Workmen and other progress

What a week it has been, and continues to be. It seems like so long ago that I did the last update though I know it was only a few days really. We've both been very busy and so this Sunday afternoon has turned into a collapse session and much needed it is! So, what has been happening since the last update?

Room 13

First of all there is the progress that I have been making in Room 13. We need to get this done so we can move back up there as, nice as it is to have the computers down here, it is too tempting to sit at them of an evening.

Scraping the paint off the walls. Three years in to the task

Lots of mess during this job

Spray can fun working out where to run the power to

Marked out the ceiling for the light positions

I began the week having cleared the room out and on Tuesday went in to mark up the channel runs so I could drill them out and run cables. I got very little of this done, however, before I realised that I would have to scrape all the walls first as the loose paint was falling off and taking my careful markings with it. I spent the entirety of my energy for that day just doing this but it was much better at the end. I have been (with the help of many people) been scraping these walls in Room 13 since the first week of when I moved here - funny how some things take ages. The next day I shifted the scaffold in and used a spray can to mark up all of the positions for the lights and plugs and sockets so that I could get the drill out and get started on the main event. I found out fast that I needed the SDS for this as the smaller drill didn't have a chisel bit and it actually was quite a quick job; it was just unpleasant as there was loads of dust and also my hands kept vibrating with the tool even after I'd turned it off.

I need to do about ten or twelve of these

In the end it took two days to do all the drilling, because I was determined not to push too hard, and I eventually did the last channel, to get power to the lights above where my desk will be, while A shot a fantastic little video of me. Another job done and no injuries caused to myself. I was now left with the task of attaching the junction boxes for where I'm splitting power off to go to wall sockets and so yesterday I did four but I ran out of motivation, particularly as Bekir wasn't able to get in to remove the boiler and so I'm rapidly getting to a blocked position up there; hopefully he can come soon and I can the job done. I've not been back in that room today, apart from to close the windows, however I'll try and get motivated again tomorrow.

In the garden

Our forecast is for snow next week so we've been trying to take advantage of the sun while it remains shining and get the garden finally ready for winter. A has been leading this charge with me going out mainly to push wheelbarrows of manure around.

Drilling out holes in the duska

It's been wired onto the bottom of the gate

Now puppies can't get out quite as easily

Thelma stubbornly standing in the sawdust stream

Half a wood-worm

A load of chopped wood, and Thelma picking one for herself

Louise has been in heat for the past week or so and has been very insistent on going outside to see the little dogs from the farm down the road. It was only when she saw the tiny puppy trying to mount her that A realised, however, that he is a he. We've ordered our new gates but they won't be finished for months, and won't be fitted straight away either, so A took herself down to the gates and fitted some wooden flaps around the most open parts to prevent escapes (and stop other dogs coming in - I chased the big black dog off the land again and found he's dug under the fence so that has now been filled in with big rocks again). Louise now cannot fit out between the gates which is a relief. Another job is continuing to cut up the wood we collected from around our land last year and A has been making great progress here. With the temperature dropping we need to have plenty of intermediate sized wood to help us start our fires to stay warm.

Digging over the garden in the late afternoon sun

Another load of manure spread

A putting more manure around the bases of the trees

A nice load of manure to feed the tree in the spring

A final watering for this twig

Collecting fallen leaves from under the tea trees

A spreading bubble wrap around an olive tree

Tying it in place to stop it spreading

Leaves to cover the bubble wrap

A lovely warm blanket to keep our little trees happy

In the garden A has dug over and manured two of the four beds now and they are looking nicely prepared for next year. I still haven't done any more on the raised bed however I will need to get that done sooner rather than later as we have lots of progress on the seedling front (more of which later). One of the main tasks on the list has been to prepare our trees for winter and so today we finally got ourselves outside to do it. I was bringing wheelbarrows of manure from the village pile while A spread them around the base of each tree and then watered it in. The olive trees got a slightly different treatment as after the manure was on she covered it with bubble wrap, loosely tied in place around the stakes to help hold the tree up, and then covered this with leaves. After this we went round all the other trees and put leaves over their manure also. Hopefully this will prevent the roots from freezing and also will feed the trees as the leaves and manure rots down.

