Taxes and roof

The title of this blog changed right at the end of the day, due to unforeseen ignorance on my part. Such is life. You'll have to read on to find out what that was though...

After the sun has set

I will start by going back to last night as plenty happened after I posted the blog. If you remember (which you obviously will if you are reading this in order) there was music and I was about to go and check out whether it was coming from the farm below me. I put Rambo away and took Ralf with me on a lead to go and check it out. It quickly became apparent that it was not coming from the farm (I did get a nice greeting from the lady and her little girls as I walked past which was nice) and with the weather so nice I took a short stroll along the lane there with Ralf. The sunset was still pretty amazing and I liked how it looked through the trees the edge the track. I would have gone further but I heard the herder starting to encourage the sheep home and I wasn't sure if I had secured the gate well. I let the sheep go past and walked with Ralf past them and then the old sheep dog noticed and started barking. Ralf did not hang around to talk but legged it; this is good to know that he will not tangle with big dogs.

Here is Zeus, King of the Tortoise Gods

I got back inside and settled down for my evening call but had barely started it when my phone went and it was the Other Brother. They were by the side gate so I paused my phone call and went to see what they wanted. I got down there and laughed as Usmivka was holding the largest Tortoise I have ever seen and saying "here, take it!" and indicating that I should put it in the enclosure with Shiva. I took it, smiled and nodded, and asked how old they thought it was. Probably about 100 years was the answer. Wow. I took it inside and upstairs to show to Her on webcam and then I put it on the rug while we chatted about what to do with it. It was quickly dubbed Zeus as King of the Gods/Tortoises and we agreed that he definitely should not be kept anywhere on the land; not least as he would probably eat everything. We decided to put him in the fenced garden over night and then I would release him onto the top bank in the morning; it being too dark for anything more to happen then.

This also stank

I decided to move Zeus before it got even darker and I put him in the Netto tray you see in the second picture (shown for an idea of his size). This is when I found that he hadn't just been sat there doing nothing on the rug; he had done a massive, and very smelly, and very staining, turd. Lovely. I cleaned this up (the stain is still very much there) and then went and took him and set him free in the enclosure. I only hoped he wouldn't eat my vines which are the only thing currently planted in there.

Gorgeous moon

A short while later on, aiming for an early night and long sleep, I headed to bed but first onto the balcony to snap a picture of the true Super Moon which was last night. I headed inside with the music playing and tried to sleep and I couldn't. It wasn't that the music was always loud it was loud then quiet then so loud and clear it was like they were playing stood on the balcony. It was a wedding taking place somewhere down in the local town and the atmospheric conditions were such that the sound waves kept getting swept towards me. About 11pm I stopped imagining jumping in my truck and driving down and through the party, over their stupid band, and back up to bed and I went and shut the window and the door and as I was doing so I saw the fireworks go off to celebrate the wedding. I went back to bed and managed to fall asleep though I woke up in the night stuffy and reopened the door for a bit of fresh air. For those of you who will say "get ear plugs" I have ear plugs and I hate sleeping with them in.

Amazing light first thing

Hazy mountains

The alarm went off and was snoozed a couple of times before I dragged my tired body from the bed. The first thing I did was go on the balcony, take a picture of the beautiful hazy light, pre dawn as we are past midsummer and the sun is rising noticeably later already. In fact I was loving the view so much I put the zoom lens on and took a lovely close up which I offer for your appreciation as well.

Lettuce yes!

While I was out there I snapped a shot of the lettuce which is already doing better than the seeds I planted on the front entrance flower bed. I think it is going to be a challenge to get anything to grow well there as it is so shaded now with all the trees with full foliage. Any suggestions of what would thrive in that location (ask for more information if you want) is really gratefully received right now. Ideally I want flowers, and nice smells, down there.

