplanes performing for Blackpool's summer Airshow and this has prompted me to write a blog about it.

I will not experience another birthday in this country, and my parents' last Easter visit was their last time to do so in this country. I was aware that this was the case and took them to a really special restaurant to make this occasion particularly special. We did have a great time too.

Within the next month I will be meeting my dad for our yearly (used to be camping but not this year) walking holiday in September and this will also be the last time we ever do this. I am looking forward to it very much indeed.

Camping with my Dad

Doing something for the last time is not necessarily a bad thing; it can help you to really appreciate every moment and I think it is important to recognise these moments and really grasp them tight.

As I was watching the airshow just now, having the idea for this post, I was smiling like a loon; what a lucky person I am to be able to stand and look at this from the window of my business, and most importantly I was able to make a mental note that I would not be able to enjoy this view again and so my camera was clicking and I took 215 photographs of the airplanes, the best of which are below.

The Red Arrows flying past Blackpool Tower

The Battle of Britain Flight - goose bumps!

The Vulcan Bomber. Awesome

The Eurofighter Typhoon with afterburner

There will be more and more of these moments over the next seven months as I approach the leaving date and I hope that I am able to remember to enjoy every single one of them to the utmost and ensure that they act as positive markers on the path to the exit. I will try to remember to blog for each and every one of them.

JUST BOOKED MY FERRY TICKETS!!!

I am hyperventilating a little bit here....

I just booked the ferry tickets for the Dover -> Calais step of the trip next year!

I am the most excited person in the world right now!

I think Carlton needs to make another appearance :)

Why am I talking shit?

This post is being blogged in response to a question I have been asked a couple of times, and specifically in response to one particular person. It relates to my dedication to Humanure.

A very large poo

So to start at the start... what is Humanure?

Putting it simply, this is the process of taking all the output from human life (you don't call it waste because it isn't) and composting it into an amazingly fertile earth. This is NOT to do with night soil (which is untreated feces being spread onto the soil ala China and India) but is the process whereby many different inputs are broken down by a wholly natural process into a beneficial substance.

The biggest problem people seem to have with it is that it at least partially involves collecting your feces and then eventually putting the result onto your vegetable garden. This (to fecophobes - yes, there is a name) is too distasteful to even contemplate. For this reason Humanure is not a solution for everyone. It is, however, proven to be totally safe and actually probably safer than the standard western method of shitting and pissing into clean water and then throwing chemicals at the resultant sludge.

I have spent a lot of time reading blogs and sites about Humanure and the best one I have found is the Humanure Handbook which is available to read for free on the site, or very cheap to buy as a download. Even if you feel you are not interested in having a Humanure system, or any other type of composting toilet, I would recommend this book for the breadth of knowledge it will impart and the excellent way it is written.

Briefly put the Humanure system works as follows.

An attractive looking Humanure toilet

Your toilet has a collection system rather than a removal system, normal a large tub on wheels. Next to your toilet you will have some material such as saw dust and when you use the toilet in stead of flushing you will cover up your doings with the saw dust. There is a simple way of knowing if you have put enough covering; if it still smells, you haven't. The balance of excrement to covering is important as you don't want to have too much nitrogen to your carbon; the covering provides this balance.

Once a week or so you will empty the receptacle into your outside collection point where you cover with slightly more substantial materials such as hay or rice stalks and then it is best to cover with chicken wire to stop large animals from disturbing it. Once again the trick to putting enough covering is to see if you can still smell it.

A three zone outside collection point

Neither of the collection points should smell or attract flies and if they do you need to use more covering.

My pattern will be to have three outside collection points. I will fill the first one in year one, then leave it while I fill the second and third sections and only after it has been sat for a full two years will I bring it out to use as compost on my land. All the books suggest that you don't have to leave it for two years and it is safe after one year (or rather, it is safe after about 14 days, but fully decomposed after a year) however I'm going to be cautious I think while I learn.

You collect all your biological waste this way so any bones from the roast chicken, toilet paper, urine, cat and dog shit etc can all be collected and put into the compost bin.

This works well with a gray water collection system as your rigor in keeping biological waste out of your sink drain (which you should do anyway with normal western style sewage as no end of problems are caused by people just flushing everything down the sink) will mean that you can use all the water that comes through the sink can go onto the garden or through a drainaway system.

I will be aiming to plumb in a shower, a couple of sinks and a washing machine and that is the extent of the plumbing, and to take the output of all these utilities into my gray water soak away.

Waste not want not.

Lovely looking compost ready for growing

The picture of the toilet on this page was found via google docs on this excellent blog which I highly recommend you read.

Breakfast in Julian

This weekend I went to work (my recording studio) on the Saturday to give myself a chance to play with Julian and find out just what I need to do to get him fully on the road.

