Week three.

Monday

 

We were up quite early today with plans to go to the market in a nearby village (apparently a very good one) and go to the dump again. So we set off with a fully loaded van to go to the dump first. On the way we drove past the man who was meant to fix our water tap. He waved at us and stopped and seemed to indicate he was on his way to ours. We obviously didn't want to miss him so we turned around and went to follow him back to the house. But when we came around the corner we saw his car pulled up outside the bar! We decided to go home anyway and at least he should come today (as long as he doesn't get too distracted!)

 

Pretty fields around the village.

 

At home we started straight away with working. Pete was outside on the front wall pulling down even more clematis and making the front of the house look nice - including strimming the grass so we could actually park the van off the road.

 

Pete about to get at the front wall!

Our beautiful, cleared front gate.

 

I was inside in one of the downstairs rooms pulling up the floor boards. I thought this would be quite an easy job but they had hammered very long nails in every two inches along all the boards so was actually very time consuming. At some point in the morning M & D popped by and we said we would see them for a drink later.

 

Me working hard.

 

Eventually the water man did turn up and got on with fixing the stop tap - which meant he had to turn off the water for the village. We hope no one was too annoyed!

 

Once he'd gone we drove into Chirpan for lunch as we had no food at all and the village shop is closed on Mondays. We didn't do any shopping as we still wanted to go to the market tomorrow, so we went to the bakery instead and then drove back home. After lunch we carried on working. Pete finished the front wall and came in to finish off the floor boards - my back was starting to ache from bending over so I went and put more wood and old furniture on the fire.

 

FINALLY NO FLOOR BOARDS!

Our street.

 

We finished up at about 5.30 - a long day! - and had a quick wash with cold water. M & D came by at 6.30 and we had a beer in the last of the sunshine. As we had no food we decided to go into Chirpan for dinner with M & D. They drove in their car and we had a lovely dinner out at the pizzeria (for about 5 pounds each WITH beers!!)

 

Tuesday

We weren't up as early as we wanted - we set off to the market at 9. We got a bit lost on the way as we hadn't actually been there before, so it took a while to find it - but it was very scenic with the sun shining and huge black clouds over the mountains. When we arrived we saw where the market probably had been but it was all closed. It must be an early one. There were a few stalls open by the side of the road, so we bought some fruit and veg from there before heading back to Chirpan (the quicker way) and getting a few more bits from the butchers and Penny Market (the supermarket is sadly unavoidable.) All stocked up on food we headed home and filled our fridge for the first time!

 

M & D were working on a house in our village so we stopped by to say hello to them before getting home and having a late breakfast. We also saw the shop lady and she invited us for Bulgarian lessons tomorrow afetrnoon. We also decided to cook dinner now and have the slow cooker on all day whilst we work - a great idea!

Mmmm slow cooker

 

Today we working in the same room as yesterday - we just needed to dig down about 20cm so we can lay a new concrete floor. We thought there would be a layer of rubble and then soil - which we can keep and use eventually in the garden. But we found, once we'd started digging, that rubble actually went down about as far as we needed to dig. This was actually much easier to shovel out than dirt but we didn't know what to do with it all. Then Pete had the genius idea to fill our water trench with it. So in order to do that we got out some rock wool insulation and plastic to cover the pipe first (we have to make sure they don't freeze in winter) and then started carrying out the rubble in buckets. It was pretty boring and took a long time but it wasn't too difficult, except for when Pete had to brake through some huge rocks with the pick axe.

Cosy water pipe.

All rubble gone.

 

It was quite a cold evening and we were just wrapping up warm and getting ready to eat our slow cooked chicken stew when M turned up at the house with a man called Nasco, who could fix our dry stone wall for us. A large part of the front wall has fallen down which looks bad and also makes the house less secure. He gave us a quote - actually it was pretty expensive - but it was about 27 square metres he had to work on and he gave us a good price, so we agreed. Part of the deal with most labourers in Bulgaria is that you also pick them up and drop them home, so we drove out with M to see when he lived (in Spasovo - the next village) and agreed to collect him at half eight tomorrow.