Up comes the sun

And so I made a brew and went to feed the monsters who were pretty ok as they have been for a while now, including the fact that I had to go and grab my camera and zoom lens (I had left both in Room 13) so I could get a picture of the oh so amazing sunrise which was stunning in the extreme. As I had to go through the house I decided to lock the side door and come out the front door so as to be able to go straight to check on Zeus after feeding time had finished.

Rambo checking Zeus out

I headed over to the fenced garden with both of them in tow and I headed through the gate feeling a little concerned that I may not find him. I needn't have worried as he was immediately obvious near the fence where he had dug himself in slightly and then fallen asleep. Rambo doesn't really seem to understand what a tortoise is and he was on the other side of the fence doing his best to get a good sniff while I was inside checking out the situation.

Slightly munched but still OK

My biggest fear, that he would eat my vines, was not fully founded. He definitely did take a bit of a toll on the lower leaves but he hasn't destroyed it and for this I am grateful. It wasn't long after this (no watering first thing today) that it was time to go and collect the men and I was early enough to stop briefly on their hill and do a bit of tidying in Thomas. They were ready but Sally was slow to get moving today however all were in a chirpy mood today and the journey back was good.

Quite a large snail

When we arrived I showed Zeus to Bekir who said he may not be 100 years old, but that they do live to 150. How amazing. As I was walking back to the house I saw a really large snail on the ground and grabbed my camera to get a snap. I didn't save it for lunch but put it on the path outside the fence. My love of animals even extends to these creatures. Once Mahmet was set up on the balcony I picked up Zeus and went and passed him over the fence (Mahment was working on clearing the external access) and he was set down in that field and I have not seen him since.

No delays, straight on with it

The men today were carrying on with removing the rest of the old roof, started a little bit at the end of last week. I made myself breakfast as soon as I got back as I was feeling hungry and then popped up to see what was going on. They were all working away, other than Mahmet who was outside doing the fence again, with Sally removing bricks, Orhan acting as labourer and carrying the spoil to be chucked off the roof, and Bekir ripping timbers down and cutting them with the chainsaw.

The main thing I had set today aside for was Lubo as he was coming to talk about the project, and then we were heading into the Obshtina to pay the fees for the planning permission and, if I could, the annual house tax and also the final fees for Thomas and Lucy. He arrived a little early, as I was just finishing my last bites of breakfast, but that wasn't a problem and we chatted briefly before he had a quick tour of inspection of the roof (pronouncing himself satisfied) and then we jumped into his car to go to the Obshtina. With the roads in the local town being dug up even worse than I have seen before I was taken on a slight detour around a backstreet, past the only Muslim school in Bulgaria, and to a slightly different carpark than I am used to. We were right next to the Obshtina though so that was good.

The first office we went to had one man in who didn't look that old but spoke like an 80 year old and really struggled to get around his office. He gave us some paperwork, and a hand written note describing the fees I needed to pay, and it was down to the cash office to settle up. I did this with ease and then Lubo headed off to try and find the name the school was under in their system but couldn't so I need to go back to pay the house taxes. I didn't have the paperwork for the cars so I ended up only paying for the planning permission. We had to wait a little bit to file the receipt as the lady had gone to the post office but when she got back she greeted Lubo as an old friend and they had a very friendly conversation which is always good to see.

After this I sat outside while Lubo popped back into the main offices on some unrelated errand and I was called by my kmet who I had a slightly stilted conversation (I have to learn the language better) and then we headed back to the car. When we got there someone had parked right across behind his car however they had left some passengers and thus I ended up pushing this car out the way while Lubo steered it, and then when he had moved his car we pushed it again back in where he had parked. This is not something you would ever do in England huh.

Putting some effort into shifting this beam

Lubo dropped me back at home and we parted with a hand shake and a promise that I would email today about the final fee. I went straight to let the boys out and then onto the roof to see what was happening. They had made really good progress and such a chunk of the roof had been gone that I joked that I would like this as a roof terrace as well. I offered them a brew and they accepted so I headed back down with the tray of coffee cups and sorted myself out with a cup of tea at the same time. I then settled myself down to do some paid work and really got into it, making some excellent progress and actually solving a few issues, which made me feel very good.

