A week of weakness

A whole week to update on today, but in honesty, there is little to report in terms of my own progress. As the title suggests, weakness and exhaustion featured more than anything. I was under the weather for most of the week in fact and did as much as my body allowed, so here we go.

Monday

After a lovely roast dinner on Sunday evening I decided that I would make some soup from the stock I made from the chicken carcass. It was rather nice to get back into doing this again, I miss my bowl of lunchtime broth.

Boiling it up

Whilst at the supermarket I had the foresight to stock up on the soup veg and before very long, the chicken was strained, meat separated, a couple of treats for the pups before the veg went in and hey presto!

Healthy

In the pot

The thing I always remember my Nana saying to me is, "a boiled soup is a spoiled soup", so this simmered for almost two hours and it was delightful. I got most of the week's lunches from this. Simple things.

Next on the list was to have a quick rearrange of the wood store. This was mainly to make some room for the kindling that was still stored in the green building in preparation for winter. Winter is a looming demon here at the Old School and there always seems to be a big push to work towards making life as easy as possible for ourselves. It of course means that there is very little rest, even when you think you could wind down! Not a complaint, well not really. I am admittedly struggling with my motivation at the moment. 

Wood store

Excess from last year

Sally 2's achievements

Kindling for winter

Overflow

So as you can see, there is a slight overflow in the green building. Let's hope it sees us through winter. If not, there are more branches that can be broken up should we need to. Thelma and Louise are here to show you where and were on the trawl of rat sniff, I believe.

Ratting

Having had to almost tell them off to get them out of there, I was fettling around and doing a bit of a tidy when I heard a lot of commotion around. Coming from the garage, I found these two little blighters had jumped up onto the roof tiles and climbed in through the open window in the green building, rummaging for yet more rats amongst the pile of stuff the Mister has to clear before winter. We will probably have to have a bonfire, but not until it rains here as it is way too risky to start a fire at the moment.

Maybe one day they will actually catch a rat. That would be nice.

Last task for me on Monday was to do something with the oversized logs which came with out winter wood delivery. With the chainsaw now back in operation, I set to it. It is very surprising how quickly you forget and also, how quickly you must get used to performing an action you have never done before. I do not remember the chainsawing being this hard last year. I can only guess that I got more used to it because I had so much practice. This was just harder work than I remember.

Cutting and splitting

I got the axe stuck like this a lot

The splitting was the hardest part of this task. I am definitely moving that to the "blue job" list. I am only so strong.

At the end of my day and just as I was preparing to think about dinner, Little Lady and her son arrived with a huge pole and a couple of buckets to try and collect the walnuts from the land. They are late this year, but coupled with a bad drought this summer, there were very few to gather. They handed me over the bucket once they had finished and we'd had some coffee, but we still have a huge box of them from last year that we are never going to get through, so I gave them back to her. Feels good to give back as they are so good to us and also, because they had a smaller harvest this year from their own trees.

Harvesting walnuts

Tuesday

As I said at the beginning, this week I have been feeling rather odd. I have no pictures from Tuesday at all to show you. I was back at my job and at my desk and I had absolutely no energy at all, so I mainly worked and slept.

Wednesday

Wednesday was chicken fun day. Again, I was working and I took a nap at lunchtime and whilst a bit quieter, went down to see what the birds were getting up to and how they were finding their freedom. It seems they are having quite the ball! I was washing the dishes when this happened:

Guests

Followed everywhere I go

They trail me no matter where I go.

Thursday & Friday

Another couple of non-eventful days I am afraid. I did go to do the weekly shop on Friday and that was possibly as much energy as I could muster. I still have no idea what or why, but I am certainly starting to feel better again thankfully.

Saturday

We had the men back and not just Bekir, but also Sally. They had returned to get further along with the roof terrace, as mentioned before, before any rain gets down in behind the insulation and causes damage. We are praying for a continuation of the dry weather. They were sharing the task this weekend. Bekir is usually the tiler, but Sally was hands on and doing his bit on his section of wall.

Bekir's wall

Sally's wall

They had developed a time saving method for the mixing of the terracol and grout whilst they were up there. I went to the garden mid-afternoon to move the hose onto another bed in the vegetable garden only to find the hose had disappeared. My memory is shocking and I just thought I had moved it somewhere stupid and forgotten about it, No. Not so. 

Smart

They had switched from the free water to the mains water at the manhole and were currently enjoying not having to traipse up and down stairs with a full water bottle or bucket. They of course returned it to the garden for me in the evening. Such stars.

Not being totally idle all week, and starting to feel a little better, yesterday brought me a couple of chores. The first was to split the plant that S&S bought for us, way back when. This is the one which shoots a pink spiky flower from the centre and S has done some research and she said that the "babies" growing to each said of the mother plant are the new flowerers. She told me I should separate them out as the mother plant (central) dies and the two "babies" start to produce flowers. So I did.

