Back at it again

I've been home a week now and so I think it's time to get another update out there as we have done a fair few bits and pieces around the place. I'll try and keep this brief, however; I have delayed and delayed writing this update as I haven't had the motivation and today I also lack the motivation but am doing it anyway.

A sweeping the water off the roof terrace

Water gushes out of the storage overflow

Hard at work digging out the overgrowth in the garden

A rough path is laid

Thelma checking out what she can see

Back with my favourite person at my favourite restaurant

A pizza for my dinner

As I said in the last update it was absolutely howling down with rain when I got back on the Tuesday and the balcony drainage had plugged up with debris which turned it into a bit of a swimming pool. This was almost by design as we had the leaf catchers in place to prevent that stuff getting into our water storage but we didn't want it to block so quickly. I cleared them out and it drained fast but it was only later, when A went up to the roof terrace to check out my progress in the garden, that we remembered about up there; she said the water was so deep it was actually starting to seep into the roof space. It did drain very fast and now we know to keep checking up there. The work I was doing was digging out and weeding the path in the garden, and putting concrete slabs down to make a path. I got about half way before calling it a day as I was pretty tired by then. The night we took ourselves out for dinner at our favourite restaurant and found that the menu had been reduced quite dramatically. I still had a pizza, as planned, just not the one I wanted. It was really lovely to be back home I can tell you!

A lovely morning greets us

Support for a tree

This lizard is growing a new tail

The next day dawned bright and sunny, but I was pretty battered after my digging of the day before. I pottered around all morning and actually achieved quite a lot with the humanure and watering and giving Sassy a really good clean out; she needed it and the clogging of the drains made us discuss moving her into the garden. This has been decided against after much thought. A was really busy too, when she could get away from her computer, and she sorted out the bolted lettuce and tied up the orchard trees amongst other things. We also found a lizard that had been hiding in the lettuce with only the stub of a tail. This was put safely into some rocks and we're wondering if the puppies or the chickens took its tail.

Light cloud did not reduce the temperature by much

Settled on the balcony with a book

First ice cream of the year

Louise JUST stealing the lump of ice cream

I have very few pictures from Friday, and none during the day, so it's hard for me to remember what went on. I know A did her usual weekly shop while I did some development work for the company I'm helping out at the moment.I cannot remember much else that went on however I can tell you it was another lovely warm day that ended up with us on the balcony reading and eating the first ice cream of the year. Both the puppies were involved at the end, getting a taste from one of the sticks where some was left over; they love their human food.

The poppies are starting to pop up

A holding a beam where I initially planned the roof to go up to

A well deserved cuppa and cuddle from the puppies

A fighting that nasty chicken wire stuff

Trimming one of the cross pieces to size

Complete, even with a hinged door

Taking a well deserved rest on the balcony with a beer

Wonderful burgers and amazing BBQ sauce

On Saturday we spent the day working together on things, which was lovely. The main task was to make an enclosure for the baby chicks that we are expecting any time now (as I type this). We'd picked up a load of pallets from our local builders yard (and they refused to charge us!) and my initial idea was a pitched roof tied in to the chicken house however A persuaded me to do a flat roof which has worked fine, and ended up being quite hard enough to do thank you very much. I headed out to get the chicken wire to secure it all while A took a well deserved cuddle with the puppies and then we were back to it and managed to get it all completed by early afternoon. Both of us were pretty tired and so we spent the rest of the day relaxing on the balcony again. It was so lovely we had a BBQ, with superb homemade burgers by A, and BBQ sauce from my friend from the whisky festival. Sadly we are starting to run out of this amazing sauce so I hope to get more this year even though I won't be at the festival sadly.

The cloud starts to build on the horizon

Sun behind cloud shoots out ray of light

A very dark cloud, just to tip illuminated

While we were sat outside after eating a light aircraft flew over head; it then circled and flew over us again, waggling its wings to say hello. You don't see many of those around here. There were some impressive looking clouds starting to build around the horizon so we headed inside and watched a film to top off an excellent day. Now I just hope we have a successful hatching as they really are due soon.

