A February BBQ

What a busy beginning to this week we have had; really busy in lots of unexpected ways. I'm pretty late starting to type this update (it's already 6pm and dinner is well under way) so we'll see if I even get to publish it this evening. Onwards.

Guests

The theme for this week has been guests. Lots of them. On Monday night I was just about to head to bed when I had a message from Venko, the lovely policemen/musician who made friends with me at KAT and helped me so much with the trailer registration. He had some time off work and wanted to bring his family to the countryside and immediately thought of coming to see us. After a brief chat it was agreed that he would come over on Tuesday for a BBQ at lunch time. Short notice, but a lovely idea and we're really pleased he came.

Venko's kid watching as A plays with Louise

All the puppies joining in

He's an inquisitive kid

We got ourselves ready (I swept the balcony, which is a quick task but one we've been putting off) but then we realised that the roof terrace would probably be warmer as it'd be more in the sun so we moved the BBQs up there. We found we were a bit low on charcoal so Venko agreed to bring some which saved a trip out for A. It was the first time he had visited so he got a little lost and I had to drive down the bottom of the hill to meet him. I pulled Thomas up heading back up the hill and sat on his roof so I'd be obvious. This worked well and they were here, greeting Rambo and loving him, and the fowl, and the puppies and the whole place. It took ages for Venko's wife and child to come inside as they were so interested in playing with Rambo; he thought all his Christmases had come at once. It was so lovely to see a child who isn't scared of a big dog and (other than running a couple of times, but then understanding why when he was told not to) acting very sensibly around him. He also loved the puppies and spent lots of time playing with them; indeed he hardly ate anything he was so into the animals and nature.

Venko taking a big bite out of a Lidl burger

He likes them

Just after we both shot; they must have been good ones

Venko shows us how it's done; six from six in the distant bucket

His son has a go; good parenting, I think

Dangerous woman!

I wasn't keen, but I had a go anyway

The breeze was getting more and more and though the sun was warm it was quite chilly on the roof terrace by the time we finally finished eating; one thing over here is people don't eat fast and they don't eat much. The BBQ was a success though, Venko brought some home made bread which was very tasty indeed. After we finished this it was time for some recreation as he had brought both his homemade Hungarian horse bow, and his hand gun, to do some shooting. This prompted me to bring out my long bow, which has been gathering dust since last summer, and we had a really great time shooting arrows along the land. He then got the hand gun and shot holes in one of our buckets and then encouraged both me and A to have a go. It was so loud I thought my eardrum burst, and A struggled also. Louise really did not like the loud bangs and was clinging to one or the other of us while the shooting was going on.

During the afternoon Bekir turned up as well, with his son, and stayed for a little while talking to Venko and then looking around at what we've been doing around the place. It was lovely to see him and he is looking very well indeed. Fingers crossed he can start back working here soon as we have SO much to get through this year. He was off home, having been to market day, though so didn't stop that long. Our other guests headed off about 3pm and both A and I were exhausted; it takes a lot of concentration when neither you nor your friend speaks the others language very well and I'm sure Venko and family were tired as well. It was a really lovely visit, though, and I can't wait for him to get back over.

Other than this, today we had another visitor. A had given a lift to a man into town this morning on her run to the shops and he came over, with the Little Lady, with a gift of some baklava to say thank you for her driving him to town. We invited him in and A made some filter coffee which we shared with them in the living room, along with the lovely banana and walnut cake A had made on Sunday. He speaks quite fast but we were communicating OK. He is another ex student of the school and it's lovely to have another person see what we are doing to such a large part of their personal history.

Gardening

The glorious weather of the end of last week has continued right through this week so far so we've been able to get outside quite a lot and get stuff done. A's back, while it is slowly getting better, is still quite bad and so she is being very careful about what she does but being outside in the sun has helped it a lot I think. She's had to take the week off work because sitting at her desk was making it seize up quite badly. Anyway, we have got quite a lot done.

A checking out a seed packet

A wheelbarrow full of sticks from the lawn area

Starting to dig out a flower bed

Flower bed dug, Thelma wants me to throw her toy

A mix of random seeds goes into the flower bed

Covered in plastic to keep the ground warm

One of my bulbs from last year is coming up

A bee which stopped on the table to say hello

On Monday A was back outside planting seeds for various things. She did some more food based items but was also keen to get some flowers going as we have so many packets of seeds for them as well. I took a quick potter around what will eventually be the lawn and started picking sticks up, and A joined me and between us we collected two wheelbarrows full. At lunch time I went outside again and helped by digging out a flower bed along the concrete between the two lawn sections. A then scattered a mix of seeds from various packets and we then covered them over, watered well and put plastic over hoops on top, to keep them warm over the slight cold snap forecast for this weekend. Spring really has sprung early over here and the bulbs in the Tortoise garden which I planted last year and left in the ground have started to show already. Also there were lots of bees flying around which is great to see; we need bees on our land for all our crops to be fruitful.

