Kit for the vehicles

This is an appeal for help. I am desperately wracking my brains trying to think of everything that I will need to take with me on the drive across Europe to Bulgaria and I could do with your suggestions please.

What I have already thought of is detailed below, most of which I have already bought (and linked to my choice, just for your interest of course) but I am sure I will have forgotten about something. So use the comments box and advise me!

*** Snow Chains

As I am driving in March and driving across several countries where they are a legal requirement (some all year round, some only between November and the end of March) I have had to buy some snow chains. I have already got some for Thomas and am waiting for Julian to get back from the garage so I can buy them for him.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pair-Snow-Chains-Husky-16mm/dp/B0055UBP7W/

The snow chains I bought

*** Snow Tires

As above there are certain countries where it is a legal requirement (specifically Germany and Romania) to have snow tires on your vehicle. I am going to get this sorted out when both vehicles go for their MOTs which are shortly before we depart.

*** compressor

In case of a flat tire, particularly if it is a slow, I have bought myself a high specification compressor which can cope with the larger tires on Thomas and the pressure required on Julian. It attaches to the main battery terminals and is very very good indeed. I have used it a number of times already and it puts air in the tires quicker than any other I've ever used.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000W08QZY/

The compressor

*** jump start kit

Again for such a long journey it is important to have a jump start kit in case you become unable to start your vehicles. Most of these jump start kits are rubbish but, after a lot of research, I found this one which is heavy duty and should carry enough charge to help out even if both Thomas and Julian had a problem.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004M3V8X4/

The jump start kit

*** lock for trailer

We are going to take about seven days for our journey and will be staying in Julian at night. A lot of my worldly belongings will be contained in the trailer attached to Thomas. I am a little concerned, to say the least, about it being easy for someone to come along and unhitch the trailer and tow it away in the night. To stop this happening I have bought a lock which goes over the hitch and means it cannot be easily unattached.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Streetwize-swtt114-Coupling-caravan-lock/dp/B002WBJYUC/

The hitch lock

*** tamper alarm for trailer

The previous item will stop the trailer being unhitched and pulled away from our camping sites however what is to stop someone from cutting the tarpaulin and removing things that way. I have bought two of these little vibration alarms which are normally used to stop a motorbike being tampered with. If anyone should take too great an interest in the trailer a very loud alarm will sound, scaring them away and alerting me to their presence.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007FD1XAQ/

Vibration alarm

*** european travel kit

One thing you must be aware of when planning a trip like this is there are very different requirements for gear which you must carry at all times (separate to that which becomes mandatory in the winter).  You can buy ready made kits from various places, cheapest being on eBay. I am not purchasing this until much closer to the time, unless one of the countries changes something shortly before I leave.

What you need in a european travel kit

*** first aid kit

You normally get these bundled with the travel kit, but I have decided to get myself one earlier, as I do a lot of driving. I'll have one of these in each vehicle.

*** multi adaptor for cigarette lighter

A simple thing, but really important. I have the satnav, my mobile phone, charger for the walkie talkie and the iPod to attach to the 9v in Thomas, and there will be equivalent in Julian too. These fit very simply to the dash board or like I have can be wedged into a gap so they don't vibrate and rattle. As I am a bit strange I also bought some little sticky backed cable guides and have superglued them (yes, the sticky back is rubbish!) up and round the inside of Thomas so that all the cables are tidy and don't get caught in anything.

Multi cigarette lighter adaptor

*** toolkits

This is something which I am building up as I go, as I don't have a car based toolkit at all at the moment. A couple of things which I have bought already include WD40 (for spraying on the ratchet straps to make sure they are easy to undo when the time comes) and a multi-pack of ratchet spanners, which I can use to take the back off Thomas and turn him into a real pick up truck, should I need to. I will also need a torch. Any other ideas for kit I should pack, please note it down below?