Still the roof comes down

After lunch (some pork chops fried with some pre packaged spicy mix, cut up and put between slices of bread) I was feeling a bit sleepy but rather than go to have a kip I took my book and sat on the balcony, with my body but not my head in the sun, and read for a bit. This was lovely as it has been a really warm day all day today and Ralf was also with me, sleeping then jumping up to watch Rambo and Mahmet walk past on their way to the fence. After an hour or so, and feeling much more alert, I returned to my desk and checked my emails (there were none, standard) and then popped onto the roof again. Loads more had been done and I offered the men another coffee which they gladly accepted. I also paid Bekir for their time last week.

Bekir, Orhan and Sally

Mahmet and Sally

Bekir

With another short amount of time spent on the balcony, waiting for an answer to an email, I headed up again and here you (as you see above) get a chunk of different pictures all shot around the same time. Mahmet had paused on his task by the fence to come and do some labouring upstairs and it was a good idea. On the front side of the roof Sally was passing things down to both Orhan and Mahmet as I had made it clear that I didn't want anything being thrown over the front of the building. Already there had been one (accidental) loss as a length of pipe had fallen and taken out one of the pepper plants on the front. I have now moved all the plants out of harms way. On the back side of the roof was Bekir and he was able to just lob everything he didn't want keeping (everything, basically) straight off the roof onto the back bank.

Unfortunately these aren't edible

A bit later on I went for a walk to take pictures of all the lovely watermelons that I thought were growing on the front lawn. I documented 11 of them and I have photographs of all of them. I was going to put together a lovely montage of them all and see if you could spot them all. It was only when I asked Bekir when I could eat them that I found that these weren't watermelons at all, but cattle melons. They were not good for eating at all. I am slightly gutted however it is still gratifying to find out that melons will grow so naturally on that front lawn. Now to find out how to differentiate between the cattle ones and the human edible ones.

Progress today

And so it was time to take the men and when I got back I added potatoes to roast in with the pork joint which had been slowly roasting while I was out and then I set to on the blog and fortunately, while it was still light, I remembered to go and take the progress photograph. They have torn down over half of the remaining roof and should get the rest off tomorrow and then the job of putting the concrete around the half wall will start. More cement lifted onto the roof with the rope and pulley, and maybe more of the var (lime) needed too but we shall see.

More huge piles of wood to sort through

All my efforts to clear the back bank of wood have now been set back to square one with the amount of wood that has been thrown off just today. It will take several days of effort just to sort through all the wood that will be there by the time they finish throwing things down and then I think I will have to bring more rooms in the green building into use to store it all I do have many more plans for this wood than before, including laying out paths in the same style as the beds in the fenced garden, so I may just go straight to doing these and not bother storing that wood. I also have to make the humanure more secure (Rambo got in it again today, and got in a lot of trouble), make a compost bin/retaining wall for all the weeds I am digging up, and make the inside fence for the entrance garden. Additional to all this is the furniture ideas that we have had so I think we'll use a lot of it up this year.

Sunset through the trees

When I was outside getting the progress pictures the sun was just starting to go down so I took the opportunity to get a shot of the sunset from a slightly different angle. It was a pretty stunning sunset today but that was all you should expect after another perfect summer day with only a slightly sharp breeze and some towering clouds which never reached us to tell of the storm that was raging on the other side of the mountains. I am obviously in the correct place in the country once again.

Pork roast dinner

Dinner was amazing again though I didn't leave the potatoes in long enough so they were a little not-over-done enough for me. Roast potatoes are the only thing I like over done; everything else I like to be just slightly underdone. The meat was perfect as was the cabbage so I just ate a chunk of potato and something else on the fork and it was gorgeous. It also blasted my energy levels so the last half of this blog has been written using stubbornness alone.

Moon is still gorgeous

I will leave you with this picture of the moon, rising yellow and huge as I type, and looking pretty super again.

Here's to tomorrow.