Bit of a strange day

Today I will start off with last night because that is just how I roll.

The moon through the trees last night from Room 13

The moon last night was special; really bright (casting shadows as it has for the past few days) but this time shining in through the window in front of me as I was on the phone. I grabbed the camera and set it on its tripod and snapped this picture. It is a bit rubbish to be honest, but it does capture just how amazingly bright it was last night. I need to learn to use this camera better to take these pictures.

In the night it rained quite hard, hard enough to wake me up but I just snuggled myself deeper in my duvet and went back to sleep; the sound of rain falling has always had a soporific effect on me. The only issue was worrying that it would delay the start of work in the morning if it was raining too hard. My natural alarm woke me just before 7 as usual and I was in and through the shower and having a cup of tea before I really woke up properly. Fortunately today I was less battered this morning than yesterday and my brain was working a little better so I didn't have any music on. When the men arrived apparently they commented that I wasn't having a party up in my room this morning. Haha.

This must be mine; it's on my land after all

As per usual the men went straight to it this morning with T going with them; they had the last few bits to get cleared and fixed up. I put my boots on and headed out there to give them a hand as I had enjoyed assisting so much yesterday. The bit we had to clear today was down past where my lower neighbours had fenced a corner of my land and put their large hay storage structures in. This was fenced with fencing taken from my old perimeter and the usual spiky bushes and larger logs. It did not take long to dismantle, particularly as today I had full hand gloves on. Once we had broken through we started taking the stone wall down to allow access to the fence posts.

Pretty quickly it became clear that some of the large trees were too overgrown so I grabbed the axe and used my new-found skills to slice through a few quite large trunks. This was, until I found that they weren't actually rooted and could just be pulled out. Oh well, it was fun swinging the axe. After a bit the Special One appeared and was stood watching Bekir and Sally; he then walked down to where myself and T were working. I handed the axe to him and then had to leg it inside to take a work call

While we had been taking the first part of the fence down the little old man from below me came in and started talking, almost as if he wasn't happy we were dismantling it. We worked out though that he was asking for the materials back. This is a bit rich as they were actually part of my property anyway, and they have had several months now to clear their stuff off, but I don't know that I really have a problem with them taking it so I said yes. Then his sheep started coming onto my land and he had to run off and chase them off and this was the last I saw of him for a while.

I had arranged for a larger digger machine man to come past today to look at the job and quote to dig out the drainage and the access for the garage door. First of all a truck drove on and parked up outside; I went out thinking it was the digger man but it was EVN come to read the meter. He happily did this then left without saying much. I went back to working. Then I saw another car drive along the lane and this turned out to be the man who was arranging the diggers; I'm not sure what economic stake he has in my booking but whatever - I need the job done.

He talked to Bekir then made some calls (which seemed to consist of giving directions to my place, with Bekir shouting out more advice as well), as the rain started falling quite heavily, and then after a bit he disappeared with my Kmet in his car; I love how he turned up just to cadge a lift with the guy with the car. He is a smiley man though.

After this I went back upstairs for a bit then back down when I saw my friend arrive. I was up and down my stairs so many times today! Anyway, she had parked over by the men so I walked over and had a chat with them, then we got into Lucy and headed into town. I had quite a long list of things I wanted and she had a few bits and pieces and anyway I wanted to get out for a bit. My main aim of the trip was to find the gun shop in town because I want to get an air rifle soon. As it happened we didn't even ever get there.

First of all we went to the building merchants and general store in the main town, as I was hoping to find a load of things. I bought a large tin of paint for the front fence (in black, obviously) three brushes to do it all, and two ice cube makers but obviously these weren't on the list at all. I had begun to dance quite badly with desperation for the toilet (as had my friend) so after checking out we both legged it to the hotel next door (the one I used to stay in when I was house hunting with J) and made use of their facilities. It was strange to be in there again; many memories.

From there we were heading towards the gun shop and lev shop etc but then it struck us that we could go check out the door bell on the nursery we had found the other week and raided for our trees. We turned right instead of left at the roundabout and pulled up outside, much amused to see that the track down to where the tree dump and compost was that we had raided a couple of times had now been roped off. Whoops.

These were earmarked for public parks, sadly

We rang the bell and a lady appeared from an office far at the other end of the lot and made her way over, unlocking the gate and proceeding to walk us around a quite disorganised jumble of trees and shrubs pointing at things and with my friend attempting to communicate between the latin words and bulgarian names. She has a book so maybe we'll come back again with this to help.

My Magnolia bushes

My main aim was to find some silver birch trees and they had some really large specimens up against the far fence however apparently these were earmarked for the parks (and they were too big for Lucy anyway). I first of all chose a couple of Magnolia trees to put as a feature on the front stretch of the land. Initially I thought they may do well in the flower beds I am digging out but I was advised by my friend (and this is confirmed by my research today) that they are a little large to go there. We were leaving when the ladies who were showing us around had a conversation and started offering us deals on various items. My friend picked a large number of small plants and one large one,and I grabbed six silver birch trees for 5 lev each. That is about £2.30 or so and they are all a good size. They also had a really cool looking willow tree which I really want but it wouldn't fit in Lucy; I may go back very soon and pick that up.