Broken wall.

 

Back at home we ate our yummy dinner and got into bed early and watched a film.

 

Wednesday

 

So we were up early this morning and at about 8.25 Pete set off to collect Nasco (he went alone as there were going to be two labourers.) When they got back there were coffees all around before starting to work. We were in the same room again - this time digging a large trench along the back wall for the water and waste pipes to come into the house. And also digging smaller trenches along the outside walls to kind of under pin the house (we know you're meant to dig down to the bottom of the house walls but that is much deeper then we originally thought so we aren't going to bother.)

Digging - lots of rocks!

At about 1 o'clock M turned up with two men and a GPS thing. They were here to plot our land - which we had already organised and paid for when we were in Brighton. As our land is an L shape we have 6 corners - we walked around to each one, got the correct spot on the GPS and then Pete hammered in a stick. Genuinely the land is even bigger than we thought we'd bought!! Obviously a twig hammered in the ground is pretty easy to loose or move so our new priority was to get something more solid in - we didn't have the time to put up a fence at the moment (getting a toilet is more important) but we decided we would cement in some proper posts tomorrow. After lunch we carried on working. Nasco was also getting on well with the wall - they'd taken down the huge section that needs rebuilding.

Our first corner pegged - half that wall is ours!

Action shot

At 3.30 I cleaned up a bit and headed off to the shop for some Bulgarian lessons. When I arrived D was actually in there chatting with shop lady so I joined them and had a coffee. I wrote down a few new words and had the dictionary out to translate! I was still at the shop after Pete had dropped Nasco home, so he joined us too. We stayed for a while and then headed home. 

 

The wall is down.

Thursday

 

We were both up early and Pete left to pick up Nasco at 8. Back at home we did some bits around the house like fill the water tanks and empty the toilet. After this we jumped in the van and drove to Chirpan to buy some fence posts. We were in the builders merchants, looking up in a dictionary how to say sand and cement, when D came in - he had seen our van outside. He helped us ask for what we needed and also told us they only sell sand loose - luckily he had some outside his house in SG he said we could have some of. So we set off towards home, stopping in SG to finally empty the van at the dump and to pick up some sand.

 

It was a warm day and when we came home we found Nasco and his worker asleep in the grass! We are paying them per square metre so it doesn't make any difference to us. We mixed the cement in a wheelbarrow (Nasco woke up and helped us with this as he obviously thought he could do it better!) and we cemented in our corner poles.

 

Great view from the top corner of our land!

 

After we'd had some lunch it was already getting on and we were feeling a bit lazy. We made coffee and chatted to Nasco for a bit - I say chatted, we tried to understand what he was saying and then ended up pointing at tools and saying them in Bulgarian! We did do a bit more digging in the downstairs room but finished at 4 when Pete took Nasco home.

 

In the evening M & D popped by with the shop lady (who used to live here) and she told us about all the animals she used to have and told us which trees to make sure we keep.

 

Friday

 

Yesterday Nasco had asked Pete if he could drive him to Chirpan before work. A bit cheeky of him but we used the opportunity to go to the market - so I came too and the boys got in the back of the van. We had organised a BBQ on Sunday for 12 people so we we bought alot of veg - so worth waiting for the market as it is SO much cheaper.

 

Back at home we cracked on with our work - as did Nasco, who was working much harder today. We were now in the other downstairs room doing the same thing. This was much more difficult though as there was no rubble - just very compact earth. Pete was braking it up with the pick axe and I was shovelling it out - it was very hard going. Not much to report from the day - we just did alot of hard digging.

 

Hard digging.

Slowly getting there.

 

At about 3 we got bored and decided to see if we could make a hole in the house to actually get the water pipe in. Pete was in there with his hammer and chisel and on the inside we got out quite a few rocks - the walls are 50cm thick so there was a long way to go. We decided to try from the otherside, when Nasco caught on to what we were doing and got involved! He had broken through, after a while of smashing rocks, and we finally had a hole for our pipes!

