The last day with my parents

Today is, as the title of this post suggests, the last full day my parents are here with me. After an amazing 18 days they are flying home tomorrow and that will be a big moment in my transition from not living here to living here. I have had to pinch myself a couple of times over the last two days to remind myself that I am staying here,this IS my reality, and not a holiday. Such an amazing feeling.

This is my shower.

So my day started a bit later than normal as I slept in until 7.30; I'm getting good at this staying asleep malarkey. I made myself a brew and pottered a bit and then had a shower. Now, I didn't take a picture of me IN the shower (that would be rude) but I did take a shot of what my shower currently consists of. I have to climb into the trough and be careful not to spray the entire room however the water is lovely and hot and it is a good strong pressure too so a good shower all in all. I will probably get some wood slats to stand on as currently you are right on the concrete (no tiles on the floor of the trough).

Standpipe now secure

Having had a shower I took myself outside to the standpipe, which was just held up by some twisted wire around a piece of steel, and investigated how I would attach it to a piece of wood. First of all I dug a hole as deep as I could behind the tap with the pick axe and pushed a couple of pieces of wood in. The first I (very loosely) screwed to the concrete behind it and the second I (very firmly) screwed to the first piece of wood. I then screwed the actual tap onto the second piece of wood and then filled the hole in, stamping it down, and then positioning rocks to support and protect the whole thing.

Walnut starting to show green

While I was doing this my little lady came over with her customary drink of hot, sugary, milk and she was very approving of my handiwork so I feel quite validated. We had a short conversation, as they have to be as I'm very bad with the language still, and I noticed the Walnut trees are showing leaves which is very exciting to me. I asked her what the word was for Walnut and she told it me in Turkish and Bulgarian. Typical. I think the Bulgarian was "brrzo" or something like that? It was good, and felt nice to interact with her a little more. She is very lovely, really.

After I finished doing this I set myself to do the next task on my short list for this morning; plant some stuff. Now I don't have any potting compost so I just went out and picked some of the soil into a bucket as I have nothing else; it is very sandy so I'm not sure what results I will get but I wanted to give it a go. I also have a couple of packets that come with their own "soil" so I decided to use them. First of all, however, I had to work out where my nursery was going to be and pretty quickly I decided the room which will become the living room eventually.

Sun flowers and Lavender planted

I knew I had some old tables in the attic so I went up and cleaned a couple off and brought them down to use as potting tables. I then started with the pre-packaged seeds and planted some sun flowers and lavender. I love both these flowers and they are really good for attracting bees and butterflies so I really hope they grow well.

Other seeds in the sandy soil

Next I got a tray for seedlings and filled each dimple with soil, pulling stones out as I did because the soil is stony as well as sandy. I planted a row of Crossley Special Chillies, a row of Birdseye Chillies, and a row of Moneymaker Tomatoes. My plan is to do a new seedling tray every day for a week or so and plant lots of different things. Following advice from my mum I am also planning on getting some potting compost as the sandy soil with no manure at all is not going to be best for them. I do have some stinging nettles growing around the land however so I'll make myself some tea with that and use it to feed the seedlings.

Breakfast of a BLT

I was hungry by this point and just had enough time to fry some of what they call "bacon" over here into a BLT which was lovely. It filled the hole nicely and then it was off to collect the parents for the second to last time. It was not a standard collection this time however as my dad had set a geocache near a chapel near the hotel and they wanted to show me as I would be maintaining it. We met at the corner near their hotel and drove the short distance up to the location.

Tiny church and huge picnic area

It was lovely. A tiny church surrounded by loads of fixed tables which you presume would be used for feast days and other big occasions. I shall have to get myself up here for one of these, if I ever hear they are happening.

Church locked shut

One thing that amused me was the fact that there were three different locks on the front door; talk about over-secured! So different from churches over in England where they are always open (or supposed to be) to provide sanctuary.

After this we headed over to their hotel as my parents had asked me to tell them to not cook breakfast tomorrow morning and also we wanted to double check the amount of the bill. This was quite amusing as the breakfast instruction was accepted quickly however when I asked for the bill much confusion was generated. We resolved it when we worked out they were trying to calculate it in Euros and we wanted to pay in Lev. I even had to go round behind the counter where the man got google translate up to communicate a bit better. It was all smiles after a while and everything is arranged.

And so we headed over to the school and had a bit of lunch and then had a couple of little chores to do. First of all I had to walk the entire perimeter of the land to find out how many more boundary posts I would need as some had disappeared and some were just knackered. I then laid out some rough boundaries for Rambo's run and measured these so I can get enough posts for that, and add to the order for the chain link fence. This was quite lovely as the sun was out and I hadn't actually walked the whole land with my parents before. Then my mum tied her Martenitsa to one of the trees in the garden (my dad was now the only one to not have seen a stork). The final little task was to lift my TV onto its stand and secure it as this was a two or three person job and easier when the other people spoke English.