Before

After

Close of play was late. They tried so very hard to get the chimney finished, but sadly time was just not on their side. Bekir got slightly distracted by a leaking standpipe in the garden which he replaced the tap opener on.  However, it is still looking really well and hopefully the lighter colours of the tiles will help to keep this a more manageable sun trap for my fair Irish skin!

Close of play

Sunday

Today has been a much better day for me. I was up and about around 7.30, letting the animals all outside for their morning exercises. I had watched a film on Saturday night and was quite late to bed, having gone out for my dinner. Oh, I almost forgot! I have been hankering after this all week and I finally felt well enough to go out and have a meal away from the School. It. Was. Divine.

Kunefe - a Turkish dessert that is just to die for. Recipe here, with obviously some regional variations: Kunefe.

Kunefe

So, back to Sunday. First off it was the chicken house, which was well overdue a clean out. I hate this job and it is actually more the thought than the doing as it really doesn't take any more than 45 minutes. 

Not much straw for summer

I cleared the room and squirted a fair bit of this stuff, Diatomaceous Earth to help with any parasites they may or may not have. Although seeing they are coming out of their moults, they are looking in quite good condition. Still, can never be too sure.

Diatomaceous Earth

Finally, the extra bedding for the colder nights was in place.

Clean hay

What else did I do? I tidied up mainly in the kitchen. I hoovered with my new Vax hoover, which I have to say has fantastic suction and I am pretty pleased. I also tackled the deep fat fryer, which admittedly has been neglected and so needed a huge scrub clean. Other than that and pottering around finding tools and things that I am going to need over the next week or two, I have mainly been chainsawing. It is hard work, but worth it come winter.

Starting small

First of two lots

That is the week so far and if you made it this far and read to the end then you deserve a bit of a giggle. I forgot about this video last week, but it still makes us both laugh very much. So until next time, leka nosht!

 A xx

Superb Crumble

This time tomorrow I'll be just arriving in Sofia on my way to my new job in Belgium and it sucks. Ever since I took the job I've been second guessing myself. I suppose I will just have to get out there and hope it's awesome. I've done a more irregular update schedule this week because I've been trying to make the most of being here and so now I come to cover off the last three and a half days. They've been pretty damned good though.

Wednesday evening

We learned the Russian word for "beer"

Getting stuck in to our Iskander Kebabs

The second loom is lifted off the crane lorry

Shoving a heavy trolley load over a ramp

As part of this last week we agreed that we'd go out a few times to our different favourite places for food and Wednesday night we headed down to the place in town that does the amazing Iskander Kebabs. The place was packed and the outside area was reserved for an 18th birthday party but we got a table easily anyway and both ordered the Iskander and it was absolutely lovely. While we were eating we received a message from SandS saying that their looms had finally arrived and could we head over. We finished up and, with the crumble waiting for us at home we hadn't planned on dessert, headed home to change and pick up our trolleys and metal ramp and drove to theirs. We arrived to find a big crane truck unloading onto their patio and got stuck in helping out. It was so awesome to watch these massive machines being delivered and pretty awesome to be there to share this moment with our friends. The truck that brought the looms from Germany was way too big to get over to their place so the crane truck was driving to the HGV and collecting items to bring over and unload. It was dark by the time we finished and headed off and we got home for a brew before heading to bed.

Thursday

I was up again at 3am in the morning feeling very angry and emailing the Obshtina again as the music from the nightclub was ridiculous. Actually it wasn't just the music but the sound of the idiot DJ yelling down the microphone. I went back to bed in the guest room with the windows shut and sweltered until finally dropping off. Not ideal.

Any ID on this spider?

Using the ramp to load manure

Nearly full raised bed

Dveta Sally breaking up our kindling into bundles

Bekir smoothing beams for the wood store

I woke up feeling tired from the disturbed sleep but we had an early start as Bekir and Sally were back today. I headed out to Thomas to take the trolleys and ramp out of the back and found a very large yellow and black striped spider that had made a super-strong web by the back gate. I'm no fan of killing things but it couldn't stay there so after photographing it I got rid. It looks nasty as well which may have influenced me somewhat. I needed the ramp as I planned to finish loading the soil and manure into the raised beds so while A was out this is what I did. I finished the manure and then started the watering (we'd missed doing it last night) and then A arrived with the men. We had three arrive which was excellent as Dveta Sally went into the green building and started breaking up the kindling that we stored in there last year. I explained to Bekir our change of plan and he immediately got stuck in with Sally to put up the wood storage.

