Wide angle

This Sunday update may not get published until Monday due to me not starting actually typing to quite late, and us having a guest over for Sunday dinner so my time being a little bit more constrained than usual. I'm going to do my best to get it out there though. I'm slightly unsure about how to split it up into sections this time so am going to revert to the more "diary" style of just going chronological. There aren't any rules after all, are there.

Thursday

The light was so clear and bright

Everything glistening in the sun

Balcony after the deluge

Rambo relaxing by the raised beds

Wednesday night was a crazy night for me. I was sleeping quite deeply when the biggest bang shook the whole house; I think it was just thunder but at the time I wasn't so sure and after laying there for a while I actually got up to check out if there was a fire in the village as it could have been a gas explosion. After this when I got back into bed the dripping of the rain coming down the chimney and landing on the petchka pipe disturbed me so much that I ended up going into the guest room. Fortunately A hadn't been woken by the bang and so she was able to sleep through. The morning which greeted us when we got up was an absolutely stunning one; the storm the night before had washed the dust out of the air and it everything was glistening and bright and fresh. It was so bright that I struggled to capture it on my camera, despite fiddling with ISO and exposure lengths.

New lens, much more able to capture the vista

The full view of the living room

A was not feeling all that brilliant all day on Thursday and I managed, somehow, to persuade her to rest for most of it. I spent the day working on my day job as per usual so there isn't really all that much else that went on. I did get to play with my new lens, however, which is a 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM wide angle one and is brilliant. I am not going to go mad with lenses however this has so much value, particularly for the types of pictures I take the most like of a room, or a scenic view.

Brush wood in storage for the winter

Rambo with his wellington boot

Towards the end of the day A was feeling a little better and I was desperate for some fresh air so we decided to get the brush wood from where A had trimmed the oak tree branches and stack it up inside the green building. It did take a while to do this as there was more than I expected but now at least it won't get soaked on the next downpour, which you'll hear about shortly. The puppies were in and out of the green building with me, sniffing everywhere and having a great time. Rambo had found the child's wellington boot that I had stashed for him and was playing with it at the same time. With the job completed, however, it was straight back inside to the warm for us both.

The sun as it sets

Almost a full moon

Night sky

Warm evening in the living room

Our evening was a lovely relaxing one, as they all are at the moment. Having the living room available to us (and I know I keep mentioning this, but it is so true) is such a bonus. We get to relax together, eat our dinner while listening to music on the record player, then settle on the sofa to read, watch films or continue working our way through The Sopranos. We normally draw the curtains when the light drops as they keep the heat in really effectively. Thursday evening was a particularly gorgeous show in the sky, and then the moon was stunning. Sadly none of my pictures have captured what we saw as it was a dim orange moon that was lighting up the clouds around it with a really eerie colour. I just couldn't get the settings right to get both the colour of the moon, and the effect on the clouds. No matter, the pictures are still lovely. And look at how warm and comfortable that room is! We're lucky people.

Friday

Friday morning the rain was back with a vengeance. I have no pictures of our morning as I forgot to take the camera with us but we headed out, with the new wing mirror, and visited the garage. When we got there a police car was parked up in the workshop but they left almost straight away. The puppies had come with us for a ride and had a good time sniffing around, even going into the rain to explore which means my sympathy levels for them when they try and refuse to go out to the toilet when it's raining have dropped to zero. It didn't take long for them to fit the new mirror, though one of the assistants did manage to cut himself on a shard of glass. The bill was a whopping five leva. Amazing. After this A braved the rain to get some supplies, and some more headache tablets from the chemist, and then we made our way home. We had had an epic lie in and so it was already lunch time when we got back.

Tidying the tool room. Honest

Washing my old ties

Mopping the floor

The afternoon we got ourselves back in gear and both stuck into a job. I was doing a pre-job job in that I had another job to do but first I needed to clear up a bit in the tool room. The before and after picture is a bit of a joke as it doesn't look like much really changed but I took two huge boxes of rubbish up to the village bin and sorted things out a lot. I was toying with the idea of moving my tools into the garage area but after some conversation we've agreed to just make this the long term tool room for now. One of the suitcases contained all of my old ties and so I sorted through them and washed the non-silk ones. The silk ones will be done in a delicates wash later on. A was busy as well and she did a really deep clean in Room 13 including mopping the floor with peppermint to try and put off any mice or rats who want to go in there.

Rain bouncing down

The flames hold a secret

It also warms Thelma up

Quietened down with chew toys

The rain had not let up and after finishing our tasks we headed into the living room to have another relaxing evening. The fire was lit and once again it did its job very well. I know that the temperature hasn't dropped that much yet so we've probably got a large shock coming our way but that is the future; for now, before the real freeze, the fire is doing perfectly well at keeping the whole room warm and we are not having to burn that much wood to do so. At one point in the evening I left the room for some reason and when I got back Thelma had dragged her bed so close to the fire it was almost touching! They love it and spend almost all of every evening sleeping in front of it. This evening we decided to get one of the unused hand grenades out for them. By the end of the night the handle had already torn and the cord was frayed. They love it though. We quieted them down with chew toys while we watched a film and then it was time for bed.

Saturday

Low clouds across the valley

The river is very high again

The rain didn't let up and it was still hammering down on Saturday morning. We hadn't been too disturbed by the dripping down the chimney this time but it was still quite annoying . The good thing was we hadn't been forced out of our room by it yet. After a brew we split up as we had different tasks to do first thing before breakfast. I had a shopping list from the hardware store to get so I jumped into Thomas and went into the town. After two days solid rain the river was a raging torrent and town was also quite flooded. The main roundabout had so much water on it the bow wave actually went up and over Thomas' bonnet and a bit further up out of town where some steps come down to the road from a block of flats they were no longer steps but a water fall. Amazing. I drove really carefully the whole way and also dawdled around the shop so it took a little longer than planned but I got everything I needed to complete my jobs.

