Much scraping

I'm sat in the lounge with my new cushion lap-tray keeping the laptop from overheating my legs and the balcony door propped open to let fresh air blow in. The only sound I can hear is our ducks shouting and yelling that they want feeding, which is actually pretty standard. It's been quite a busy day, actually weekend, and it's nice to sit down and contemplate what we've achieved, which is quite a lot.

Thursday

Of course the last update was written up around lunch time on Thursday however after I published we did do a few things. My migraine continued to annoy me all day and didn't really shift properly until Friday morning. I did work, though, and didn't lose the entire day so it wasn't a total write off.

Rambo in his kennel

Thelma trying to get her stick back

We're still struggling a little bit with Rambo's behaviour when cows are in the lane or whatever; he's getting better and now barks while standing in the middle of the garden, rather than skidding around near the fence jumping around and terrifying them. On Thursday the mobile shop was quite late so A headed over to get our bread, taking the puppies with her, and Rambo stood by the gate howling. This is another bad habit he's got into. I shouted from the window of Room 13 for him to stop and to come in and he walked over and climbed into the kennel, which we've just left to one side; I've not seen him in it before! He did it again when I called him after A got back. A bit later on, to continue the canine theme, Thelma brought one of her sticks inside which is normally against the rules but A played with her with it for a bit before taking her back outside. Thelma likes to get a good grip of the stick and then hang off of it, tugging using her body weight every now and then. She's very tenacious.

My new favourite side; grilled chilies

A's favourite dish; the Lamb in the Oven

My favourite dish; Lamb Kavarma

In the afternoon SandS came past for a short visit which was really nice. We gave them two boxes full of our eggs (as we're so overwhelmed) so I hope they like them. That evening rather than cook we decided to head out to our favourite restaurant for dinner. This was a really good idea, particularly as A drove both ways. I was still pretty much exhausted and wiped out from the migraine and struggled with the rudimentary Bulgarian even to order my food. I decided to go for my favourite dish, which is called Lamb Kavarma and is a fantastic local speciality stew type affair. Very tasty indeed. A once again chose Lamb in the Oven which is just superb as well. We love this restaurant very much, with the excellent service and superb food it's just brilliant, and only a five minute drive away. When we got back I didn't stay up but headed pretty much straight to bed and A came through later having stayed up a bit reading.

Friday

I woke up on Friday feeling a lot better, after a full nights sleep. That was the worst migraine I've had for a long time, in terms of the length of time it continued. I hope I don't get another like it any time soon.

Sassy keeping warm in the cave I made her

An all round miserable start to the day

These needed moving upstairs

So A got on and moved them

It was a pretty grim morning, cold and very overcast, and not very inspiring. When I went to open the curtains when I got up I was most pleased to see that Sassy was inside the hutch I'd made for her last year. She stayed there long enough that I was able to get my camera and get a good picture. I didn't stay outside long, though; it really was cold. I decided, after breakfast, to head into town to do some chores and go shopping for a few supplies for the work bench in the workshop, my task for the day. After spending much more than planned in the builders shop (I misread a label for some brackets and thought they were 8 lev each but they were actually 21 lev each; never mind) I headed into the centre and managed finally, after much amusing interplay from the people behind the counter, to ship the box back as a postage paid return. As I walked back to the car I was really annoyed at myself for not bringing my camera; there was some sort of pageant going on in town with marching bands and a choir. I always tell myself to never be without a camera but sometimes I still forget. When I got home I found that A had been really busy. We are trying to get the kitchen cleared out so we can start to put units together and she had carried all the rolls of insulation up into the roof while I was out. What an effort.

Ready to cut the board in half

Making sure the brackets are perfectly level

Grinding the screw tips off

The finished work bench

My new toy

A planting out brushwood seeds

After I got myself settled from my trip out I went into the workshop to start putting up my workbench. First of all I cut one of the sheets of plywood in half using the circular saw. This was really easy, though I am missing the one saw horse that broke last year; I'll have to pick another one up as I had to shift and juggle three to get this one. Once I had them cut I then carefully put up two of the large shelf brackets, with A's help, perfectly horizontal. After I'd put the third one on the wall A pointed out that I had put them too high so I started again and got them at a better height. The screws I was using were too long for the thickness of board and so they stuck out quite a long way so I got the grinder and cut off all the protruding tips. I hasten to add that, after A had taken this picture. I put some eye protection on. It didn't actually take all that long to get both lengths of plywood mounted and secure, with thick legs in place to keep it really solid. I then put together the band saw that I'd bought which proved to be a bit more difficult than anticipated and by the time I'd done that I was ready to collapse. While I was working on this A was outside planting some of the sagebrush seeds I've bought so we can have these lovely plants surrounding the basketball court. Talking of which at this rate I'll be digging out and doing that job myself; there's still be no communication from the building firm at all about it; I'm losing my patience with the guy.

Saturday

We had a lovely slow start to the day on Saturday which is something we don't do often enough. It's nice to wake up with no alarm, just the light of the day starting to brighten the room (we've got the curtains open all the time now, as I like it) and then to lay there and not rush out of bed. There's so much to be getting on with, though, that it isn't something we can luxuriate in very often.