Pond to be cleaned, and the gunk I removed

Super happy to be back in their pond

Monday night as I shut the chickens and ducks away I opened the valve to empty the pond for cleaning in the morning. I had forgotten I had done this by the time morning came, particularly with the excitement of Venko's visit, but A reminded me because the ducks were less than impressed at not having a pond to swim in. It took about ten minutes or so, no more, to scoop up all the green gunk (mainly duck poo) from the concrete into a bucket and the job was complete. I turned on the tap to refill the pond, and then on a suggestion from A I poured the goop out around each of the trees in the orchard. The water pressure, after having none at all last week, is back to being really good and the pond filled in less than three hours which is super fast. The ducks have been very pleased to get it back, as you can see in a picture taken this morning.

A once again carefully staining the garden furniture

It is hard work pushing a manual lawnmower on animal pasture

Lots of sticks were still hidden under the grass

Looks so much better after a mowing, though

The front stack of wood fell over

Today was another day for getting outside as much as possible. A was able to get out for a little while and do the table for the balcony dining set which is good; just one more chair and she's done now, though with her back and the weather forecast this may wait until the end of next week now. I popped outside for a late lunch and to push the manual lawnmower around the other half of the lawn area that I hadn't done at the end of last year. Despite all the time we've spent picking up sticks and stones from the lawn I managed to fill another wheelbarrow with sticks, and threw loads of stones out onto the lane as well. It took longer than I wanted to finish this but it hasn't ever been done on this area before so it'll only get faster. I've got blisters on the palms of both of my hands now as well. Soft office workers hands. While we were out there a sudden rumble made us jump and we spotted that the wood pile had collapsed again. This is something that will need thinking about. It wasn't all that well stacked in the end anyway, but maybe we need some more support in there? Another nice thing was the really nice cousin from the farm is back from working in England and he came to say hello while I was cutting the grass. He's a very nice bloke.

Animals

You've got to see a few pictures of our menagerie already in this update however there's a couple of pictures that are worth putting up which don't fit into the earlier sections.

Here she is trying to get her back legs inside

She made it, though she didn't stay in it very long

Sassy is still really enjoying her run being on the balcony and she loves playing with all the structures and things I've put in for her. She's a very big rabbit now, however, and can barely fit inside this little tent. Earlier in the day she'd tried to get in while A was watching and failed but she tried again and I had the camera ready to capture her looking out in triumph from inside. The puppies, as you can see, were most intrigued as well.

Thelma and Louise share a stick/tree/sapling

Playing with the ring toy on the roof terrace

Louise wearing the toy as a necklace

Rambo making sure Louise doesn't take HIS stick

Thelma being camera shy

Whereas Louise poses

Rambo surveying his kingdom

The puppies are as playful as they ever are with Thelma being the chief instigator of anything related to a "T.O.Y." though once it's being played with Louise is just as interested. She loves sticks, though this is actually a sapling we had pulled out of the garden, but her favourite thing ever is the chew toy ring thing we bought a few weeks back. She's managed to pull a couple of the nubs off but it has survived very well considering how much use it gets. Thelma is very camera shy and it's hard to get a good picture of her when she isn't playing as she drops her tail and runs away when she sees the camera come out. Louise is the opposite and is quite the tart. Rambo has had a great week with all the attention, and us being able to be outside more, and is a very happy dog indeed.

Magnificent skies

And again, as usual, we've had some amazing displays in the sky. Here they are.

Sunday ended with a golden glow

Monday was attended by scattered clouds

The first rays of the day shine across the valley fog

Smoke rises into the sunlight

A and Louise enjoy the sunset

Further round the horizon, the clouds capture the colours

Sunday night had a lovely sunset but it was over very fast; it was golden, unlike the usual red ones we get here. Still gorgeous, though. On Monday night the sunset was made special by the scattered clouds around the horizon which caught the colours as the sun went down and made a beautiful display for us. I took some panoramic pictures of this and have saved them out as maybe being good for a background on one of my model railway scenes that I am going to do. On Tuesday I was running around trying to find my camera as the sun came up and I got onto the balcony just in time to capture the first rays of the sun illuminating the top of the valley-fog. The days have been warm recently but it is still cool at night and you can see the smoke from a morning fire in the farm. Last night the sunset was back to its glorious red best and we went onto the roof terrace to enjoy it. Five minutes later the sky was grey and it was completely over. The skies have been clear every night recently and we've been able to enjoy some amazing star gazing but I haven't taken the camera out to get pictures; I'll get round to doing that again soon I hope.