Beautiful morning brew outside

Sweeping up the dust on the balcony

Whitewash on the orchard saplings

An unexpected egg in a cup

Old apple tree chopped, surrounded by saplings

More dead wood we cut down

Trimming a dead branch in our wilderness zone

A huge storm rolls in

Dinner by the lake with our friends

Those clouds blew over with no rain falling at all and Sunday dawned glorious; so lovely that we had our brews on the balcony finally. It was another day of tasks for us and A set herself to cleaning up the balcony and roof terrace, to try and limit the clogging of the drains in the event of rain, while I weeded around the orchard trees then mixed up some byalo var and painted it onto them, and a few others as I mixed way too much. Lunch was an unexpected surprise of egg in a cup, which was superb, and then rather than rest I grabbed the chainsaw and went and chopped down a load of the old dead trees that haven't survived the winter (including, sadly, the old apple tree on the top bank; fortunately a load of saplings are growing around it). I had some assistance from A as one of them was leaning the wrong way and I didn't want it to fall on my head and then we had a well deserved rest for a bit before I dragged us off the balcony once more and we attacked what trees we felt confident of cutting down in our wild area. Finally I hauled all the dead wood to the same place we had it stacked a couple of years ago and now we have a huge task to chop it all for winter. Shortly after this it howled it down with rain but it passed very quickly and cleared up before we went out. Dinner was spent at the lake with two friends who are over at the moment renovating a place not far from us; it was a superb evening and very enjoyable but I was pretty tired by the time we got home.

A lovely start, though foggy in the valley

Two fighter jets fly off into the distance

Another jet follows along behind

Panoramic view of our dining location

Spag boll on the balcony

Clouds roll in again

And so we get to yesterday and it was another lovely day, though I spent it largely stuck inside. The morning was taken up with our weekly Bulgarian lesson, which was hard work but good, and then after that we met Lyubo the architect for a coffee which was a really nice thing and hopefully something we'll repeat. After that I had a document to put together to bid for some more work and I really wanted to get it done. I was sat at my desk working away when I saw one of the NATO planes fly very low right across in front of the window. I grabbed the camera and ran out onto the balcony and was in time to get a picture of two of them flying off into the distance in formation and another one, which came later, following them. They have been jetting around a lot and today I saw one again, but had no camera with me. While I was typing away A was out treating another of the chairs for our patio set which is a horrible job. Dinner was spaghetti bolognaise and was superb, particularly as we ate it once again sat on the balcony. Our timing was perfect as just when we were finishing up the clouds covered the sun and the wind picked up. Once more it was a film night for us.

Beautiful colours to start the day

Window man back to fix the window

The end of the day with lots of weeding done

Painted and varnished gaming table

One of the display cabinets I saved

Finally and at least we reach today though between that paragraph and this stuff has happened to extend the update. I woke up to a really bright sky but by the time I got the camera out it was already done. I was getting myself ready to type up the next report, for another business opportunity, when the expected call came for me to take Thomas and trailer to help our friend with some structural steel. This was a very simple task, and it was nice to catch up with Bekir, however I managed to nearly burn the clutch out trying to reverse up a steep slope. Thomas got back OK but I think we need to get him into the garage quite urgently. After that the window people arrived as Bekir had chased them again and they have fixed the broken window (they had to take it back to their shop to do this) and also fixed both the inoperative lock on the balcony door and the huge gap in the kitchen door. Success. I spent most of the day, myself, out in the garden digging over the weeds and I managed to achieve my target there, though I was pretty tired by the end of it. I also grabbed a few pictures to show some other stuff I've achieved this week just in bits and bats through the days; the gaming table has been painted and varnished and is ready to use and I've moved some of my miniatures into one of the display cabinets, just to test it out.

A stunning sunset today

A and the Other Brother unloading the hay bales

Me resting after the unloading

Taking bales into the storage, but it was too dark

Usmivka milking the traditional way

Little Lady with a milking machine

Dinner was a lovely serving of ribs with chips and sweetcorn and then I came up here to get this update done. At one point I headed out to ask A something and spotted how beautiful the sunset was so I legged it up onto the roof terrace to get a picture and then, just before the previous paragraph was started, we had a call from the Other Brother next door and headed over to help them unload their hay delivery. A jumped onto the back of the truck and helped him throw the bales down while I lounged around and watched. No, not really; I got stuck in with some other neighbours and the Special One and the task was completed in double-quick time. It was too dark to get them taken into the barn by that point so that'll be done another day. In the cow-shed the Little Lady and Usmivka was busy milking for the day while a tiny calf took a drink from one of the cows.

So there you have it; a full week and lots done. We'll be back again later this week or early next, if there's enough happening to tell you. Thanks for reading.