The lake where the river enters it

The water is definitely high in the dam

At one of the picnic points by the side of the road

After this we packed ourselves into Thomas and headed out for the afternoon. Our ultimate destination was a geocache by a bridge my dad had spotted however the way went along a road which is stunning and I had wanted to show my parents anyway. I missed the turn to the geocache and went along the road but this didn't end up being a problem as my parents really loved the drive. I have picked the best pictures from both cameras for here.

Approaching the abandoned power station

The dam, and one of the control towers

Me on top of the dam

The dam, blown up to make it a bridge

I drove up this road further than I ever have before and after a few minutes came to a fantastic place; an abandoned power station. We spent ages walking around it looking in all the buildings and I walked across the top of the old dam and had my picture taken on it. There must be hundreds of these relics of communist industry scattered throughout the country each one just waiting to be discovered. It was a brilliant thing to find and a perfect place to turn round and head back to the cache location.

Yet another picture of a lake

It didn't take long to get to the correct place, having put a place name in my SatNav and we went off down a cheren put until we got to a village and I decided to park just outside it so we could walk the rest of the way. This ended up being a good decision as the walk wasn't too hard but some of the views were amazing and it was a lovely way to spend a couple of hours.

A glimpse of the cables for the bridge through the forest

After about 2 or 3 km of walking along a track and through some gorgeous pine forests we spotted, through the trees, the object of our hike. A long foot bridge styled (apparently) on the Golden Gate Bridge. It was pretty impressive to be fair but it squeaked and swayed as we crossed.

Parents on the bridge

My parents got a bit ahead of me as I was taking some pictures and when I stopped in the middle I could really feel it swaying a lot. My dad isn't great with heights and so he just kept going, looking down, until he reached the other side. The reason for crossing to the other side was that is where the cache is and we climbed a short way up before I decided to just chill and let them find it while I sat on my own in the peace and quiet listening to the waves on the lake, the wind in the trees, and bird calls from all around me. Lovely.

A very old grave

As we walked back to Thomas we stopped to take some pictures of a graveyard we were walking through. It was only because we stopped that we saw just how extensive it was, with some REALLY old graves heading up the hill from the track as well as below where we had first noticed them. It highlighted just how old this countryside is and how many years humans have inhabited it, continually. Fascinating.

What an outstanding view he must have from his balcony

Secondly we had spotted a house on a bluff with a fantastic view across the lake on the way out and we met a man walking his cows back to his house who explained that it was owned by an englishman. I haven't heard about any other expats in this area so that was interesting; maybe I'll do some research. Whoever it is has excellent taste as the view must have been stunning, and he had done a fantastic job making the house look great.

Some kind of bird, maybe an Egyptian Vulture

Our walk over with we headed towards the restaurant we had been to on Saturday. On the way we spotted what we think is an Egyptian Vulture swooping and swirling in the distance. I grabbed my super zoom lens and snapped away as many as I could until the battery died on the camera. This was the best picture as it was a long way away, and the wind was really blustery so I had to lean on Thomas' bonnet to steady myself.

We got to the restaurant but chose the place next door which my friend had said had good pizzas. We couldn't see any pizza at all on the menu so I fell back on some of my favourite dishes, and my parents each chose something random which looked nice from the pictures. Both of their choices were outstanding and so tasty I even asked (and noted down) the name of one of them so I can order it again.

Gorgeous view (taken with my phone)

The same view with my dad's camera

After a really overcast, and at times cold, day (I was wearing trousers and even brought a hoody with me! First time not in shorts since I got here) the sunset from this place was something else and I'm afraid I will bore you again with another selection of pictures taken from my phone and my dad's. Wonderful to see. I took a few pictures while we walked around the fish farm attached to the restaurant as we waited between courses (the young lad who served us had some english and was proud to use it).

And so I have dropped them back at their hotel for the last time and I am now sat here just finishing the blog and considering the fact that from tomorrow they will be gone and I won't see them probably until the end of the year. It's a strange feeling but I am looking forward to it in a sense.

One last thing to record; I went to make a brew while I was writing this and had no running water through my internal plumbing. Now it was working earlier when my parents were here so I didn't do anything stupid when I put the standpipe wood in, so I'm presuming something has happened to the supply (the men in the village were digging around it last week). Fortunately my "bez pare" (free) water supply still works so I filled up outside and brewed up anyway. I have unplugged the boiler as it is obviously empty so it doesn't come on in the early hours and cause a problem.

I am now thinking, having typed this, that there was a weird sound in the boiler earlier every time I turned the tap on sounding like a sticking valve. I really hope I don't have a problem with the boiler! I'm sure the cold water doesn't go through it, though I'll have to check that in the morning.

Oh well, no shower for me tomorrow. *chokes on the fumes*