 

Pete, worker and Nasco.

Hole in the house!

Wall is looking great.

 

Once that excitement was over I went down to the shop for some more Bulgarian lessons. Pete joined us later, after dropping Nasco home. We were also joined by M & D and another English girl who I will call DW! She used to live in SG but is looking for a new property - maybe in our village. We invited everyone back to ours for a drink and we had a really fun evening drinking and being merry.

 

Pete stroking Mimi - the cat that will soon have kittens!

That's our house - top left - and you can just see the tent behind the trees to the right.

Saturday

 

We had a day off today . The kittens were born in the morning and they are SO CUTE. But we have to wait at least 10 weeks until we take them from the mum :( We did a huge shop for the BBQ tomorrow and DW came by to introduce us to another English couple who live in Spasovo. Oh I forgot to tell you that Pete has got a paid job!! M & D sold a house just down the road to an English family, who are using it as a Holiday home. They want to pay Pete to look after the garden - mowing, weeding etc. It's not loads ofhmoney of course - but much better than nothing! Anyway, so Pete went down there for a couple of hours to weed the flowers beds. Not much else to report from today.

 

Having a coffee in Chirpan

Pete hard at work.

Sunday

 

This morning we were up early and having been preparing for our party! We have 10 people coming and it should be great. Will tell you about it next time.

Ready to BBQ!

 

xxx

Clearing and cleaning.

Wednesday

 

So last night 'a beer' turned into about a litre of wine each, so this morning we woke up with quite sore heads. (Oh just to mention - last M told us she had been in our local shop and heard the villagers speaking; apparently they all think I'm 16! So god knows what they think about Pete!! Ha!) Anyway, we'd arranged to go to the mayors office at 9, so we walked down there with our passports and house deeds. We knew which building it was but found it quite confusing to find the entrance (and we had an audience of villagers!) We eventually found the way in and after a few minutes of waiting in a very strange waiting room we decided just to knock on the office door. Luckily we did, otherwise she'd have never known we were there. Anyway after some very unofficial looking 'recording' of our details onto a random sheet of paper we trotted back home to start work.

 

Strange waiting room.

We planned to clear all the brash in the garden today so that the place would look a bit tidier. We started a big fire in the base of an old out building and got on with it. Facing those bloody clematis and thorn bushes again was certainly challanging!! But very satisfying to finally see our clear garden.

 

We were up at the tent at about 1 o'clock having our usual lunch of a big yummy salad, when we heard this shouting and whistling in the street. At first we ignored it, thinking it was for the neighbour, but after a while we decided to go down and see what was happening. Outside our gate were two Roma gypsies on a horse and cart. They smiled alot and introduced themselves, and then told us they were looking for metal. We obviously had quite alot of metal going (we were going to dump it all) so we let the lady in to have a rummage around our rubbish. She took one of the old beds and the old fridge and then got really involved and was picking out every single piece of rusty metal she could find - which was alot. She was really friendly and thanked us alot when she left with a FULL cart of scrap metal. Her husband was also really friendly but had a broken leg so stayed sitting outside. We were very happy to help them, but slightly wary as we have been told many stories about thefts by Romas. Anyway this couple seemed nice and we said we would give them more metal tomorrow after we'd cleaned out another room.

 

 

After lunch Pete carried on with the fire and I decided we finally needed to wash some clothes. Unfortunetly our solar heated water wasn't quite hot yet but I did a big wash (the first since we'd left!) and hung it out in the sunshine to dry.

After this I went back to the fire. All the brash from the garden was now cleared, so we moved on to burning all the old clothes, mattresses and other furniture from the house. The area around the house was beginning to look clear!

 

A mess before!

A lovely garden after.