*** two way radios

This is a luxury item but I also think it'll make the whole journey much more enjoyable. I have bought a cheap set of walkie talkies so we can have one in Julian and one in Thomas. This way we can talk without incurring massive telephone bills and, if one of us gets lost, for example by being left at a set of lights, it will be easy to contact the other and ask them to wait. We can also pretend to be in the army and have a laugh with them :)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B003Z11QTA/

Walkie Talkies

*** mifi

This last item is both for the journey, and also to tide me over when I arrive. I will want to be updating this blog every evening on the journey, and I'm sure my parents will also both want to do things online on the evening. A Mifi is the perfect solution for this in that it allows up to 8 devices to connect to it using wifi, and takes a standard SIM card which it connects to the internet over 3G or 4G. I picked one which was unlocked so I can put any SIM in it as we're dashing across Europe.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Huawei-E5331-Speed-21-1Mbps-Unlocked/dp/B00ARFVTKS

The MiFi I bought

So there you have it. This is the current list of gear which I have thought of and in most cases bought. If there is anything at all you can think of which I have forgotten then please do put a comment below, or contact me using the form on the right.

Cheers

Buying in Bulgaria - a Guest Post

Today is a guest post from BobS who bought a place from eBay and went over last year to go through the legal processes for buying it. He also drove roughly the same route I am planning. Enjoy :)

On the 24/06/2012 I went to my usual kettlebell class but had set an auto bid on a property in Bulgaria. The place looked very nice indeed and seemed quite a bargain. I left the kettlebell class and came home and saw an email telling me I had won the property. What follows is my tale along with some pictures and some information regarding buying from eBay.

First off I’d like to say I bought my property on eBay from a user there called PaulHawtin and that’s his name too!! Paul got in touch and I paid him via bank transfer to a UK account and arranged to travel over at some point in the next few months to sort paperwork etc.

My house

The basement of my house

What I didn’t know was how things work in Bulgaria and I’ll tell you here and now they work SLOWLY, more slowly than you can imagine. In fact think about driving along the motorway at 70mph and suddenly coming across three tractors all travelling at 5mph which you are unable to pass  Initially you may feel a little frustrated but this is soon washed away when you realise you now have time to relax a little and enjoy the scenery which you’d never seen before (we’ll talk about Bulgarian roads a little later).

The Prius in Bulgaria

So this was my plan, to drive across Europe in my prius and arrive on a weekend and sign for the house on Monday, have builders in on Tuesday, get water and mains electric in on Wednesday and have it habitable by the second weekend complete with indoor bathroom!

On the ferry to Dunkirk

I left Cardiff and drove to Dover to catch the ferry to Dunkirk as though it takes longer to get across you save petrol from the reduced mileage :) From there I drove into Germany and spent the night at a small hotel just off the motorway, very nice it as too :)

Tesco in Hungary

Next day I drove to Hungary and spend the night in Budapest in a Holiday Inn. Please note you have to drive with lights on all the time in Hungary!! At this point it should be noted I saw that Hungary is actually a nation doomed, how did I reach this conclusion? By the presence of Tesco stores of course :\ Stands to reason really.

From there I headed for the Romanian border and my plan was to drive Across Romania and cross the bridge over the river and enter Bulgaria via Ruse!

Driving in Romania

Romania sucks to drive across if you are in a rush or have no idea what to expect. It is a perpetual trail of village after village all with 30mph speed limits.

The buying process.

So I arrived in Ruse and met with Pav on Monday, we drove to the property in his car and had a look around, he checked I still wanted to buy it and explained the process.

The hotel in Ruse

Tuesday I signed a notary deed giving him power of attorney which at the time seemed very scary indeed and was not something I was used to being from the UK, it is however seemingly the norm in Bulgaria.

Pav had quite some issues with the Notary in Pavlikeni and eventually we had to settle on hiring an interpreter and this is what we did.

The hotel in Pavlikeni

The notary was a lovely lady and the signover took around 90 minutes. We had 2 copies of the deeds with skitza etc .

So what I thought would take 2-3 days actually took over 3 weeks so don’t expect things to move fast, also I’d advise ensuring you have an interpreter so you understand what is going on as it can be quite frustrating and stressful watching a conversation go on without understanding a word of it.

