I am a coal miner

It rained last night. Hard. I was asleep and woke to hear it starting to pound down on the roof. I love the sound of rain so it didn't disturb my that much however I needed the toilet.

Drips from the roof of Julian

While I was going I grabbed a bucket to put on the sofa. I have noticed that, since I drove underneath the tree on the day I arrived here and got bits of tree stuck on the top of Julian, he has been leaking again quite badly. I haven't yet really gone on top of him (my bikes are still up there, for example) so instead I just popped the bucket on the sofa and went back to bed, listening to the drips turn to plops as the water got deeper. This is how much there was in the bucket this morning when I woke up.

The sheep walking through

The thing which finally dragged me out of bed, after a righteous lie in up to nearly 9am, was the sound of the sheep being walked onto my land by the sheep dog. I snapped this picture through the narrow window in Julian while I was still in bed and then noticed that one of them was eating my tree so I jumped out of bed and ran out shouting and waving, in my boxers, and shooed them off, being barked at by the sheep dog all the way. It's my land, buddy.

Super contented Sassy munching her breakfast

I fed Sassy as she was looking at me with her hungry look and I think an urgent thing is going to be to find a source of rabbit food, or make my own. I have one bag left; I should really have brought more to give me more lee way in this issue. She isn't that fussy though fortunately. As she was eating she looked so contented with her eyes half shut munching away that I just had to snap a quick photo of her.

A bowl of muesli. Yay.

Then it was time for my own breakfast and, good to my decision to be a bit more healthy and not have fried bacon and eggs every morning, I opened the packet of muesli I'd bought yesterday and poured myself half a bowl. It wasn't the most amazing thing I've ever eaten but it was nice enough. I don't think I'll be doing it every day I can tell you.

The view from my desk

The sun was just starting to break through now after another cloudy beginning and I snapped a quick shot from sat at my desk in Room 13 so you can see exactly what I see while I'm typing. It is a lovely view, and will be even better when the new windows are in and I can see out of them well.

Eggy bread from my neighbour

My first and main task of the day was my accounts; I have been putting this off as it is boring however it is also getting closer and closer to the end of the year so I knew I had to put in for my dividend to get the maximum out, and I also knew I had to have it all up to date so they could process my accounts quickly post year end. As I started to do this I heard a banging on the front door and went to investigate and sure enough this was visit number one from my little neighbour and she had a large bowl of Ayran in one hand, and something wrapped up in newspaper in the other. It was eggy toast. As some people on twitter commented, maybe she is trying to fatten me up! I couldn't refuse, obviously, and ate it all down and it was absolutely lovely. Kind of destroyed my healthy breakfast plans though. Oh well, there is always tomorrow.

My three new trees

The sun had continued to break through and I took some standard pictures of the view however I also snapped a quick shot of the trees in their triangle, which the local cattle seem unable to resist every time they are near. It will be brilliant if these establish themselves and grow well; I love fir trees.

Sassy hopping out of her cage

I pushed Sassy through to her room and waited with the camera for her to jump out. Typically she did this just as I wasn't ready so the picture isn't great. She does seem to love that room very much and when the second coming of Little Lady happened, this time with a handful of green stuff for Sassy, and the request to borrow a bag for toplo mush (which, come to think of it, hasn't been returned yet) she went racing around the room again really fast and caused some amusement from us both.

She didn't stay long, again, and so I finished off my books and paid myself my final amounts for the year; it'll all go towards this place and help me to complete my dream, I suppose. While I was sat doing my accounts an email flashed up from Chaz, who also owns a school but is far further along than I in redeveloping it. He asked me to call him which I did and we discussed the fact that my PuP had been rejected, and Lubo was saying I needed planning for the fence. Now I'm not totally sure I understand fully however he was saying that they had been told (how, and by whom, I don't know) that my obshtina had messed up and, a few weeks after selling me the land, had given some of it back to the original owners under the Repatriation Act (this returned property which had been 'nationalised' under communism). Because of this, the boundaries in my contract were incorrect and, potentially, the contract was null and void and therefore the PuP had bounced. A very concerning piece of news. The issue is that I have seen the new Skitza and it looked like the land on it matched exactly to the land on my contract so I'm not totally sure whether this might have been solved or not and certainly when Lubo explained the rejection he said nothing about this at all. I need to get all the documents Lubo gave me translated urgently so I can understand better what has happened. It was really great to talk to Chaz again after a few months of busyness for both of us and I'm looking forward to seeing him soon, now I am also a resident of Bulgaria.