We had no food at home so we finished up earlyish and had a lovely hot shower to get clean. We were literally walking out the front gate to go shopping, when D arrived - he'd come to connect our lights in the house now the power was on. He took down the old fuse box and found a complete mess of wires - there was no way he could easily find out what went where. We decided that having lights in the house was pretty useless anyway, especially as we wanted to knock walls down etc. so best not to have live wires we didn't know about. Instead D connected another socket.

 

After D had left we drove out to Chirpan to do some shopping. We decided not to shop at the supermarket and instead went to a small veg shop (the guy was very friendly and knew a bit of English) and a local store.

 

Back at home we had dinner and had (another!) early night.

 

Thursday

 

Woke up fairly early and after a coffee set to work. Pete went down to the garden to get the fire started whilst I got the washing in and tidied up the tent a bit (what a good homemaker!) Today we wanted to clear the horrible room downstairs. This room has an earth floor, quite a small window and was just dark and covered in years worth of crap and cobwebs. It wasn't going to be a pleasant job! With our gloves on we slowly started emptying it. We burned everything we could straight away and we kept a pile of metal for our Roma friends. We also found some quite nice wooden furniture which we stored in the barn to be done up at a later date.

 

Lovely flowers in the garden.

At some point in the morning M came by with a man from the water company. She explained to him about our problem with the stop tap and he said he could fix it, but he'd have to come back after lunch! Tomorrow! Ha. So we stopped to have a coffee break and just as we did three men turned up to connect our internet. It's wireless here, so they got up on to roof to connect a reciever and then plugged us in a router in the house. Once they'd gone we went online and browsed the web for a while - exciting stuff! Eventually we realised that we had been distracted and went back down to the gross room to keep on clearing. The couple came again to collect the metal and whilst the lady was in our garden picking everything up a neighbour we hadn't met yet came by. He was very nice and friendly with a big smile! Of course he didn't speak English but I think he came around to check what the couple were doing hanging around our house. Looking out for us I guess! We explained we were just giving them the scrap metal and he smiled alot and seemed happy!

 

ONLINE!

Anyway after everyone had left we decided to have a lunch break. We were working a bit slowly today but that room was so dusty and damp and smelly it wasn't nice to be in there for long. We did eventually get back to it though - we cleared hundreds of glass bottles and also loads of jars full of preserves. Lastly was just layers of mud, walnut shells, broken glass and plastic bits etc. so we got the shovel in. We filled nine rubble bags!! But finally the room was empty.

 

A few before and after photos... I cannot emphasise enough how gross this room was before!

 

We carried on burning the old furniture and we started to burn some of the plastic stuff, thinking it might be better than dumping it. However the smell was so bad and making Pete feel really sick that we had to stop. We bagged it up and loaded the van with all the rubbish we couldn't burn - ready to take to the dump in the morning.

 

 

We had a beer in the sunshine and splashed off the dust with some cold water. As we had internet now we skyped my mum and dad to say hello. In the evening we had dinner and stayed up a bit on our computers with our electric light on! Just like being in Brighton!

 

Friday

 

As the water guy was coming at anytime from 'lunch' onwards, we were up and out the house by 9.30 this morning to make sure we didn't miss him. First stop was the dump which is just past SG, so we stopped in to say hello to M & D on the way. The view from the dump was gorgeous - bright green fields with hills and mountains on the horizon.

 

 

Anyway, we drove back and then into Chirpan. We'd forgotton that it was market day - town was really busy with everyone out shopping and drinking coffee in the sunshine. Lovely. We stopped first at the builders merchants for a few bits and then carried on to the electrical shop, where we bought a toaster and a kettle! I wanted to stop for a coffee because it was so bustling in town but it was nearly 11.30 already so we drove home instead and made a coffee with our new kettle instead. And had TOAST!

 

Ooo new appliances.

We got the fire going again and started to clear the otherside of the garden (I know - the garden is huge!) This wasn't too difficult but it was about 26 degrees so we were very hot and there were even more thorns to deal with. We were making good progress though and after a few hours we stopped for a late lunch. The water guy had still not come - we had some hope that he would still turn up, although M had warned us that this particular man was notorious for just doing things when they suited him and was quite fond of the bar down the road!