So that’s my story!

Abandoned puppies in Bulgaria

Growing Thoughts

So this is the last of my three part preliminary thoughts posts looking at energy, animals and finally, growing things.

As you will know if you have read this blog from the start (you poor demented fool you) the original germ of emigration came from the enjoyment I found while growing food in my back garden. The whole idea was to be able to grow food and support myself from the soil. This is still the case but, interestingly for me, I think that this will be one of the more difficult parts of my challenge.

The biggest issue I will have is the land which I have bought is in large parts not great for growing on; it seems to be quite shallow and rocky across the upper part of the land. You may ask why I settled for less than perfect growing land, if that was my original idea, and I will answer that through this blog.

When I first arrive I will have the house as my priority; I will need to make a warm dry and livable in winter apartment first. Because of this I will not be focusing very much energy on the garden but I will be doing a few things to improve the land and be of use when I start growing properly. The biggest of these is humanure which I discuss in another blog post. I will be starting this off immediately and the first year will see a lot of compost being laid up and maturing.

So, other than collecting shit, what do I plan on attempting immediately? There are a couple of interesting techniques which I hope to put in play relatively immediately. The first of which is Hugelkulture.

A cartoon of Hugelkulture

In a nutshell this is where you build up a very large hump of wood, cover it with turf, and then water it for a year. Then you plant things in it and it provides an excellent location for growing plants, while also rotting down and improving the land it is sitting on. It is a very efficient raised bed method, simply put.

If you want to know more I highly recommend this website which has lots of information on Hugelkulture.

A simple Straw Bale Garden

The other simple technique I am to attempt early on is Straw Bale Gardening. I suppose you could say that this is very similar to Hugelkulture in that you are enriching the soil with an organic raised bed. There is an excellent resource if you want to know more about this here.

Finally and even simpler is Lasagne Gardening, which involves laying down layers of "brown" and "green" compostable materials on the area you wish to grow, without digging, and relying on the action of worms and other animals to draw the material and goodness into the ground. Rather than repeat, here's a good page to start your research on.

It is probably obvious the strategy behind my selection of these simple techniques. They all involve raised beds in one way or another and all add nutrients to the soil. They are all, also, relatively easy to set up and maintain and don't require days and days of digging and turning like a technique such as the Deep Bed method requires.

I have taken a lot of inspiration from a fantastic pamphlet I was recommended by a drunk skinhead in a pub once (yes, seriously) called the One Straw Revolution. In this he advocates a form of agriculture which attempts to work with the region you are farming rather than imposing our will on the land. If there is one book you buy this week, buy this one. I am taking a lot of hints out of his writings but the one I want to focus on here is the use of alternative crops to improve the land quality (which, as I have said, is top of my list) for example planting a winter mulch crop which you will just dig in such as clover. The biggest "oh yeah!" idea though was the use of crops such as beets which send down roots many metres into the ground and break the soil up. I aim to make use of this technique to assist me in preparing ground for more traditional growing methods.

A Beetroot - look at those lovely root systems

Finally for this update (and there will be MANY more posts about growing things when I get to Bulgaria, for now all my thoughts on this are on my other blog: The Part Time Homesteader) I thought it would be good to share a couple of other books which I have found most useful.

I am more than half way through reading John Seymour's The New Self-Sufficient Gardener which is fascinating, though he is obviously writing for a Temperate, not Mediterranean, climate. He is also addicted to the labour intensive (and not suitable at first stage) Double Dig method. His hints and tips regarding crops, how to grow them, how to force them, what they like and don't like, however, are excellent.

Secondly, and I've not yet started reading this one but it was suggested in glowing terms by a number of people, is "Your Kitchen Garden". I was lucky to pick a hard back copy up off amazon for about £3 and I am very much looking forward to reading it. It bills itself as being a book of recipes and growing tips. So you can use it to both plan your garden, and plan your menu.