Other stuff

A few bits and pieces that don't have photographs associated with them.

After much thinking, and me going in with a DVD and my harddrive to check it out, we've bought a new surround sound system. This will eventually go into the "theatre room"we have planned but mainly it'll be great for watching blu rays as the previous DVD didn't really cope well with 5.1 into a stereo mix. We listened to some Mozart over dinner this evening and it sounds great.

I've not got on with any more of the floor since the weekend as I've been too busy however I have managed to find a supply of plywood, and they deliver. I ordered very thin stuff this time which may not end up being right for some of the purposes I have however they have other options and they do next day delivery for basically the same price as the slower one. Very strange pricing model.

Superb duck egg omelette

The birds are still giving us loads of eggs; today we got five which means only one of them is at risk of Easter Dinner. In all seriousness we have so many eggs it's untrue; check out the amazing omelette A made this week to use up some of our supply. It was made with duck eggs and was beautiful. A word of advice to anyone thinking of getting ducks or chickens; we have four chickens and two ducks and I reckon that is sufficient for us, egg wise. We won't be getting any more unless we decide to keep them for meat.

So there you have it; a super busy beginning to the week as I said. Now to go and watch Sopranos through the new sound system.

Feels like spring

As we come to the end of January the weather has changed dramatically and suddenly there is a smell of spring in the air. It's been warm during the days and there are buds appearing on trees, while the "flags" have started to grow again as well down the front garden. It may be this that has caused us to kick into gear and get so much done but I'm not totally sure. Either way we've had a busy few days. I'm going to keep it chronological this time as it'll be quicker I think.

Thursday

Hazy across the valley first thing

There was a frost on the ground early in the morning

The kebab shop in town

Thursday began as usual with a brew and breakfast and then A heading out to go shopping in town while I worked away, and did a washing load which I got hung out before she got back as per usual. It was a frosty start to the day, not something we've seen often recently as there's been snow on the ground, but it cleared pretty quickly. By the time we went down into town to meet SandS for kebab at the little place in the centre it was really warm and we wished we had eaten outside but never mind; the kebab was super as usual. A managed to finally find some egg cups in a little lev shop so now the next time I make soft boiled eggs it'll be much easier to eat them.

A staining the balcony furniture

The two chairs looking lovely

Thelma helping me make the raised bed

The sinks will work OK together

I was stuck at my desk for most of the day but A broke with tradition and rather than rest all day she headed outside into the lovely warm sun with the balcony chairs and the wood stain and set about painting them all over in preparation for the summer. It took her all afternoon to do two chairs but they look brilliant now. I did get away from my desk briefly and took the time to assemble the next frames for the next raised bed; my plan was to get this fitted before the end of the week so we could make use of it. At the end of the work day we both went down into the kitchen to check out the sinks. The issue here was I had decided, rather arbitrarily, that we needed to buy another sink for my washing up area. The more I thought about it the more I felt that the two sinks we already have would actually work together and I wanted to see if this was correct. We offered them up in the space and it turns out that yes, we probably can use them together. I'll have my rinsing sink on the other side to my original plan but I can cope with that.

Salad? In winter?! Why not?

The lovely Pahlenka with everything

Two Shashlaks for main course

Neither of us were feeling the love for cooking that evening and we decided to take ourselves out for dinner to our favourite restaurant. When we got there it was obvious a large function was taking place as the tables in the large eating area were laid out all around the edges of the room. Sure enough later on we heard the singer doing a Turkish rendition of "Happy Birthday". It was a very enjoyable meal and everything we had was superb, including the salad that A was unusually in the mood for. We also both wanted Shashlak so we got different meats and did a bit of a swap. The puppies were very pleased to get their chunks of meat for their dinner when we got home.

Friday

Thick fog just clearing as I get home from town

Looking across our village as it clears

Evidence of A working, but no sign of her

Rambo and Thelma watching for A to return

I headed out before breakfast on Friday into town to do a few chores including banking and finishing the insurance for the trailer. This was a very easy job and I also got some good quality card with which to make a model railway building I had downloaded. It was very foggy when I left and remained so right up until I got back to the village when the sun just started burning through. A had been busy while I was out but was no where to be seen when I got back; it turns out she had been called over to the neighbours by the Little Lady for a coffee; both Rambo and Louise were stood waiting for her, but Thelma was too engrossed in her stick and didn't seem to notice she had gone.

