A welcome visit

It's strange to have not updated this for ages but not much has really been happening. I'm sure that A will do an update about her adventures when she arrives home and she is on her way, kind of, as I'm typing this up now. Anyway I've got a few pictures to go through and it is worth doing an update so here goes. I'll try and keep it short.

Pasta with meatballs - very nice indeed

A lamb steak, for a change

Can't beat a proper Sunday roast

I'll get the boring pictures of food out of the way first. It's about the best part of being here, being able to get good steaks. I've not only been eating steaks though. There's some awesome meatballs sold at Carrefour that make up into a tasty pasta sauce. It gets a bit much after a while though so now I split the meal in two; it's helping me to lose weight.

Modeling

What has taken up most of my time recently while I've not been working has been my modeling - I'm keen to not waste the time I have here, and I do have a bit of time every evening, so as well as learning Bulgarian via this excellent website I decided to do a bit of modeling. At first I was going to buy a kit but then I had a better idea; why not just play around with various techniques and make things that I won't then want to try and transport back to Bulgaria on an airplane.

Attempting to split a toothpick with a craft knife

Carefully measured and half cut for the legs

The fence starts to take shape - a bit blobby glue though

Making a tea-based staining agent

One of the fences getting soaked in stain

My first attempt involved a rather funky craft knife that actually slips over your finger so you have a lot of control and it doesn't slip as easily. I'd spotted a very low fence on the ride to work (no 'prototype' picture for you unfortunately as I'm always going fast when I go past it) that I thought would be easy to model with a split a toothpick for the top rail, and cut another toothpick into sections for the legs. It turns out that splitting a toothpick is quite fiddly but it isn't that hard, though it took a couple of attempts to end up with something where I could use both halves. It was then quite fiddly (the picture is of my first attempt where I didn't have tweezers) to fit the legs but I think I did OK. After this success I popped out and got tweezers and made another couple which worked better. Then I decided to try another idea, a way of staining that didn't need me to find India Ink. I made a strong brew in a jar, let it cool, then soaked the little fences in this. It worked, and would have done more staining if I'd left it longer but I'm just experimenting. I'll be making quite a lot of these things I think - they're actually really quick and look great.

I bet you think "ah a temporary spray booth" when you see this...

But now it is one...

I just can't help myself saving things

It's coloured up quite nicely I think

My second smart idea was inspired by some videos I've been watching of superb modelers on youTube. One thing I am determined to learn eventually is how to use a modeling spray gun however even before then a lot of painting can be done with spray paints. To do this effectively it's a good idea to have a backdrop which stops you spraying paint all over the nice front room of the house you're temporarily living in. I came up with the idea when I was stood looking at the pizza box I still hadn't managed to throw out so I lined it with greaseproof paper and stuck that down with a lot of spray glue and let it to dry. Then I took some tea leaves I've been saving and tested another smart idea; to colour them green so I can use them for scatter. The first attempt at the spray booth was about 50/50 as a success - I think I know what I'd do next time, and the tea leaves coloured fine except it's probably not really worth it as scatter is very cheap. Anyway, it was a good experiment and I think with a few refinements using an old pizza box as a temporary spray booth is a good idea, particularly if you are traveling and still want to get stuff done.

An innocent looking hanging basket liner

Slicing a section out with my super sharp scissors

Then cutting this up into strips

Then each strip into squares

Each square is pulled into a loose circle

And my first tree

Four trees hanging up to dry

Those scissors are VERY sharp!

The final experiment I cannot claim as my own inspiration; I followed a fantastic how-to video on youTube and I must admit I was rather surprised at how well they turned out. Of course I've not completely finished them as I don't have all the materials here to hand but I now know I can turn these out rather quickly and that they look good enough for me ot be very proud of myself. You can follow the video I've linked to above but basically you get coconut matting, cut it into different size squares, tease it out into looser circles then glue it onto a bamboo BBQ skewer before spray painting the lot brown. The next steps involve magic with balsa wood, and some green scatter (see my attempt to make this with tea leaves). I've actually sent these first four attempts back to Bulgaria with A as they came out so much better than expected. I've also had a few more ideas following up on these techniques which I will be trying out over the next few weeks.

