Mum & Dad to visit.

This weekend my mum and dad have been here. They were staying in a hotel nearby and we had a great couple of days together.

 

They arrived on Friday afternoon and we drove to the hotel to pick them up and show them the way to our house. Our tent had dried out and the weather was good. We spent the afternoon at ours - showing them the house and garden (which they loved :)) and having a few beers in the sunshine. In the evening we drove into Chirpan to have dinner in a local restaurant which we hadn't been to yet. It was a great  - really busy with only Bulgarians and good food (even the chips with yoghurt was yummy!)

 

Dinner our - chips and yoghurt!

 

On Saturday we joined them early at the hotel for breakfast and then went to have a wander around Chirpan in the day light. We showed them the builders merchants (Dad is giving us lots of advice of what to do on the house and what materials to use which is great.) we then walked through the park and stopped for a coffee. In the afternoon we stopped in the shop to introduce them to the shop lady and happened to bumpo into M - who told us there was a village 'festival' starting at 6 in the evening. Back at home we had a BBQ - Pete cooked some delicious food - and we hung out in the glorious sunny evening. At 5ish we strolled down the the village centre (walking the scenic route along the river.) The festival got started and involved some very loud and frantic traditional music and several people holding hands and dancing around in a circle! Very weird. After a couple of hours we headed home, on the way stopping at the honey lady's house to see if we could buy some honey for mum and dad. The honey lady and her husband are so friendly and actually invited us in for wine and salami - which was great. We all nodded along pretending to understand each other (we did make out though that they thought mum was my sister!) and the honey lady even showed us all around her house. It was cool to get mum and dad involved in the village life! In the evening we went back to ours and had a bonfire and stayed up chatting and drinking wine.

 

Mum and me in Chirpan.

BBQ

Walk in the village.

Bulgarians dancing at festival!

Drinks with the honey couple.

 

Sunday was sadly the last day mum and dad were here - much too short a trip I know. After breakfast at the hotel we drove to Stara Zagora so we could show dad more builders shops (he likes it!) and they kindly bought us some new tools which we need (THANKS AGAIN.) We also showed them around the centre for a bit and got an ice cream. At about midday we headed back home with plans to walk to the lake, which is supposedly about half an hour from our village. The sky was clouding over and we could hear a storm in the distance, but decided to risk it anyway. Bad idea! We'd walked quite far (a lovely walk so far) but then the heavens properly opened. We tried to wait it out under a tree but it was just getting worse so we had to just turn around and walk home - we got absolutely drenched. Like SOAKED. Back at the tent we dried up as much as we could and had to save the tent from leaking (because the tent is on a slight slope the top side of the roof was just collecting water, and there was alot of it.) Once we'd sorted the tent and had a cuppa to warm up we all drove to the hotel so mum and dad could get dry clothes on and we could all have a beer in a warm bar. In the evening the weather cleared up and we went into Chirpan for dinner. We went to the pizzeria where the food is good but a slightly different vibe to the first restaurant as we were the only customers! Still a lovely evening and we went back to the hotel for a night cap before saying goodbye to mum and dad - until next time they visit. It was great to have them here and show them how beautiful the area is and that Bulgaria is not (that) weird.

 

Stara Zagora.

 

Playing with new tools!

Walking into the storm.

Hiding from the rain!

Today was a bit of a write off as the rain has not stopped all day. It calmed down to a drizzle for a while so we managed to clean up a bit and Pete had a fiddle with some of the new tools. Hopefully tomorrow is better and we can crack on with the house - having dad give us advice of what/how to do stuff has been amazing and we feel much more confident now of what we should be doing.

 

A fantastic weekend. :)