My biggest concern was the electrics as this is not something I have any confidence in at all. I spent some time the previous week talking to a work colleague about what to look for (which was incredibly helpful) and then my business partner (who is far more competent than I when it comes to anything like this) also took a look and talked through what he had seen. None of this left me feeling any more comfortable however. One good thing was that I had seen the electrics working when I test drove the camper, with even the air conditioning switching on.

So, in an attempt to get a quick win I decided the first thing to focus on the LPG system with the hope of cooking my dinner on the cooker. To this end I headed across town to the nearest LPG filling station and eventually managed to attach the nozzle to the charging point; I had all the adapters which had been sold with the van however I didn't know which adapter was the UK version.

This is the LPG refueling and control area thing

Once I had the nozzle attached I pressed the big red button and not very much happened for a very long time; it took AGES to rack up about £5 of fuel and that did not seem right. As my friend went to pay I fiddled around some more in the refill point and spotted a very helpful CAUTION sticker which had been covered in grime. When I cleaned it I realised that I had not done what it was warning me to and, once I had identified the valve and opened it, a huge amount of gas escaped very fast. In addition, the tank gauge was now up to 95% full.

The warning sticker I didn't notice til after trying to refuel

Whoops.

I got back without exploding, though, and realised that probably the gas had been full all along, I just need to turn on the isolation valve which I had also discovered while turning taps randomly at the petrol station.

It was the work of a few minutes (and a trip to the shop to buy a utility lighter) to get the cooker ring lit for the first time.

This is actually the first time I lit the cooker

I then turned to the fridge which is a dual mode unit claiming to run either off the gas or the electric (though whether the 12v or 120v or 240v I was unsure; more of that later). The fridge has some very clear instructions on it so I ensured that the isolation valve was open and followed them.

The fridge instructions and control panel

Nothing. Not even a glimmer of light in the reflector port though the ignition switch was clicking every time I pressed it. My instinct here is that there is another isolation valve somewhere which I need to turn on however search as I might I cannot locate this. The other answer could be that the fridge is bust.

Happy with what success I had achieved I decided to have a look at the electrics and see what I could find.

The leisure battery is stored in a compartment underneath one of the seats in the back and you get to it by lifting off the cushion and then another wooden cover. When I test drove Julian the guy had his caravan battery in there to prove to me that the electrics worked so I was confident that it would be a case of just whacking a battery in and off I would go. Obviously it was not as easy as this. The compartment was a tangle of wires and cables with some very confusing parts.

First of all, the 4way at the back which is labelled "from inverted only" has its power cable going through a hole and away from the inverter, with the plug socket firmly on the outside; how I am supposed to plug this into the inverter I do not know. The flex with "Aircon" written on it ends in a standard 240v plug which appears to want to plug into the 240v socket which is tailed out of the back of the inverter however how can this work? The inverter clearly says it is only 120v.

To cut a long story short I had an old car battery in the store room and left it on charge over night and, just about, managed to get enough charge into it to register as "low" on the battery control indicator however I did get all the lights inside the back working, and the extractor fan for the cooker however the fridge remains lifeless.

The final part of my electrical investigations focused around the 240v supply. I have a hookup point on the outside of the studio for various reasons which I was able to connect my cable between it and the side of Julian and, having switched on the PCB inside the studio I went back out very excited to see if anything would work. About the only effect I think I saw (and I am not sure if this is indicative) was the main circuit breaker on the front of the inverter tripped. I was not able to work out any other progress nor which 4ways or power points around the cabin were running from the 240v. Disappointed I disconnected this and gave up for the day as the light was failing and the rain hammering down.

This is the very clear notice at the hookup point on Julian

The next morning after a pretty good nights sleep (no thanks to whatever was happening in one of the neighboring units until late involving well dressed middle aged and older men and women; I didn't have the balls to knock and ask to get involved....) I woke up to no rain and the urge for a fry up.

Time to make use of the cooker for the first time :)

After I converted the midget-bed (sorry, bed for the vertically challenged) up into a table and two chairs I buttered my bread and started the frying process.

The dining table with buttered bread

The bacon sizzling in the frying pan

I had a sad lack of oil so melted some butter...

... in which I fried my egg

For beard-pollution avoidance I went overeasy

I am happy to report that the food cooked was tasty and it was even more enjoyable as I sat for the first of hopefully many meals at that little table, contemplating the future.

Breakfast is served

The list of things I have to focus on now is as follows.

• Check the grill works
• Buy a new leisure battery
• Work out the 240v supply
• Work out how to entegrate that with the 120v inverter
• Fix the fridge
• Ensure the car radio works (it is hanging out and not fitted well at all)
• Fill the water tank and see if the water heater / shower works
• Pull the awning out

All this will be for next weekend maybe.