So tired, and farewell

I am so tired as I type this; it has been a super energetic day along with a fair amount of paid work and rushing around and frankly I'm looking forward to snoozing on the bus tomorrow for a few hours. The time being back has flown so fast, though obviously we didn't get here until a few days after our planned arrival so that has had an impact, and I can't quite believe that tomorrow morning I will be jumping on the bus up to Sofia to get a flight back to the UK. Sad times. Oh well, I'll be back soon. From tomorrow your daily blog with be supplied by A so enjoy that.

Lucy has appeared from the snow; time to move her

Once again it wasn't all that cold last night and we both slept well though I woke up for the toilet just before that 7am alarm which A had set and I am pretty sure both of us were up and out of bed before it went off. A had some work she had to do first thing so she was straight on with that while I brewed up and made myself some breakfast. I didn't have bacon today but put some of my plum jam on toast. Once I had fuelled myself up, and done all the paid work I could achieve before my UK based colleagues appeared, I went out to start the process of trying to get Lucy back useful again. The snow has been melting in places quite fast and fortunately this is true for around Lucy. There were a lot of branches draped over her, or nearly falling on her, which I removed before making the first move.

The video above is long but it covers the whole process including a section of me shoveling the snow which is sped up and quite amusing. The whole process took in the region of two hours to complete as I shifted snow from a section, moved her down, then worked out the next bit. The little white Polo was moved by my neighbour which helped a lot and by the time we were on tarmac the celebrations you hear were heartfelt as it had been quite a difficult task and I was pooped. It was that good tired feeling though, where you know you've achieved something worthwhile.

We left Lucy parked by the water point in the village and walked back to the school to finish off some work before we headed out to do our chores. Getting her on the road has simplified things so much not least for the planning for my getting a bus in the morning. The first thing we did was to go past the bus station but we were told I should just but the ticket from the driver so that was easy enough. Then it was to a petrol station for fuel and to by a vignetka for the year; 67 lev all in and that is my road tax covered. We then headed towards the main town and as we were going my phone went and it was S and S who happened to be right behind us! What a small place this is sometimes. We agreed to meet for coffee after our chores were completed and they overtook .

Our first stop in town was to the hardware store where we looked at the petchkas and after a little while decided to just get another exactly the same as in Room 13 as all the other ones, nice as they were, were just too heavy for Lucy and then to be carried from where she would have to be left in the village. We picked up a load of flue piping, a radiator attachment, and a tray to sit it on and then waited while the workers brought it out to the car. I had started to really need the toilet by this time but the cafe was out of service as there was no water running. We dashed round the corner to Kaufland, I actually abandoned Lucy for A to park as I ran to the toilets.... only to find that they were locked there as well. By this time I was seriously desperate so we did a quick dash for heavy stuff like dog food and beer and were back on the road, me cursing as other drivers were slow, until I could find a place to pull over and dash into the bushes. What a relief!

When we parked up Usmivka and the Little Lady appeared and they helped us to carry everything back to the house then invited us for coffee. They really are the most welcoming and helpful of people. We had some lunch (I ate the last of the rice from yesterday and then a butty) then went over to the neighbours for turkish coffee and an egg tart type thing. As we left I got a hug and kiss from both and they invited A to go over tomorrow as well.

I take back my accusations; no one stole the grate

There was no change with my work situation when I got back upstairs so we decided to do the humanure before it got too late. A will have to deal with this on her own so she wanted to see what I did. First of all I started raking over what is there and it has rotted down almost completely; I reckon if we hadn't had to put new on top of it now this would have been done by the end of this year but never mind. As I was raking I suddenly realised that the metal grate on top hadn't been stolen, it had merely fallen in and then slowly settled until it was buried under about 6" of compost. I excavated it and knocked as much compost off as I could, then left it in the snow to rinse.

A good covering of hay to keep the smell down

It didn't take long from then to empty the buckets, cover it all in fresh hay (all of the hay left previously had rotted down, as it is supposed to) and make it all good for A to make use of probably some time next week. I couldn't find the three pronged hay fork anywhere but my mind is niggling that it broke last year; I'll have to look back through the blogs. It does make me feel a little funny that A has to do this as it breaks the rules of humanure but she says she is happy so I'll just have to not over worry.

Bedroom petchka

The last task I set myself was to set up the petchka in its place in the bedroom and this turned out to be quite a challenge. The difficulty was the design of the vent by the chimney. In the one in Room 13 this is purely internal however this new petchka had a clever handle which would allow you to open and close it while the fire is burning which was all well and good except the metal inside was positioned in such a way that you could not fit everything together. Out came the snips and some pliers and after much struggling, and a bit of blood, I got it all fitted together. I then put the flue pipes up and I found that if we positioned the petchka where we wanted to there was no way we'd get the pipes into the chimney. We needed one more right angle section to achieve this. As I type this A has dashed back to town to pick one up, and also a little two hob and electric oven cooker we saw, which will do us fine until someone can maybe fix the main cooker.

A visitor looking in

I had to put Rambo in his enclosure when A went as he was at the side gate looking to chase after her and then while I was typing this I could hear lots of barking so I looked out and saw a new face stood just outside the side gate looking around. This reminds me that while we were moving Lucy there was the tiniest and cutest little puppy running around that must belong to the farm as it ran away from them like crazy; A was almost able to get it to come to her but then the men arrived and it scooted away. Poor little mite.

View from Room 13

I'm going to leave you with a picture taken out of the side window of Room 13 just now, what a lovely winter view that is. A should be back soon with the new fittings for the petchka and then we'll be washing up and heading down to the restaurant on the river for our dinner. I don't know if I'll be posting those pics on this blog or whether I should leave that for her update tomorrow? I suppose by the time this is published that will have become clear. I have real work to do now though.

Just a little bit of snow for Julian

S of S and S has just sent me this picture of Julian in the depths of the snow they had. I hope he is OK; it will now not be until I return that he is collected from their house.