Making the most of it

After the news last week that I will be having to go to Belgium for three months for work, leaving this paradise, and A, for all that length of time, we've both been quite sad and I've felt myself frowning more often than usual. There is nothing to be done for it though so we've decided that this week we should make the most of the time we have, A managed to book the week off work as well which is great, and we're trying to cram things in before the weekend.

Monday

The best thing about Sunday night was the lack of loud music from the nightclub. What a relief, and we had a great nights sleep because of it. If only that could be stopped for good! My complaints have mounted up at the Obshtina so maybe they are paying attention finally.

A getting stuck in to loading a wheelbarrow with stones

Spreading out the final load of stones

Proudly standing by the finished path

The entire path, as it is right now.

Rambo looking stupid, as always

Thelma with her ball

We were up and about relatively early, with the sunrise, and had or brews then went outside to finish off the path. Once again A helped by filling up wheel barrows with stones which made the whole thing super quick. I just had to wheel them over to the path, tip them up, and spread them roughly flat. We completed the whole thing before 8.30 in the morning; excellent. With that job completed we made more brews and sat on the chairs on the patio outside the kitchen and relaxed with the puppies around us. Rambo is slowly, finally, stopping being quite so annoying and sat down with us without any real problems. Thelma had her ball and was happily chasing it. A nice way to relax, and a lovely place to sit.

Thelma checking out my power tool

Cutting down for the raised bed

After a rest I got stuck in to the next task, cutting wood for the raised bed, while A was pottering around in the kitchen and being distracted by me needing an assist with each plank as they are super heavy, being 1cm thicker than the previous batch. Thelma came in to see what I was doing and gave the saw a good sniff but I got her out of harms way before starting up. I had to cut up eight lengths of wood in total for the one raised bed and even after they were trimmed the long lengths were only just movable by myself on my own.

What I found - two snakes, trapped - one dead, sadly

The surviving snake watching me

Trying to control the snake while I cut the netting

Snake freed and in a box for release

Mating butterflies on a rock in the sun

More plums ready for harvest

We had to head out to the bank again to finish off sorting out my internet banking access however SandS had been supposed to borrow our tarpaulins on Sunday night but had forgotten to pick them up. Just before we were going to head out I went into the gardening room to grab them as they were going to drop past and we may not be in when they arrived. Thelma came with me and was growling and acting very strange and then I noticed a scrap of shed snake skin on the floor before looking further up the room and seeing two snakes coiled up together near the storage rack! I shouted for A to get the camera and went to see what was happening and found that they had managed to get totally entangled in the bird netting and one of them was dead, while the other was in a pretty bad way with being cut by the netting, and couldn't move at all. I got scissors, heavy gloves, and a thing to hold the snake's head away from me, as it was striking, and snipped away until it was free. It did make a dash for freedom then but I grabbed it and threw it into a box and put the lid on. It was about a metre long, maybe even longer, and was not happy. We had a chat and then took it past the new neighbours to show them and they said it was a rat snake and not poisonous. No matter, we carried it up onto the top bank and released it into the woodland down there where, after a bit of a pause, it finally slid off into the undergrowth. We couldn't get all of the netting off of it sadly - I hope it survives. There was other evidence of just how fruitful this area is with a couple of butterflies mating on a rock and then as we walked down the long way past the farm we saw one of our plum trees was full of ripe fruit so I harvested all of these before going back inside.

Favourite meal for me this evening

After that excitement we didn't head straight off but had a quick shower each and then the new neighbour finally came over, with the Special One, to have a look around and have a coffee. He was very impressed with what we have done, and was telling us about his time when he was at school here, for eight years. It's so lovely to show people around who knew this building as a working school. When they headed off we went into town and got everything done quite efficiently. We got home and found that SandS had still not been past. We sat and chilled out and read before dinner and later on they did arrive, heard the story about the snakes, took the tarpaulins, and headed off. I got to chose dinner for the evening and so, of course, I picked one of my favourite meals which is bangers, mash and gravy. Very tasty. After this we settled in for the evening and read sat on or comfortable chairs in the corner of the kitchen, me on my lazy boy and A on her rocking chair. What a relaxing evening it was.

Tuesday

It was another good nights sleep for both of us and another lie in that resulted in an early start, as we've been avoiding the alarm and just getting up when we are ready.