 

Before

We now have even more garden!

Back to clearing and we eventually got there and could now see our lovely stone wall between the garden and the walnut orchard, and we could even see the tent from the garden now! It looked great. We burned another pile of wood (old beds from the house) and got the place looking a bit tidier.

 

The first we've seen of this wall - and we can see up to the tent now.

I'd refilled the solar showers this morning so when we'd finished working we had a lovely hot shower each. As today had been so hot we were both feeling exhausted and very hungry. We had a big dinner of egg fried rice and then Pete played guitar in bed whilst I stayed up and did a crossword whilst the sun set. We watched another film but didn't fall asleep too easily as there was a party going on somewhere in the village that was quite loud. Also there are these huge beatles that keep trying to get into the tent at night and it is so loud when they hit the tent!! It's quite funny but kept waking me up!

 

Saturday

 

Stara Zagora

Woke up and had a chilled morning with a pot of tea. At 10 we took the laptop to the house to skype Petes mum (the internet connection is not as good in the tent.) After chatting for about half an hour we said goodbye and headed out for a day in Stara Zagora. This was our first trip there without M or D so we were hoping we wouldn't get too lost! We found the tool shops easily and went in to buy a few things - some of the tools in SZ are better quality and cheaper than in Chirpan. We then drove around to try and find the mall - which we did successfully. Next to the mall was a shope called Technopolis where we went in a bought a fridge. Exciting stuff! We spent quite a long time deciding which one (Pete wants a massive double doorer with ice maker - sadly we can't quite afford those ones!!) We eventually picked one that was big enough and not too expensive and happily loaded it into the van. We then went into the mall and had a coffee. On the way home we stopped at Lidl for a bit of shopping. We have now promised that we will try and shop mostly at markets and local shops as shopping at supermarkets is so expensive in comparison - even Lidl.

 

New fridge!

Coffee at the mall.

By the time we got home it was already half three. We carried the fridge into the house and up the stairs (hard work) and then left it to sit - apparently you shouldn't turn them on for a while if they've been transported on their side. We then walked around the house for a bit planning the layout of the kitchen and living room :)

We had seen on the weather forecast that there was going to be a storm this evening so we enjoyed the last of the sun whilst the clouds rolled in around us. We listened to the thunder and lightning before the rain got to us, but when it finally did we went in the tent and made dinner. The storm only lasted an hour or so and it was much clearer by the time the sun set. It was quite a nice warm evening anyway so we stayed up in the tent playing guitar and having a beer.

 

Storm coming.

Hanging out in the tent.

In the night it rained ALOT and was very loud all night.

Sunday

 

We had lots of plans for today but when we woke up it was very chilly and raining. We made a pot of tea and watched some TV on the laptop, which didn't help with our lazy moods! In the end we decided to wait out the rain. We made more tea and hung out in the tent - I did some blogging - and then a bit later we watched a film.

 

Once the film was over, and we'd had some lunch, the sun was starting to appear again. We decided that we would prepare for our jobs tomorrow. We cleared out the other upstairs room (it didn't take long as it wasn't too bad - just sweeping and cleaning the mushrooms off the wall) and moved our tools and stuff up from downstairs. Now downstairs was completely clear and ready to start digging the floor up for our water and waste pipes. We had to load more stuff in the van to take to the dump and then Pete went up to the tent to start making dinner and clean up. I cleared an area in the garden, where we could pile the earth from the house, and made a ramp to it for the wheelbarrow. Not a very productive day but at least we are ready to go in the morning!

 

Before

Cleaner room with no mushrooms growing on the walls.

Ready to go in the morning!!

The sky is blue again but the weather forecast said it was going to 0 degrees tonight - so it's going to be a cold one! I'm going to post this now, make some pop corn and watch another film. :)