She visited

The most important thing that's happened since the last update is A came past here for a short visit on her way back to Bulgaria. It was so lovely, and way too short, but at least it was possible.

The first beer pour is the most important

Burger time, Thomas Crown style

She arrived early evening on Wednesday and I was sat at my table trying to learn Bulgarian and jumping at every sound as I was so wired looking forward to seeing her. Eventually I gave up and went outside with my cup of tea and a book and sat in the sun to wait. It was so hot I was cooking and then suddenly there she was, in Pat (her Clio - geddit?) pulling into the driveway and waving. Woop, indeed! We had a lovely relaxing evening mostly, I cooked us some Irish steaks which were perfect, and also we quickly repacked the car to give a bit more visibility out the side windows and to fit in the stuff I wanted her to take back for me. The next day she dropped me at work and then spent the day relaxing which was really good with the long drive coming up. After work she met me at my office and we spent a really lovely late afternoon and early evening in Mechelen town walking around, looking at the sites, having a couple of beers and finally eating burgers in the bar I've been in a few times. We found a whisky shop (dangerous for me) and a cheese shop (dangerous for her) and I am under instructions to bring some of those awesome cheeses back for her when I go home in a few weeks for a short break. Too soon it was Friday morning and we were up and getting her ready to get on the road. We left here at the same time and she drove along next to me as I cycled, shouting encouragement (maybe) before driving towards one of the most beautiful sunrises I've seen here but I didn't have a camera which was such a shame. It was a poignant moment and I felt very sad to see her disappear up the road.

Not to steal her thunder as I'm sure when she's back she'll put in a blog about her journey, she had an interesting to start to it and found herself in a layby called Schwarze Föhre (which didn't even have a toilet block but has a name!) with Pat being a bit poorly as a belt had gone. Thankfully as I type this she is back on the road, after more than 18 hours delay while a mechanic fixed the problem.

Final few days

It is coming up to the end of my stay here in this cottage in the grounds of a chateaux (not a castle; that's just a translation issue). I've enjoyed staying here a lot, the cycle ride to work has really reduced my belly (but there's more to go there yet) and now the people who own the place have come back from their holiday I've met them and found they are really lovely people. I'm sure my next place will be just as awesome though.

Maybe that's what Jimi Hendrix was talking about

Tea tree leaves tossed by the wind

The drip watering thing - very clever

A real man's toy

Mainly the weather has been rather beautiful for the past couple of weeks and it's actually been quite hard to sleep at times with no air movement at all and the temperature still about 25 degrees at 10pm inside. There's been some moment when it has changed rather rapidly though. There's been some rain and some amazing skies and also one semi-tornado that whipped through, blew loads of leaves around and inside, then calmed again within about half an hour. On one of my trips to the hardware shop looking for modeling things I spotted a cool little device to water plants from a normal water bottle and picked it up. I may get a few more but A has it to check out more at home and see how it copes in the hot sun. It did OK watering the weeds in the rose bed by the front of the building when I tested it. A tool I'd very much like to have, but can't, is the tractor powered grass mower. This is the owner and he was grinning and having a lot of fun as he spun this around and cut the grass.

A beautiful moth that flew inside

Such a hairy body and legs

Just like a work of art

I've still not eaten him

There's lots of creatures flying around here, most of them undesirable like mosquitoes and flies, but one beautiful moth flew in and couldn't work out how to get back out the doors one inch below it. Before I helped it to escape I took a bunch of pictures as it was just lovely. Less lovely, but not less apparent, is the cockerel who is still shouting around the place and waking me up. Bless it.

So there you have it. My plans for the weekend were to do overtime however these have fallen at the first hurdle as my account is not set up to log in remotely. Which is massively frustrating. The sun is out, though, so I'm probably going to go and read outside for a bit and make the most of it; all the reports say that the rain is due back on Monday. Hopefully so is A and the next update will be from her back home telling us all about her boring and easy journey home.