Chicken house needing a good sweeping out

A getting her sweep on

Puppies in their coats having a sniff around

The pond is rather full

A had gotten herself all wrapped up in multiple waterproof layers, and wellies, and gone out to the chicken house to clean it and sweep it out. It was hammering down by this time and the puppies were hiding in the garage for most of the time; the birds were most put out to have been kicked out of their cover while A was sweeping. She got fresh hay and moved the coop to the other end of the building as there is actually a hole for a petchka which was allowing rain to drip inside. And what rain; the pond was overflowing!

Sleeping by the fire. Again.

A small breakfast

I got home to find A inside with the puppies and the fire on. It was lovely and warm which was great as I'd got soaked just getting out of the car. The girls were proving themselves once again experts at soaking up heat from a fire. For myself I got straight away stuck in to making an epic fry up for our breakfast with bacon, eggs, tomatoes and butter fried mushrooms and a slice of toast. Just what you need on a cold wet day to cheer you up.

Ready to plant the garlic

Thirteen cloves, thirteen holes

Greens growing well

We had planned to plant our garlic on Friday but it totally slipped our minds so with breakfast out the way A pulled a bunch of garlic (just some bought from the shop, but it should be OK) and we headed outside to plant it. The rain had let up by this point which was a relief. There were thirteen cloves in this bunch and it was the task of only a few minutes, using the new dibber that Bekir had made, to push holes for them and drop one in each. These are now under glass and hopefully they will all germinate and grow so we can be a bit self sufficient in garlic next year. The other greens have continued to flourish and we're now convinced we should have another four of these raised beds here. I may make some movable glass cold frames for elsewhere in the garden as well, making use of the old windows, so we can grow into the cold months.

Space made

For these to be moved upstairs

Whisky now hidden back here

After this we again went off to carry out different tasks. I asked A if she could clear out the guest room so we could move the camping gear up into there from the dampness in the tool room. This involved shifting, once again, the boxes of unopened whisky but now it is in a place where it can stay all over winter. I've contacted the company about the stairway hatch and also asked them to quote to make some display shelving for this whisky so if the price is right it can go on display next year.

Power into the garage

I was downstairs in the kitchen and garage fitting the consumer unit and wiring in a plug socket in the kitchen corridor so I could run an extension into the garage to power the chest freezer, and also a plug in roof light to help us see better in there. It didn't take all that long, though I had trouble with the actual socket as it broke on one of the screws so it's only held on with one screw now. I now just need to get into the chicken house and put a light in there and all the power work is done, until the Makita SDS drill comes back from the fixers and then I will try and wire in the garage properly without running extensions around the place.

Erupting clouds above the setting sun

Cloudscape

We were both ready to chill out by this point so once again we were in the living room relaxing. We read for a bit, ate then watched a film and it was another perfect evening. Outside the evening was also glorious. A spotted the clouds from the back windows so I headed onto the balcony and the roof terrace with various lenses to try and capture it as best as I could. The first picture is actually taken with the stock lens and the second is from the balcony with the wide angle. I am enjoying having the flexibility.

Sunday

Today has been an epic day and I'm rushing to include this in the update today as I want you to see what we achieved. The videos below are quite long so I don't know how many of you will watch them all but I think they are worth it. What a day.

She needs to fit this onto the chimney

Climbing up to the ridge

Carefully negotiating to the other roof

She came back for some tools

The hat on the chimney

A was up really early this morning, before the sun came up, as she couldn't get back to sleep after taking the puppies out for their morning toilet and I had a lie in for a bit until she brought me a brew in bed which was just lovely. I got up straight away and we had our brews and then got stuck in to the first awesome task of the day. A was brave enough to say she would walk the roof to get the hat I bought on Saturday onto the chimney above the bedroom to stop the drips from disturbing us. I rigged my camera up on a tripod and we filmed the whole thing, edited down of course now. It actually wasn't too bad and she was very agile up there though I'm glad I couldn't see when she did her little trip walking the ridge! She laughed like a train when she saw it on the video though. Now we're just waiting for the next heavy rainfall to see if this has actually worked.

Dirty great big hole in the roof

You can see right through

New boards all on the roof

Proud roofer with the job complete

Couldn't do it without this one, though

With this job completed we stopped for some breakfast (A cooked scrambled eggs) and then we went out the front for my turn as a roofer. This time I was climbing onto the Green Building roof to put the "mokava" up there, weighted down with paving slabs, to seal the holes in the roof that were allowing water to pour through into the rooms below. The first job was to trim the tea tree back as its branches were causing a lot of the damage. I also swept a huge amount of leafmould off the edge. Next we hauled the large sheets of mokava wood onto the roof and I laid them over the ridge and finally weighed them down along the edges, and on the ridge, with paving slabs. This was quite an energetic task as A had to lift the slabs up to me on the roof and I was always quite nervous moving around on such a rotten base. No matter we succeeded and now the two biggest holes are sealed. There may be others but we weren't going to find them today.

Rambo in the leaves with his boot

And so that ends this update. Our guest has not arrived yet though he is due any moment now so I've managed my target. I'll leave you with a picture of Rambo in the leaves with his boot.

Top dog.