Before and after clearing the first part of the field

A hefting a large pile of hay

A tortoise we found underneath the spread out hay

Struggling not to drop it

Job done, stood next to the second pile of hay

While we are definitely taking it easy this week there are a few tasks that we have to complete before I leave. One of these was collecting together all the hay that had been cut on the front land and was now perfectly dry and ready for storing. We'd picked up some new hay forks, one each, and so got stuck in together pulling the dry material into big stacks near the windows we would use to load into the store rooms. I had suggested that we take two days to collect it all however A was keen to finish and this was a good call. Just as we got to the end of the task I unearthed a quite large tortoise that had been sheltering underneath the hay. A distracted the puppies while I carried it off and let it free in the rough ground next to the vehicle gate. There was some quantity of hay this year; we may go to only collecting hay every other year, if this turns out to be enough for two years.

A school of crows, if that's the correct term?

It's a glow worm, glowing!

We shone a torch so we could see what it looks like

Each glow worm had a spider near it; the parent maybe?

With the hay done we both decided that enough was enough and a full day off was required. We did pop out to town at lunch time to get me another mobile phone to take to Belgium (and have a kebab at our favourite place) but other than that it was relaxing, reading, chilling and just enjoying our time off for the entire rest of the day. On the way to town we saw a big group of crows circling over the back bank and I hope that wasn't the snake having died but maybe it didn't survive. After dinner, the really tasty chicken and rice dish that A learned from the neighbours, we took our brews outside to sit on the chairs on the patio. It was just magical to sit there, even though we couldn't see what was probably a stunning sunset, as it reminded me of the first couple of weeks when I was here staying in Julian and sitting on this patio every day. We're so lucky with the number of awesome places we have to sit and enjoy the estate; this time next year we may have the patio tidied up a bit more and it'll be even nicer. Lovely. When we went to bed the puppies were both very unsettled so I headed out to shut the chickens away and as I was trying to find the puppies again (they'd disappeared off somewhere) I noticed lots of little glow worms along the edge of the concrete path. I called A down and we spent some time watching them before heading to bed. Fascinating.

Wednesday

There was no way I was doing this blog update on Tuesday night so here you are with a rare midweek three day update.

Clouds across the valley first thing in the morning

Looks like a drifting rain shower over there

Parents' hotel out of sight

Thelma and Louise get a fight going

Kung fu kick to the jaw from Louise

Thelma dragging Louise by the neck

Cuddling while they fight

Just love the expression on Thelma's face here

Louise is so flexible and athletic

Louise gets Thelma pinned

Once again we slept really well and woke up thinking we'd had a lie in, this time to a slightly cloudy ridge which hid the sun for a while. It actually looked like it was raining across the valley. We took our brews out onto the balcony to drink them and it was a pleasure to be able to watch Thelma and Louise having an extended play fight both inside and on the balcony. I was only looking through a "flash back" link via facebook to a post from a year ago where they were doing this and we were talking about how they haven't fought properly since, what with the problem Louise had with her eyes and other illnesses.

A begins the task of passing the hay into the green building

Me right on top of the hay pile inside

The first load of hay in, filled past the window even

I was looking at those showers across the valley and so as soon as we'd done our first brew we headed outside to the hay to get it under cover, just in case the rain did come to our village. First of all I found I had to lift a load of rough wood out of the hay storage room where it had been put over the year but when the room was clear A started passing the hay up and I took it and stacked it, every now and then climbing on top to press it all down. We cleared the pile inside in about 45 minutes but it was not a pleasant task and we were both hot and sticky when we got inside. I immediately got some bacon sizzling in the pan for breakfast and then went for a quick rinse while it was cooking. The butties we had for breakfast were just perfect for getting over the efforts of the morning.

Ready to process this small haul of plums

Fifteen minutes of chopping

We think these have been harvested too early

A shallow trench prepared for the raised bed

The square levels assembled in place

Ready to be filled with soil

A harvesting tomatoes and tidying them up

After breakfast I spent a little bit of time processing the plums we had collected on Monday and then I left the kitchen to A who was going to try and make a rhubarb and plum crumble. Unfortunately after a little bit of time she found that the rhubarb isn't ready yet, which is a shame, so we've just got a plum crumble for this evening. Lovely anyway. While A was in doing this I was outside getting the new raised bed assembled. I scraped out the rough shape with a shovel and then built the frame up in place, rather than how we did it before where we built each level inside and carried them out already made. I think this new way works better though and it didn't take me long at all to get the whole thing done. A helped me when I cut down the angles for the top level and then headed outside with me to harvest some more tomatoes and tie up the plants a bit better. Since then not much has happened; A had a nice rest and while she was dozing Bekir came over to see what we needed doing. Unfortunately I gave him bad instructions and A made some excellent suggestions about priorities when she woke up and heard what I'd suggested. Oh well, Bekir and Sally are both here tomorrow and we can give them the new instructions then.

Right we're out for dinner tonight so I'm going to get this out there and I'll be back again some time later in the week.