Bekir fixing a hole in one of the new bags

Lots of wood being delivered

Filthy sump pump

The pump suddenly starts working, while not connected

A took this picture; I don't know why

First thing we headed down to the shop to put an order in for the wood we'd need to complete the task and then we headed back to wait for the delivery. It was a brutally hot day and I felt quite bad to have them outside working in it, having told them the day before that they'd be working inside, but there was no hesitation on their part at all. I distracted Bekir a couple of times during the morning, the first time when I went to move the filter gravel that had burst out of the bags where I'd left them stupidly in the sun. Bekir had brought some bags with him, having noticed the problem when he dropped past on Wednesday, and so we worked together to load it into these new bags. Just as we finished the wood delivery arrived so this was unloaded then I wheeled the big bags, 50kg in each, into the green building out of the sun. My next little task took longer and was much less pleasant. I've been wanting to reduce the level of the water in the sump for a while so I got Bekir to help me disconnect the pump and then I tried several methods of limiting the movement of the float so the pump would start sooner. The water was filthy and so was everything that had been in it and after I'd fiddled around so was I. After a lot of messing around I achieved a slight improvement and put it all back. I may have to buy a different pump, or even change the plan completely. We'll see.

Drilling a hole in the bottom of an upright

Extra metal supports going in

Bekir using the chainsaw again

Still working away in the heat of the day

Bekir and Sally were both working so hard despite the heat. The concrete that was poured a couple of weeks ago had some metal embedded in it in preparation for this storage shed and so my dad's ancient drill came out once again to put holes in the bottom of the nicely squared and prepared timber for the uprights. After some thinking it became apparent that we should have put corresponding metal in for the uprights next to the wall so Sally drilled holes  into which rebar was inserted for this purpose. It was also nice to hear the noise of the chainsaw working away again after months of silence. By the time it got to lunch time the back supports were in place and they were trimming the angles into the front uprights.

Thelma with a big grin

Louise with a big grin

Our flock in the shade

Rambo with a big grin

While A had the camera, as I was working on the pump, she went around taking pictures of the animals and got some corkers so here you are.

Our local town really is rather lovely

Pepper steak; very tasty

We'd arranged to meet our Dincher for lunch to check out the pepper steak he'd told us about in the cafe next to his office. We got down there at the agreed time and settled in a chair to wait for him and after a bit of distraction from his work (he works very hard) he joined us for a lovely two hour long relaxing lunch. We chatted about the night club and he said I should also call the police so now I wish I had done so already. The food was very slow to arrive but when it came it was tasty and it's nice to know where to go for a good steak in town. He explained how the owner of the bar had gone to a restaurant in Sofia and liked the steak so much he encouraged the head chef there to come down and train his staff; enterprising and, in my opinion, well worth it. We headed home after this feeling very satisfied and having enjoyed the time with Dincher.

The framework for the wood store takes shape

Taking advantage of the shade of the plum tree

Throwing hay in through the window of the green building

Quite a lot of hay inside

Dirty from throwing and squashing the hay

Last touches before we head off

While we were out the men had taken their lunch and then got back on with their task. By this time there was some shade for them which was a relief as it was such a hot day. They'd set up the saw horses underneath the plum tree to take advantage of the shade there as well. Towards the end of the day, after some relaxing, I headed down onto the front lawn to have a look at the remaining pile of hay that needed stacking inside before I leave. I wasn't going to get this done however when I started I found the breeze was fresh and the shade was welcome and I kept at it until it was nearly time to take the men home. I was covered in hay and dust so had a quick shower before taking them home.

Ridges prepared for tomato planting

A putting some seedlings into the soil

It was a quiet evening and I managed to persuade A that we should have pizza as a nice lazy dinner. A did get outside and do some planting of tomatoes in the garden as we continue to prepare for A's holiday when the neighbours will be watering for us as I'm not going to be here. My eyes could barely stay open though and I headed to bed really early and fell almost straight asleep, even though it was oppressively warm. A had a troubled night sleep unfortunately and after only an hour in bed was up until about 3am. This was not caused by the nightclub however as it was not operating, apparently. No call to the police required.

Friday

As I say it was a good nights sleep for me but not for A and when I got up I snuck around trying my best to not wake her up in the guest room.

Before the sun showed itself

The many colours of dawn

Sunbeams burst above the ridge

First glimpse of the sun for the day

Reflected in the balcony door

Plum crumble

I was up very early, able to sit on the balcony with my brew and watch the sun rise over the ridge across the valley. It's been a while since I have done this mainly because we've been enjoying our new kitchen so much, and sitting out on the patio. I snapped away to show you the beauty that we get to enjoy all the time. After my brew I went to do some morning chores before going to collect the men and while I was out doing the humanure A woke up and came down to see me. She agreed that I should get the men so off I went. We went past the wood yard for the petchka wood and ordered eight cubic of pre-chopped dry oak and then went and got the cladding for the side of the wood store. When we got back A was dozing which was great; she needed that extra snooze. She was going shopping so I sat down to my breakfast and here we come to the title of this post. The plum crumble that had been made for Wednesday night had just stayed in the oven since then and was just superb. I walked around after eating it muttering to myself about how superb it was. So tart of fruit but with amazing sweet thick crumble topping. Superb!