The stack of plasterboard to be lifted into the roof

Our new fire, closed up

The doors open back very wide

Details inside the hearth

I can summarise Saturday morning in one word; plasterboard. As I've mentioned we're trying to get the kitchen cleared out and the next step in this process was to shift the pile of plasterboard that was next to the reservoirs up into the roof space. We took it easy and just did it in small chunks of effort, taking regular breaks for a drink and to rest our backs. The thing with this place is it is just so big and we had to carry these sheets from the kitchen (at one end of the house) along the corridor then up two flights of stairs and across the roof space into the centre where we were stacking them. It took some time. We did have a longer break in the middle when I headed down to town to pick up some paint and betonkontakt for finishing the ceiling in Sassy's room (more on this later) and also to send some money for a lovely fireplace we spotted for sale on facebook. It's the perfect size and opens out its cast iron doors when in use, while shutting up tightly when not so drafts are excluded. It was quite a lot of fun trying to explain what I needed from the lady at the ekont however we worked it through, with google translate help, and at the end she high fived me; the locals are just amazing and so welcoming it's heartwarming how they react to us.

Safety first as I pull heavy plaster off the ceiling

Lots of rubble on the floor

Half way through scraping the ceiling

With the plasterboard all lifted into the roof I got on with the next job on my list; starting to scrape the ceiling in Sassy's room. I realised the other day that my order of work was wrong for finishing this room and before I put down my linoleum I need to have the ceiling finished. Here I had two choices; I could put a suspended ceiling in or I could scrape, plaster where the old plaster had fallen down from dampness, and then paint it. I chose to do the latter and so I got on the scaffold, put my hard hat on, and began to pull down the loose plaster. There wasn't all that much so then I took the hard hat off and carried on with the scraper, removing all the loose paint and dust so I can apply a new coat more easily. By the end of the day I had done about half of the ceiling which was good. I swept it all up and took some buckets out to put in the village rubbish bin however Usmivka came dashing out and told me to put it on the side-path, which is getting a bit muddy. I shrugged and did as he said.

Parents' hotel hidden in low cloud

It was quite early when I finished that job but I took A's advice to rest and I'm glad I did so now. I chilled out on the sofa for a bit and then it was dinner time and we had a lovely stew that she had had going in the slow cooker all day. The weather, which had been pretty rubbish all day, had got worse and worse and by this point it was raining quite hard. We had a bit of water coming in by the back door but fortunately nothing came into the bedroom this time. We watched a film and then headed to bed.

Sunday

I woke up this morning to find that A wasn't there; she'd woken up in the early hours and could not get back to sleep. This is normally my trick but today it was hers. I didn't hear her get up or light the fire in the living room which is pretty amazing as it's right next door.

Pre dawn the sun makes itself known

It's still not up, but getting closer

This stream is normally dry

The sun comes up, and I'm not the only one watching

Banana tree leaf looking good

It was a lovely morning and I was out onto the balcony to take pictures a couple of times as the sun came up. A had gone to bed when I got up (she'd been worried about disturbing me by coming in earlier) so I was trying to be as quiet as I could. I did a fair few chores, however, before waking up at the time she requested. I cleaned out Sassy, beat the rugs and hung them over the balcony wall, did the humanure and kitchen waste, washed up, put a load of washing on and got it hung out to dry outside. I also made myself some bacon and eggs and then, when she got up, made her some also. I didn't do as much tidying today as normal as I hadn't wanted to wake her but there isn't much dust around on the corridors anyway.

Reservoirs now in the garage

Drinking my  brew on the balcony

After getting our breakfast down us we went to do the next stage of clearing the kitchen. This involved getting the reservoirs out of the way and we'd chosen to put them into the garage so they are still under cover. This does mean that Thomas no longer fits in there. It's times like these that you are very happy you put double doors everywhere so it's easy to move things around and we managed to shift all three of them into the garage without much trouble. It really was a lovely morning and so we took our brews onto the balcony to drink them. The sun was very warm, though the air temperature never really got above 7 degrees all day.

Dirty grout and decorative tiles

Sunday is our cleaning day and A had been looking forward to it all week as she'd bought herself a new steam mop thing to help clean the bathroom tiles. It came with a grout cleaning tool and so once she was awake enough she plugged it all in (I'd swapped the plug to a European one the day before) and had a go. It worked quite well and she was able to finally clean the grout (and those very nice looking, but difficult to clean, decorative tiles) to her satisfaction. She also used it to clean Room 13 and the living room and it's made a big difference; the result it has given is excellent and it's much quicker to use than the manual mop.

Scraped and dusty hands

Silver hair is a sign of wisdom, right?

Just before my shower

The room, ready for betonkontakt and plastering

For my part I was now up the scaffold again scraping away at the ceiling in Sassy's room, and beginning to wish I'd made the other choice and gone for a suspended ceiling. It seemed to be taking a lot longer today but that was because the first section I had to scrape was actually not that damaged and it was quite hard to get the paint to come loose. The rest of it was much easier and eventually I had completed the job, though the last bit was done with the scaffold on the platform with a chunk of wood under one of the outriggers; precarious. I swept up four buckets full of dust and poured it out (as instructed) all over the side path then went inside to have an long and luxurious shower as I was absolutely caked in dust. The Little Lady had come over while I was emptying the dust with two trees that she said had lovely flowers so while I was showering A planted these out, and repotted the orchid I had bought her earlier in the week. I haven't got pictures of either of these things; I'll try and get them for the next update.

And so this update comes to an end. I have actually taken a few pictures while I've been writing but I'll leave them for the next one as well. Dinner is shortly to arrive in the front room, the fire is burning away really nicely with two puppies fast asleep in their bed in front of it. I'll not be far behind them I don't think