Builders!

One very exciting thing about this week is the return of builders. Finally. We had a message from The Other Brother saying "your builders are coming tomorrow" so the alarm was set and at 8am they both arrived and got stuck in.

Starting to take old plaster down

A lot of the plaster is very rotten indeed

One more load of rubble is removed

The old floor was 10mm of concrete on top of dirt

The breaker comes out again

Making a start on the bigger room

A sand delivery is made

Resting in the warm sun for a bit

Good progress being made on the walls

The task is to make the Men's Room, and the little room next door, habitable and prevent the dust and damp that currently plagues those two rooms. They had to remove the rotten plaster and also dig out the existing dirt floor and then replace it all with a properly insulated concrete floor and new walls. We only had two workers for two days as on Saturday our main man turned up alone saying his mate had a bad stomach and today again he's on his own, however the progress is pretty good. They have dug out all the floor in the little room, ripped all the rotten plaster off the walls, and now Neco is putting concrete onto the walls to strengthen them and seal them. There is still a lot to do and I think he may well pause soon until he can get another labourer to help as digging out that floor on your own, pushing the barrow with the spoil to our spoil dump, all on your own is a very tall order. He's expecting the snow on Tuesday and expecting to have to stop work for a bit then which is why he has worked both days of the weekend.

General stuff

Other than all of this rushing around with the building it has been a rather lovely week this week. Cold at times but also really warm when the sun has been out.

The sun just burning through the fog

Sheep glistening in glimpses of sunshine

A beautiful rustic view

Foggy distant ridge

Front lawn green once more

The sun as it sinks at the end of the day

Crocuses putting in an appearance

The general pattern of the days this week has been very heavy fog in the mornings which has burned off just before lunch time to leave beautiful blue skies and a hot sun. This has helped us as A has been able to do her work during the day (she's been VERY busy in her paid job this week) and then get out into the warmer weather once she finishes up there. The land is looking rather beautiful as well, and the grass has gone green very quickly with the renewed moisture. I managed to get a picture of a few of the crocuses that grow under the Tea Trees before the chickens and ducks destroyed them like all the rest with their scratching - this area may well have to be fenced off as "out of bounds for poultry" next year.

A load of green shoots have appeared

Even more green shoots here

Just a few tiny ones in this pot

I think this is a mole cricket?

As previously mentioned A's seedlings have been doing really well. We have loads of shoots appearing and I've just checked round and there are even more now that have come up since I took these pictures. This puts a good pressure on me to get the nursery raised beds built as we'll need to house all of these soon enough. While she was digging and watering outside this week A also found this bug which I think is a mole cricket. If it is then the fact that it is dead is no bad thing as they are voracious.

Puppies

As per usual the puppies have provided us with entertainment (and annoyance - I had to go into the guest room one night as Louise was disturbing me too much) all week.

Louise finds a warm place

Chewing a bone nearly as big as her

Thelma will not let go

Look at the mess I have made!

Louise does a dance for Rambo, who isn't impressed

The sisters nap together

Getting comfortable for a Sunday afternoon snooze

Louise has taken to climbing the stairs to the very top step and sleeping there. This is a very smart move when you think about it as heat rises and so that is probably the warmest place in the room apart from their other favourite haunt which is right underneath the fire. This is particularly true as we've begun to winter-proof the house (including hanging curtains) and we are shutting the hatch during the day. One thing that they both love is a good bone and they had one each on Tuesday. Thelma did manage to chew it to bits all over the new rug which was funny. Louise has two boyfriends, not just the little boy from the farm but Rambo and she has been hanging out with him a lot all week. He, of course, can't do anything about it. Oh well. Just now, while I've been typing this, A has been getting a well deserved nap on my lazy-boy and the girls decided to join her and climbed under the light blanket and fell asleep there. Bless them.

My week

And finally... I've done a good amount of modelling this week but also I headed over to Yambol to visit the accountant and sign off all the details around my trip to Belgium. This was on Wednesday and it was an early start but ended up being a relatively painless process and I was home by 3pm before it got dark. I've no pictures from that day (I did see loads of birds of prey as I was driving but no chance to get a picture) so here's my modelling update.