Clean hay throughout the room, and it's all swept nicely too

Kat on the prowl

Beaker watching carefully

Ginger is very big now

Kit glares at A

All of them out and scratching around

When I left that morning A had been heading over to the chicken house to sweep it out and put fresh hay in and all that fun stuff to stop it stinking too badly. She got this done and finished up but forgot to get pictures for you to see what she'd done. When I got back she realised and grabbed my camera and went to get some shots before they wrecked the joint once more. While she was over there she got some brilliant pictures of the flock; what excellent characters these birds have. They are still providing us with regular eggs as well and are noisy as ever when they are hungry, which is almost all the time.

Sat on the porch, after breakfast with the puppies

I was really hungry when I got back so I set to making some scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast for both of us, though it was now closer to lunch. A was still out in the garden digging and she finished just as the eggs went on. It was so lovely that we decided to make use of the (now dry) re-stained balcony chairs and sit on the porch to eat our food. It was a good call and after we finished the puppies (all three of them) were around and we played with them for a bit before getting back to work.

Louise being taken for a ride by A

Digging out the trench ready for the raised bed

After a bit of faffing the first level was straight and true

An interested observer

We had plenty to be getting on with. A was back into the garden to do a final weeding and then take the barrow full of plants, grubs and slugs over to the chickens for a treat for them. Louise got in on the action by riding with the plants, though just after this shot she jumped off. I was on with my allotted task for the day which was to dig and situate the raised bed; I really wanted to have them totally done that day. At about 2pm my alarm went and it was time for the daily photograph which I've been getting better at doing on time; there was another type of local down on the path when I headed over there and I just about managed to stop her being scared off by Rambo who HATES cows.

Here I am using the circular saw for the first time

The third chair gets its new stain

Another raised bed is completed

With A's help I lifted each frame onto the previous one and then fixed it in place with braces. The wood I've used this time was the remainder of this batch from last year and was all the bad quality and warped lengths which made it quite a challenge to get straight and true. By sitting on it, shoving it and generally using brute force I got it all lined up good enough. Then it was time for the excitement of using a new tool for the first time; the circular saw. I measured twice and then started cutting. The first attempt wasn't all that great but I learned from the mistakes and by the time I'd cut the third and final sloping piece it was a simple job. A spotted me throughout and lent a helping hand where needed which made me calmer in case of accidents, and made it easier just in general. I was distracting her from finishing off her job of staining all the furniture by asking for this help and because of me she only got one more done on Friday. The raised bed was complete and we shoveled the soil back inside together and that was enough for me; I was not quite finished (we still needed the manure from the village pile) but I was way too tired by this point to push a wheelbarrow through the village four times fully laden.

Using the snips to harvest these dry weeds

A big bucket of weeds to dry

It ain't a bad life

Before we headed in for the night I had one more task on my mind and I dragged A along to help. As part of my model railway reading I have been getting concerned about how much I would be spending buying trees for the layout. There are loads of tips and hints for how to make your own and I noticed, next to the driveway, a load of weeds that look like they could be used to make trees. We went down there with a bucket and filled it completed without really even trying; these are now drying in the gardening room and I'll be having a good at making trees at some point over the summer. Even though it had been such a lovely day it was still quite cool in the evening and so the fire was lit and we had a really relaxing evening. We ate quite early and then watched the second part of The Hobbit before heading to bed (we'd watched the first on Thursday night).

Saturday

How I was bracing the floor....

And how I'm doing it now

Got the first two boards back down

More supplies required

We were both really tired when we went to bed and slept well but I had one of those strange sleeps where you don't actually feel sleepy as you're lying in bed and then when you wake up the next morning you feel exactly the same; strange. I did get the chance to think a bit while I was dropping off and I solved the problem of the joists underneath the flooring in Sassy's room. The boards were not quite as secure as I wanted with the old way of doing it and I decided to change tack and use much more wood than previously planned to make it more stable. I have since worked out that I'm going to use about five times as much timber doing it this way however it isn't that expensive and it'll make the floor last longer. I was straight up and working on this in the morning but A wasn't feeling great; her back had seized up a bit and she was resting it as is only wise. I worked away in Sassy's room with my diminishing supply of screws and wood and eventually ran out of screws so headed down to the shop, with the trailer, to stock up. It was great to be driving it while it is now legal. I bought three more packets of the narrow strips of wood, some paint stripper (explained by saying "So I paint, and then later, I clean" and the lady understood which was nice) and I bought her out of 60mm screws which amused her as well. The wood loaded into the trailer well and I drove back with no problems.