The next place to clean

My second task that I had set myself was to dig out the coal store under the stairs. I think that they used to bring the coal from the out house I have raided a couple of times and put it here; I was mistaken in thinking it was all waste as, while I was digging, I filled two of the new bucket things with good sized lumps of coal and took out six or seven wheelbarrows full of dust and waste.

I am a dirty man

After four wheel barrows I decided to take a tea break and I took some timer photographs of myself to show just how filthy I got. It felt good to wash the dust off myself, but I am now thinking that before I continue this I should get some masks; it is very dusty and coal dust is not nice.

Thunder head building

On one of my trips out with the wheelbarrow to the dump site I noticed that the clouds were building impressively into a thunderhead so I dashed inside and grabbed the camera. I could hear thunder rattling and rumbling around and there were a few which once again shook the ground and made the windows vibrate. I love a good thunderstorm.

The sheep streaming past Thomas

When I got to my next natural break point in the coal clearance (I filled my second bucket) I decided to break, wash up, change into clean clothes, and dash over to Lidl to get as many more of those buckets as they still had in stock. As I was driving down the hill towards the Nuovo Put I was halted by a very Bulgarian problem; sheep on the road. So I didn't scatter the flock I parked the car and let them flow around me, driving off with a nod to the shepherd once they were past.

Clouds over distant mountains

Almost as soon as I got onto the new road I was pulling over to the side again to take a picture; the clouds in the distance over the mountains were just absolutely wonderful and demanded a photograph. This country just provides photo opportunities at every turn even when it is raining the light and clarity of the air is amazing and beautiful.

My trip to town was fully successful, grabbing all 21 of the buckets that they had left (there will be a gift for the Little Lady tomorrow morning when she arrives, and some for my friend too) and also remembering to get some of the coffee sachets the men have, so I don't have to remember another time. I also bought an Aloe Vera plant but I think I picked a bad one up because when I brought it home a few of the leaves were quite loose. I'll have to nurse it back to health. My final purchase was a naughty one at the counter of a couple of packets of cookies but when I got home I tested them and they are lovely, specially when dunked.

While I was supping on the cuppa and the cookies the thunder storm really arrived and I decided to try and video it so I took one video stood in Room 13 and another stood at the open windows at the top of the stairs. The second one was the best (sorry my voice is so quiet, I was whispering) so here it is. The storm was so bad that it even knocked my internet out for about ten minutes which caused me much consternation!

Evening sun shine reflecting

I decided, upon getting home, that doing more of the coal digging was a bad idea and so I spent a little bit of time online and starting this blog, and then noticed that as the storm cleared the sun was shining on the clouds across the valley. I had to go and take a picture out of the window of this as it was really lovely again.

More wood for the petchka

My next, and final task, was to chop some extra wood (I am ending each night with more wood than I had prepared at the beginning, but that is good because if there is a particularly cold night I won't get caught short) and I chopped a bucket full of large logs which should hopefully last a little longer than the small ones I've been using so far.

Sassy munching greenery

And so I have been sat typing this ever since, enjoying the fact that it was still light when I started typing up this blog and I noticed that Sassy was reaching up to access the greenery that I had put on top of her cage which had been brought by the Little Lady earlier in the day. She was quite enjoying it, from the looks of it and was munching away at it for ages.

The other cool thing which happened was I happened to glance out of the window to my side and I saw a couple of bats flying around and around really fast just outside. I grabbed the phone and went and shot this video of them chasing each other really fast. I don't know if you can hear but when they flew past close to me I could hear the sound of their wings whooshing. What an amazing thing. Just now when I popped out to get my torch (after dark today; not as organised as yesterday) they were still out there, flying around. This makes me really want to take care with the roof to enable them to stay living here, if at all possible.

I've only just lit the fire now as the night is a little warmer tonight; I probably could have avoided lighting it to be honest but I like the sounds of it behind me so it is worth doing. It was a bit more difficult to light tonight for the first time but now it is snapping crackling and popping away nicely behind me.

The Bulgarian for "hay" (correct now)

Oh yeah, the one other thing I did was I finally got my motivation together to make some A4 posters with words that I want to learn on them. I have printed out "Gift", "Refrigerator", "Hay", "Sheep" and "Rabbit" and they are stuck on the walls around Room 13. This is the one for "Hay". How awesome am I.

EDIT thanks for pointing out that  had copy-pasted the wrong word onto my hay poster while I was working out how to do them; I have correct it now, and done one for "straw" too. Cheers.