It was quite a chore to load all these plants into Lucy, though she was definitely big enough, so we decided to leave off going to town and just go past Lidl as I needed to do a big shop. I did a very big shop, buying loads of stuff for the freezer and filling a trolley near enough. It is good to have a place like this local, though I prefer the veg from the smaller shops I haven't yet settled on one in my local town I like; I am seriously considering making my friend's shop my regular place to go; it is about the same distance as Lidl from my place after all.

T's wall; he is the dry stone meistre!

After loading all the shopping into Lucy (and by loading I mean "throwing it onto the back seat as we had forgotten to bring bags) we were back to my house for lunch of bread sticks with cheese and ham and lettuce and tomato, or whatever we decided to put in them. The guys had been really hard at work while I was out shopping (the pleasures of being the man who pays, I suppose) and had completed all the fencing and were well on with building up the dry stone wall to add support where the land dropped away. T had done this and Bekir and Sally were calling him Meistre which I think he really appreciated; it is good how those two make you feel welcome, even with the language gap.

While we had been out the digger man had come and Bekir had dealt with him. The upshot of all this is he is coming with two machines on Monday, a digger and a breaker, to get it all done. It should be a day or two work and it will cost me a LOT of money for these machines however it needs to be done and it'll mean I can get the garage door in and park my car inside maybe.

I then had to leg it inside for yet another call and this one was longer and move involved so when I came off the call I went down and found that the men had finished everything they had planned and were looking for something to do. This kind of caught me out and it was from this point that I entered a bit of a strange frame of mind prompted slightly by my wearing boots (yeah, seriously, I felt better when I went barefoot) and partially by a bit of stress because I didn't want to take the tiles off the roof yet (it is being rainy at the mo) but it was too late in the day to go and get materials to start the job I had mentally lined up for them (putting the lintels in where they had knocked walls down before).

Starting to clear the attic

The only job I could think of was clearing out the roof space preparatory to getting the roof started but this isn't really a task for two people as talented as Bekir and Sally. I went up with them and they had a chat then started clearing out one end of the attic. There is so much rubbish up there it took all the rest of the day to shift it. There were about 15 sacks of bottles which they hefted down the stairs and put in the store room I selected, and also some other desks and an easel which I am aiming on fixing up tomorrow and putting a painting on.

Burning the mattresses

There were also a pile of old mattresses which initially looked ok but as soon as you touched them they fell apart. These we decided to burn so T and Bekir lifted them out between them on a tarpaulin and I grabbed my lighter and we piled them up and, with a little petrol to get them going, set them on fire. They are still burning now, despite the fact that it is raining quite a lot and has been for some time, and I expect them to still be going tomorrow. They do stink though!

I think it outgrew this pot a while ago

It was after this that my mood dropped quite a lot and I moped for about twenty minutes until I snapped myself out of it by making little tasks for myself to do; I cleared the food away, splitting up the meat I wanted to freeze into meal portions and putting the boxes in the freezer, then I cleaned and tidied after myself. I also wanted to re-pot a couple of the silver birch trees which had come in tiny pots and were getting blown over by the really strong winds which were battering us (literally in my case as it had blown the back door shut while I was holding it, onto my hand) so I did this as well. I had to get my knife to cut one of them out of the pot as it had grown completely through it and it still has some of the plastic incorporated into its root stem.

My Silver Birch trees

I then pulled all the trees from where I had stacked them and put them out under the rain so they could get some natural watering. I'll be planting these next week as I need the digger to move the gravel which is covering the location where I want them to go. In about ten years they will look really good there. It is a good thing I am thinking very long term on this project.

All of this activity, plus a lovely telephone call, really cheered me up and now I'm feeling fine again. I am wondering too if I got a bit dehydrated and I have drunk two pints of water (no beer with my meal tonight) to help me as well.

As the men were leaving they told me that they couldn't work tomorrow as they needed to do some paperwork and this will work out really well as I wasn't too sure what to give them to do once the lintels were done. I have given T the day off as well (unless it is lovely weather in which case I'll get him over anyway) and I am really looking forward to a day off. That doesn't mean I'll do nothing, but it means I'll just be able to not rush around at all and do things at my own pace. Other than the meetings which I'll have to do.

I went and got Rambo out for a run around and he had a great time, tearing from tree to wall and bounding around with huge strides; he really does seem to be loving it here and the next time I do this I will have my camera ready to film him. As I was filling his water bowl I saw the herder walking up the track by my land; now he has to follow it rather than cutting across, and he wasn't very happy I don't think; his cows were right at the top of the slope, longingly looking through my fence and cropping the grass. I wanted to get a picture but I didn't have my camera and he had moved them by the time I did. Am I bad that it amused me a bit that he was unhappy at having to walk round; this is the person who tried to sell me manure at a stupid price after all. Anyway, I then put Rambo away (he had screamed over to the fence and slid to a halt barking at the man which he never does; maybe he senses something bad there too) and came inside to start this blog and relax.

So I have eaten a lovely meal of pork chop with some of the oooodles of salad I have in my bucket from my little neighbour, listened to a couple of classic albums quite loud, and now I am ready for an early night and a lay in tomorrow, probably to watch a film in bed on my laptop even. The luxury of a mid week holiday!