Well, that is all for this swift overview. I hope I have informed / inspired / intrigued you. And, as always, please do not hesitate to put your comments below. I do reply to them, even if Blogger doesn't let you know, so it's good to check back after a day or so to see if I have.

EDIT : I have done a little more research since doing this and have discovered Key Hole Gardening which looks to have an excellent potential for utility in my situation. I would  be able to start it off very simply and the surrounding wall rises to contain the material inside. So you get the benefit of the raised beds, but in a more organic way. This is an excellent starter link to see pictures and understand more what I am talking about.

Power thoughts

This is the second in my series of preliminary thoughts about growing things, power and livestock.

As I want to achieve independence from "the grid" as much as possible I am thinking quite long and hard at the moment about alternatives for generating power and heat (two different things as you'll see) without having to hook up to power cables and a remote generator. It is interesting, as you are reading through these options, to consider just how well a lot of them mesh together; wind/solar providing the power for the compressor and pump in ground source heating, for example.

Of course I am going to be connected to the grid at first; it would be nice to not have to rely on it though.

So without further ado here are the technologies and techniques I am considering at this stage.

A classic petchka (wood burning stove)

The first and most important element in heating will be my petchka. I am planning on installing a rather large one in the kitchen which I can use to cook on, and which will also potentially heat a back boiler and run a set of radiators throughout my heated living area. This is all very much up in the air at the moment and I am really open to any and all suggestions for solutions here. The petchka will burn normal logs and coal, which I will have to buy in. As I settle and if I decide to stay full time I may purchase some woodland of my own to source my own logs from. This will be far in the future though.

EDIT - Thank you very much to Annette for taking the time to contact me about Rocket Mass Heaters. I have spent a little time just now reading about them and these look perfect for my needs; require less fuel to burn, provide a long lasting heat from the cob mass around them and can be shaped to provide heating under a bench or winter bed *always thinking*. Here is a fascinating link for you with some cracking pictures of examples.

How Ground Sourced Heating works

I have about 2.3 acres of land, most of it tilted slightly to the south, which makes it ideal for installing a ground sourced heating system. Basically I will dig trenches in my land and bury piping throughout it. This will then have a solution pumped through it which will get warmed by the fact that earth is warm. The resultant heat is exchanged out of the solution and used to heat water for the house.

Pipes at the bottom of a Heat Source Trench

I have also seen diagrams which suggest that you put a compressor onto the system which increases the temperature differential. I am not totally sure what relevance this has (I am early in my thoughts for this). If anyone has any more advanced knowledge, or links to awesome websites to research, please comment them below.

Solar powered hot water

Bulgaria is a very sunny country, even in the winter when it is very cold the sun still shines. Solar power will have to be part of my suite of heat and energy generating tricks. I picked the first image (above) as I am not limiting my thinking around solar to the classic shiny panels on the roof (though I will have some of these) but am going to look at other creative solutions to harvesting this energy. This is another excellent solar energy idea.

The classic roof-bound solar panels

I will probably invest in some classic style solar panels as well, I have a rather massive surface area on the roof which it would be silly to not make use of. These will provide electricity rather than heat which will be stored in massive batteries and then combined with the normal grid supplied electricity.

EDIT - thanks to @anubeon for this link to hybrid solar panels as an option.

Geothermal Energy

Geothermal energy is very similar to ground sourced except you are going deeper into the ground, accessing heat from the ground itself, rather than using the fact that earth stores heat from the sun. I am fascinated by this as basically you just need a REALLY deep bore hole, a pump, and a heat exchange. It could be quite a high capital set up cost but I can see this providing 100% of my energy for next-to-zero ongoing cost and without any interference from weather or climate.

Geothermal pipes go deep under ground

Due to the invasive nature of this, and the potential cost, I think this will be the last idea to be pursued. I am really interested in it and if anyone has any knowledge, as previously mentioned, please do shout. One page I found was this really interesting one about digging your own wells; as the school is on a mountain I am not sure it'll be very relevant but it's interesting non the less and he does have a specific entry about geo thermal energy.