Wonderful superb crumble for breakfast

Yes. Crumble for breakfast.

Putting duska on the roof

Attacking the spud tower with the Little Lady

A group for coffee

It was another very hot day and once again Dveta Sally was in the green building all day splitting and tying bundles. Outside Bekir and Sally finished off the framework and then started putting timber on the roof of the storage. A and I had a lazier day, she was obviously exhausted and when she got back from the shopping she took a deserved rest. I did encourage her to come out with me to harvest the spuds and the Little Lady came over which spoiled my plan of only working for a few minutes; by the time we'd completed the admittedly very disappointing harvest we were pretty hot and tired. I had to pop out a couple of times, first of all with Bekir as he found that the tiles we had weren't sufficient and we needed a load more wood as well. It reached about 45 degrees while loading Thomas in the builders yard. The second trip out, almost immediately on returning, was to go to the bank to pick up my new bank card and when I got back I found that it was coffee break time and Usmivka and the Little Lady had come over as well. We sat and chatted and then Sally got back to work and everyone else followed.

Manually unloading the chopped wood

Shoving the wood off with a brush

Two piles of wood ready to stack

A really good looking wood store taking shape

Clouds gathering and threatening storms

Eventually our promised petchka wood arrived on a truck and they'd managed to get all eight cubic on one truck which was a relief. While they were throwing all that wood off the back of their truck by hand (I thought it was a tipper truck but no) I went and finished off the hay into the green building. Bekir and Sally cracked on with the tiling on the wood store and stayed a little late, even, to try and get it finished but they didn't manage so they will be back on Monday for one last day before their summer holiday. The clouds, precursors to a promised weekend of heavy rain fall, were gathering and did encourage me to complete the hay shifting which I did before A left to take the men home.

Bananas on a tree by our favourite restaurant

Trying a new type of salad

Lamb Kavarma

There were rumbles and grumbles of thunder while I was waiting for A to get back from dropping the men and when she got back we were not in any way in a rush to go out for dinner as we were not feeling hungry. Eventually it was time to go and we went to our favourite restaurant. A was very jealous of the banana trees they have, much better established than ours, and they all had clumps of bananas growing on them. Our food was really nice, as usual, and as we left I said goodbye to the really nice waiter who told me he was finishing soon and actually going to Belgium as well for work. A small world. The evening was another quiet one and we headed to bed not too late again, both of us being tired.

Saturday

There was a very large wedding going on at our restaurant when we were there, and A had seen some of our villagers going down to another one, so I was expecting to be quite badly disturbed by the nightclub last night but once again there was nothing. Well, nothing loud - I could hear it a little bit nothing at all like the usual volume. Maybe someone at the obshtina has had a word.

A in her new apron

Today has been a super lazy, and for me slightly depressed, day. This time tomorrow I'll probably be in the air on my way to Belgium. I've packed my bags, done some washing, A has cooked me lasagne which we'll be going to eat soon.We went onto the balcony and I fell asleep on the sun lounger which was lovely. Breakfast was bacon and eggs that I made and was very nice, lunch we finished the superb crumble between us. I'm having a bath, the first bath that we'll have in the new bathroom, after dinner, which I'm looking forward to and then we'll enjoy the last evening before I have to go. Not cool. Your next update will be completed by the very capable, and slightly less gobby, A.

Sorry this is so long. See you on the other side.

A bit more, actually

After finishing this update, or so I thought, A persuaded me that I should wait to publish until the end of the day and so here I am with a little bit more to add.

A heart made of cherry tomatoes from our garden

Love

Running water for my bath

Relaxing with a brew and a book

So. Dinner. A had asked me what I wanted to eat this week and after bangers, mash and gravy on Monday finishing the week in style with a lasagne was the obvious thing. It was ready not long after I typed those last words above and wow was it ever good! She even did a heart on the top with our cherry tomatoes; how lovely is that! The sun was shining in brightly through the picture window in the nook and casting a really clear shadow of A's carving that she has set on the fireplace; a very suitable shadow indeed. And so, with dinner inside me, I started running my bath. People had expressed concern that the boiler may not have been big enough however I can say without a doubt that it is fine; I had to turn the hot water off before it got scalding and it filled very quickly and to a great temperature. I even had some Radox that I added for foam and relaxation and I've just got out feeling super chilled and ready to sleep and maybe face tomorrow. I should have arrived and be in my new accommodation by this time tomorrow. It sucks.