This picture is for my Dad to show him me working in detail

Some firewood bark glued to the base

All ten spears done

The city walls, from the inside

Some rocks, a cliff and a tree stump

Set up for our game, which A won

As well as painting up miniatures, which I've done a bit of this week, I've been working mainly on a city wall diorama. This has helped me try out many different techniques including making spears from copper electrical wire, two basing methods, dry brushing, painting bark to look like stone and an attempt to model paving stones. It's still a way off completed however it's coming on well and my ideas for the story behind the scene are also solidifying as I create. We got a chance, last night, to have a quick game as well which was great fun and made use of some of the scenery I've been making. I cannot wait to get the next delivery from Dostavki as it will include my hot wire cutting tools I hope and then I can get a start on the railway scene.

And so I will leave you and reward those who got to the very end of this update with a picture of embers glowing in our kitchen petchka while our food cooks in the oven next to it. I love this life.

A lovely glowing fire

Things starting to get done again

After the pain of writing the blog update last time after too long between updates I've decided to jump on and do a, hopefully, shorter one today. I did expect to have more to show today however as is common in Bulgaria things haven't all worked out to plan. Anyway, onwards.

Showing off my diorama

I've not done a lot of modeling in the last few days but I have got a couple of showing off pictures to put on here. I'm so pleased with the way my models are looking.

The burial mounds stand among dead trees

The track is used but irregularly, however elves keep a close watch

Two elves wait by the stream - watching

Weathered white stones still guard the burial mounds

Some more painting completed as well

First of all I finished off the forested area diorama with home made trees, home made flock for grass, my first ever attempt at using static grass (harder than I expected actually but I'll get used to it I'm sure) and some white stones from the garden put in as markers for the entry to the barrows. I was so pleased that I posed a couple of miniatures on the scene before I took photographs. The bulk of the rest of my modeling time has been taken up with painting some of the models I bought pre-made but unpainted. I'm using new techniques I've picked up from watching YouTube videos and am finding they work much better than my old methods. I've also made a test model of a castle wall and experimented with polyfilla as a layer to add structural integrity to the polystyrene and it seems to have worked very well. No pictures of that, though. Not yet.

Around and about the house

As I have mentioned I have a list of tasks to complete now that I am home and not doing any paid work for a bit. The list includes digging out the coal shed which has been put on hold until my cold and cough is completely cleared, sorting the grey water out into a reed bed and doing the electric work into Room 13. As Bekir and Sally are maybe coming back in a week or so and we want them to plaster and finish in Room 13 as a priority I have to do all of the electrical work in there this week.

Sorting DVDs

DVD storage attached to the wall and filled

I first of all completed the job in the nook of getting the DVD storage fitted and then together we sorted and stacked the DVDs away. This room has really come together and now we are just waiting for the curtain rail to arrive that I ordered last week so we can hang our curtains and it'll be complete. We have watched a few films and are finding that it is a much cosier and more comfortable experience over watching TV in the Living Room and also are so happy with it that we think the small downstairs room at the end, previously slated for a TV room, may not be needed and we can put our exercise equipment in there.

Room 13 before being decluttered

Only my desk left in the room

Our temporary home for a bit

A dug up a huge grub that was then given to the chickens

The recent rain has brought a tinge of green to the land

Chucking manure onto the empty bed

Digging the trench for another raised bed

Chickens having a good scratch at the newly dug earth

I was supposed to start Room 13, on Monday, however I woke up on Friday with a bit of a mission head on and so in the morning A and I cleared everything out of the room to make way for the work. Our desks are now downstairs in the kitchen, which is where I'm sat now, and I was ready for work well ahead of schedule. Having done that clearing out I then went into the garden to join A who was taking advantage of some lovely clear weather to get one of the vegetable beds dug out, and manure dug into it. I set myself the task of digging out the trench for another raised bed. This one we are not going to fill with soil yet but use as a nursery section for seed trays which will benefit from being under glass. It wasn't too bad digging in that area, though I have found that two of our pick axes have gone missing, but once finished it was time for a brew sat on the porch in the warm sun watching the chickens scratching at my freshly dug soil and pushing a lot of it back into the trench.