A simple wind turbine

Finally for this update I am certainly considering wind power. The position of the school is on a ridge and it appears to have quite steady wind coming across the valley. Wind can be a useful addition to my energy requirements however I do not think it would be sensible to rely entirely on it. I would have to make sure that any turbine was positioned with aesthetics as well as generation in mind; they are not quiet machines.

So there you are, these are my early thoughts. As per, I will probably laugh at my naivety when the final solution is in place but I've got to start somewhere.

Livestock thoughts

Part of the plan for going to Bulgaria has always involved attempting to be as self sufficient as possible.

I want this to encompass growing crops, producing power and also keeping animals.

I will cover the other two specifics in another post but this one is focusing on the thoughts I have right now regarding livestock and animals. I think I will find this very interesting to look back on in a few years when everything is different and all my thoughts and plans are proved to be completely misguided and without logic or a chance of succeeding :) but such is life.

A chick in an egg

First of all, and most obviously, I hope to keep chickens. They are relatively easy to care for and I am planning on two herds (is that the right word?) one for eggs and one for meat. Chickens have the additional benefit of providing some good shit for compost and also they eat insects which attack your crops.

Of the other livestock I am thinking of getting early on I have picked two rather unusual animals.

A drawing of a hare

I really like eating rabbit and, as rabbits are small and hares are bigger, I am going to attempt to breed hares for meat. I have no idea how this will turn out or even how to start; where do you get breeding pairs for hares from in Bulgaria? That's probably the first question to have answered and probably the first of many. Hares do run wild in Bulgaria (I have had to avoid them on the road more than once and E is on a mission to get a clear photograph of one which is regular in her garden) so I know they will survive the climate.

Mmmmm tasty

Finally for the set of animals for this first round is the most unusual of the three. This decision was prompted by an article on the BBC *spits* about how they are eaten very commonly in South America and are very good BBQed. I aim to have a brick built BBQ done in the first few weeks of arriving so BBQ food is a good thing. Guinea Pigs are easy to keep, breed fast and can be kept inside so will be easy to look after when the temperature drops.

Longer term I have plans for keeping other animals.

A nanny goat

I would love to keep a couple of goats. They can provide you with milk and, by extension, cheese and also are good companion creatures for other animals.

Oink!

I am also considering a breeding pair of pigs; the parents will be excellent for turning waste into manure and they are also natures very best rotavators for digging up tough land and I have a fair amount of that I will eventually be looking to put into production.

Other people have mentioned maybe keeping a couple of turkeys for the eggs and freezer, and there is a chance that I could have some sheep running with a local herd where I will get the meat at slaughter time.

As I said at the beginning of this post this is all very early thoughts and I am certain that many parts, if not all of it, will change as thoughts turn to reality. If you have any observations or relevant knowledge please do add them as comments below; I am aware just how much I need to learn here.

Edit - this is a really useful link which I just came across researching Guinea Pigs - it covers all these animals as livestock :: http://www.fao.org/docrep/004/y0500e/y0500e05.htm

Remote Building

I am facing a challenge, until March.

That challenge is that I am not in Bulgaria yet there is progress I feel like I have to make on the property before then. Hopefully, before the snow falls this year.

The challenge is, namely, remote building.

This is to represent me trying to communicate long distance

Remote building is an issue for any situation and particularly when you are trying to do so in a foreign country. Having someone near a project to ensure it happens, be a decision maker at the pointy end and just ensure everything goes according to what is needed is obviously of vital importance in any major undertaking. It is the line between having a successful renovation or an expensive failure.

Sadly, and this is only for a short while, I am not able to be there the chivy along the process (for example by kicking the butt of the architect) and this has really made things quite awkward. The situation I am in now, where I am unsure how much of the roof work can be done prior to receiving the approval from the Obshtina and I don't even know very much about the progress which the architect is making towards plans which were promised me by now, could really do with my local presence.