I'd seen the kmet on the way out of the village and talked to him about the fact that our water had once again completely gone off. He was surprised and made noises about calling ViK which then confused me as we've not been on ViK for ages and weren't expecting it to be back on until May or June at the earliest. As soon as I got back home from the shops I went to see how A was feeling (not great; she was back in bed with the heated blanket on) and then headed out to switch over to ViK and see if it worked and wouldn't you know it did. As I was out there I was called for coffee by the kmet to the Little Lady's and so I persuaded A to get up and we went over and drank coffee with some of her guests, sat outside in the sun and it was lovely. We'd left the puppies over on our land but Louise managed to squeeze out of the gate and came over to look for us. It's so nice to be welcomed over there but pretty soon her guests were leaving and so we headed back as well.

A gets started planting out lots of seeds

She's got a good routine going by this point

A few trays of seeds planted

Lettuce and some herbs in another raised bed bay

More seed trays ready and let's hope they grow

The end of the day in Sassy's room

A new fence is being built over there

I went up to Sassy's room to finish off the board I had been working on when I ran out of screws and then went down to do the manure for the raised bed. That was quite an effort, pushing the fully laden wheelbarrow through the mud that is now thick on the side path, but I got it done eventually with much puffing and panting. A was really pleased that she had got up out of bed and decided that, with how warm the sun was, she would be OK to do the chore she had planned for the day which was to plant lots of seeds into seed trays. This was one of the pressures for me to finish the raised bed as rather than build custom seed tray benches for the balcony (as I had suggested) we were going to just put all the trays under glass in our raised beds. She worked through the afternoon and got everything planted that we wanted at this stage. They have all been watered and now we wait and hope. It wasn't just us working away in the village; down in the low field Usmivka and the Little Lady were hard at it putting a new fence up. I was finding that with my new method of flooring I was moving a lot slower than expected and so by the time I called it a day I hadn't finished the floor as planned. This is a shame but as I said the end result will be better. The last board of the day was another happy occasion as I had to trim a 3cm at its widest point triangle off the wall edge for it to sit flush. The new circular saw made this extremely easy to do and I'm chuffed to bits with how well the cut board fits in place.

Beautiful afternoon with the sun on the hills

Good bye sun

It was a lovely evening and sunset but once again we lit the fire and had a super cosy living room. I cooked steak, hand cut deep fried chips and butter fried mushrooms for dinner and they were lovely, though I did over cook my steak very slightly. These were from Lidl and it's so unusual to find even slightly good steaks over here; I think we're going to try and get some more if we can to stock up. We finished off The Hobbit trilogy last night and I only shouted at it a few times which isn't bad. Unfortunately A's back was still pretty sore and so she had to go to the spare room to sleep because she was worried about disturbing me.

Sunday

A few more boards down this morning

She's back to baking again

And so we come to today. I woke up at the usual time and found that A was still asleep so I crept around as quietly as I could to try and avoid waking her. The puppies were not interested in this and kept having to be shushed but I did let her get quite a good lie in before she came through for a brew. I got loads of tidying done before she woke up though I put off sweeping as I didn't want to disturb her. Her back was really bad this morning and she could barely move which was quite a worry so I told her to rest and got on with my jobs. I did the humanure, cleaned out Sassy, swept the corridors and then got on with doing more flooring. A was able to get the hoover around in Room 13 which was a relief as it was quite dirty in there, and then she went to rest in the living room. While she was relaxing by the fire something happened and all of a sudden the really bad tightness in her back cleared and now she is pretty much fine again. How excellent. I can't say the same for my back after all the bending over to screw down the beams and boards but it's not as debilitating as hers was. Right now A is in Room 13 baking a banana cake for us and watching as our curry cooks for Sunday dinner; we were neither in the mood for a full roast today.

So there you have it. We've also spoken to Bekir a couple of times this week as he was lined up to come over tomorrow to check out the problem with the water which is now fixed so I was able to let him off that one. I've told him to ring us as soon as he is ready to start working here again so hopefully we'll hear from him in a month or so and we can get work started on the kitchen. I'm quite unreasonably excited about this.

I'll leave you with one thought; I got the quotes for the see through hatch above the stairs and they have all come back as about the same price as we reckon it'd cost to put a full sized swimming pool in. Decisions decisions....