Finally slowing down

Finally the weather has changed and it has started to get a bit colder here which has meant that at least the first half of this week has been far less busy than previous ones. I've still be outside shoveling stones when I could, and have actually completed that task now so I'll be onto shoveling soil next, but today for example I didn't even go outside until about 3pm. So lazy, but also much needed. We have both been exhausted.

This update is not going to be structured at all, and hopefully will be quite short. So let's begin with a little vignette of Bulgaria, and no photograph to accompany it. On Monday we were sat working when Rambo started barking. I checked out the window and sure enough he was acting as our door bell and the Little Lady was stood at the gate. She told me that the kmet wanted to see me in town, by the post office, at 1pm so both A and I jumped into Thomas and headed down the hill. The sun was out and was actually quite warm so it wasn't unpleasant to be stood outside the post office but by half past one, and with no sign of him, we were both getting a little restless.

I had rung him and text him a couple of times but there was no sign of him so we popped into the kebab shop and had our lunch which was lovely as always. After this it was back to waiting and I rang him again and this time managed to persuade him to come out of his office. He came down, said "you have post you need to pay a tax on" and pointed me to the post office then rushed off on an errand. It was quite frustrating, having been in town nearly an hour, as I very nearly had just gone in anyway while I was waiting but convinced myself it would be something else as he had specifically asked to meet me. No matter very shortly afterwards I was carrying a stack of mail to the car, having not paid tax but just had a signature to give, and we were heading back. I love this country but their time keeping does leave something to be desired.

Very nearly freezing, but not quite

The mist stayed til mid afternoon

A making breakfast - bubble and squeak

Monday morning had certainly not dawned warm; by the time I got onto the balcony the thermometer was above freezing but only just and A said that when she went out an hour before it was definitely below freezing. We went into Room 13 and closed the curtains then lit the fire and were toasty warm very quickly indeed. Breakfast was bubble and squeak from the leftovers of our awesome roast dinner on Sunday and it was so tasty - we'll definitely have to do that again.

A pile of tomatoes to process

The tomato puree maker

All of this week has been taken up with us sat at our desks doing our paid work but during the day Monday we slowly carried out the tasks to make some homemade ragu for the freezer. I had bought a fancy tomato pureeing machine from facebook and wanted to give it a go so A had bought several kilograms of tomatoes for me. I blanched a few and then put them through the machine and it worked very well, though discarded a little bit too much pulp for what we were trying for. I think you'd want to chop the tomatoes a bit as well before putting them in as a whole tomato was quite hard to force into the gap. After doing two or three of the fruits I decided to just blanch and skin them by hand and this worked well. By the end of the day, just before we headed out for our meal out, we had a gorgeous smelling sauce cooling in the pan ready for freezing. Next year I'm going to grow huge amounts of tomatoes and make puree as well as more ragu.

Photobombing the food photograph

Lovely tasty pizza for me

I took A out for a meal Monday night to complete the day and, as per usual, it was a really enjoyable time with great food. The only negative was the kids play area being back set up and some kids who did screech a bit. Anyway, the music was good, we got great service as always, and the bill was minimal. We didn't stay out as long as we'd planned originally, mainly because of the children, and when we got back there wasn't really any point in lighting the fire in the living room so we lit one in the bedroom and sat on the sofa, wrapped in duvets, to watch Sopranos. This was very cosy and if the temperature does plummet we can do this again if the fire doesn't heat sufficiently.

Trimming the tree down

Before I get into the raft of photographs showing off the displays that nature has put on for us so far this week let's do the only other bit of physical work I've done this week. I had a snooze at lunch time today and when I woke up I could not shift that sleepy feeling so eventually I went outside and cut down the broken branches on the tree where I eventually want the driveway onto the top bank to go. While I was doing this I reminded myself that there are some really solid foundations overgrown by brambles back there. We're struggling a bit to work out where Rambo's long term house can be and maybe we could build something there? Anyway, that's for way in the future. I think, with all the tasks I have on my list (shoveling soil, doing the insulation in the roof, sorting the model railway, clearing the tool room, sealing the rat rooms) I will just leave clearing a drive until next year when the bagga machine can do it in about ten minutes.

Nature showing off

And so, to the sky-porn...

Interesting clouds early in the sunset

The haze is wood smoke, not mist

Suddenly the sky is on fire

Sky darkening, but the colours remain

I am not sure if it will ever be possible to get bored of these views but I do know that I'm not even close right now. The first set of pictures are from the sunset on Monday, before we headed out for our meal. I rushed from balcony to roof terrace and back, with both stock lens and wide angle, to capture this spectacle as it evolved before my eyes. It changes so fast that you really do have to run sometimes if you are caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The sun is below the horizon still

Lovely colours on cloud and mist

No sun still, in the valley

The mist clings in the dips and dells

The next set were Tuesday morning as I woke up well before the alarm and couldn't get back to sleep then noticed the rosy glow around the edges of the curtains so got up and was so pleased to be awake (having been annoyed two seconds before that I wasn't able to drop off again). Stunning and again so fleeting. I opened the curtains in Room 13 to watch while I was working and about fifteen minutes after these pictures were taken the sun had disappeared behind the clouds and the colours were no more.

So there you are; a nice short one for me to type, and you to read. Thank you very much for coming to my little blog and giving it a look; it does mean a lot to me and I also appreciate the comments and emails. Until next time.