I am very lucky to have E local who is currently acting as my "person on the ground" and, to be honest, I would probably not have got anywhere without her. She is being able to communicate with the builders locally, who actually did the renovations on her own house, and is very patiently putting up with my questions and concerns and rather obvious impatience at the delay to the plans.

Yup, that's me. Working

Despite this much appreciated help the troubles inherent in not being present are really apparent at every step. This is the reason I have limited any building work to be carried out before I arrive to the absolutely vital roof work and I have no plans to push on past that at all; it is more hassle than it is worth trying to coordinate from a foreign country.

I would suggest to anyone who is thinking of buying abroad, and particularly in Bulgaria, to be here while you are having work done. Not only will you be able to keep an eye on the process which is ALWAYS longer and more convoluted than you would hope, but you will also have the pleasure and satisfaction of knowing that you have a personal hand in finishing off your house / business / whatever.

If you are not able to do so then having someone like E local who is willing and able to assist is vital. I would suggest that if you have to go for a paid project manager you go with multiple recommendations; I went with a recommendation for the architect and while she is excellent she has been very slow - I should possibly have asked to talk to more of her clients first.

So, that is my thoughts on the situation I find myself in. Seriously, if you can help it, avoid it yourself.

Avoid Remote Building at all costs

Some progress with Julian

Ahhh another diary style update because something new (or rather a couple of things) has happened.

First of all today I arranged for a chap who fixes camper vans for a living to come out and have a look at Julian. I was hoping that he may be able to resolve the confusion regarding the electrics and also quote to fix the fridge.

It was a most satisfactory visit.

He arrived with his family in his car, hinting that he wasn't expecting to be long, but did not make me feel rushed as I explained my concerns and questions. First of all, regarding the electrics, he said that the 120v converter almost certainly had a step down transformer in it for the 240v mains. The reason that it did not appear to work when I tried it, he suggested, was because the battery was not connected at the time and it probably needed to have that attached to work.

If he said so.

He then explained that the mystery of the plug saying "inverter only" was quite a simple one; there had been an inverter which had been removed. This is now going onto the list of things to buy however I am not in a rush for this. Once I have that I will be able to draw 240v off the battery and run things like my laptop etc.

The mystery four way

Regarding the battery he suggested one larger rather than two smaller and he had the make of battery which I was looking at which made my decision there easier too. I have now ordered a 120 AmH leisure battery which should be delivered some time this week.

I expressed to him that I was wanting the battery to be charged from the mains so would I need to change out the converter to a 240v one; his answer was no, it should work and if it didn't then just get a mains charger for the battery when the mains is running. In retrospect I am not sure how useful this advice is as I'm not totally sure which plugs are running from the hookup. Oh well, something to investigate.

This is where the inverter was

Finally for his visit I asked him about the fridge and he said the gas was probably not working and it was probably broken, but to check it out with a fully charged battery. This isn't a big problem as, if it is broken, i'll just tear it out, use the space as storage, and buy a little travel fridge for milk and other emergencies.

All in all this has cleared up a fair few things but I do have some more investigation to do. This will now be done next weekend when I have the battery.

He observed a few things about the bodywork of Julian which need looking at and this has focused my mind on something I have been considering for a while. I have always had the plan that I would be packing and preparing to leave in Blackpool and that I would be sensible to use one of the empty units on this estate to gather my stuff together and practice packing. Originally I thought I would only need a month but now I am thinking, as Julian is being left standing in the yard and there are always local kids to worry about, that I should arrange this early.

The control panel for the electrics and water pump

So I rang the landlord and have worked out a deal where I can have one of the units until March from the very near future (exactly when I don't know) to put both Julian and the trailer in (my business partner and staff will be happy to not be having to drag that in and out the studio every day) where they will be safe and secure from potential vandalism.

This is really good news!

The other little thing is the straps which I ordered for tying the Laycorn boxes to the new framework on the front of the trailer have arrived and I had a little play with them yesterday and I am pretty sure they are perfect. I did order too few so I've put a new order in for the rest.

I still haven't played with the water supply as once again I forgot to bring a hose but I will do my best to remember this next time.