A lot of foam removed from around the pipes and cables

Network cable comes through the wall

It ends up in the nook

A getting fuel into the chainsaw

Saturday was another day in Room 13 and also downstairs as I was running the network cable from the router down into the nook and also putting another cable into the roof for use later. I was able to shave the expanding foam around the existing holes in the walls and use a long narrow drill bit to push through and avoid having to use a power tool at all which was great as the holes are occupied by water and power already. I also removed as much of the pipework around the sink as possible and now I'm wishing I could turn the water off to it and remove it completely but that will have to wait for Bekir. A was far from idle while I was doing this and got loads of chainsawing done and now we're really starting to see a dent appear in the wood we saved from the land last year. I managed to get the network cable terminated into a wall end plate at each end and plugged my laptop in and it worked first time which was awesome.

Garlic in a raised bed

Seeds beginning to germinate

Careful not to drop anyway

Planting the germinated seeds into trays

Sunday was a quieter day, as it should be, but A did out into the garden to plant out the garlic in a raised bed. We also inspected her seeds that had been put on damp paper towel in boxes in the window and found that a load of them had already started to put out roots and shoots. Today she has split out the seeds that are ready and planted them in trays that are on window shelves around the downstairs where it is being kept warm by the fires. Hopefully these will be able to go into the new raised bed when it is finished off.

Today was supposed to be a really exciting day as our new builders were due to come and start sorting out the Men's Room and the little room at the back however after setting an alarm to make sure we were awake for them unfortunately no one showed up and we found out a bit later that there was a family illness so the helper couldn't make it. Hopefully this will not delay us very much. I did get a fair amount done today including removing the now unused circuit breakers in the main box, running the armoured cable through the roof into Room 13 and wiring it into the upstairs distribution box and also, with A's help, marking out with chalk where we want to channel the walls for our lights, switches and plugs. Tomorrow I will be getting the drill and using the hammer function to cut these all in. I have just phoned our new builder and it doesn't sound like he will be in tomorrow either so the alarm has been turned off - a relief I can tell you.

Other things

And so we come near the end of another update and have a few random photographs of other stuff just to finish off.

Little shoes made by A

Hazy hills on the drive back

Really interesting cloud formation

A cold morning on Thursday

Thursday's moon, clear in day

The sun came up in a blaze of gold

The Super Moon is waning

After a foggy start the sun burns through

Good night, лека нощ

First of all is a pair of little booties that A knitted as a gift for SandS's little one, Indy. We took them over yesterday, with some gloves she made as well, and they just about fit though he is growing fast. It really was a lovely visit and it's always so inspiring to see what they have done to their school - it's a beautiful home. The drive back was lovely as well with such gorgeous views and as A was driving I could snap a few pictures out of the window. Stunning. Talking of which we've had some good sunrises and sunsets and also the remainder of the Super Moon which has allowed for a few good pictures.

A superb roast duck with plum sauce, mash and chard

Just about to get stuck in

A small roast pork Sunday dinner

The open fire looking really lovely

Love spuds

On the food front it has been a good week. A made the most astounding roast duck with plum sauce (using plums harvested and frozen a while back) and swiss chard that we grew thinking it was rhubarb and it was so tasty. Last night it was my turn to cook and I did a roast pork with super super super crackling, accompanied by cauliflower cheese made by A that was also super super super and we ate it in front of the open fire. I cooked a heart shaped spud I found when I was shopping and we each got a half. How romantic.

Louise wanting a tummy rub

Thelma enjoying the fire with me

Watching a film with the puppies

And last but by no means least we have the puppies. They have been lovely as usual and playful as always. Louise wants to be loved, Thelma just wants her ball thrown. It's awesome as we store their toys in a cupboard under the sink and every day Thelma goes into the cupboard and choses her toy and then, a bit before bed time, she says good night to it and happily wags her tail and goes to relax. Such intelligent puppies. If you want to continue thinking they are intelligent do NOT watch the video, though :D

So there you are. Here's to getting workmen back in and having a good week in Room 13. I'll be back when I've got more to show you.