Week thirty four.

So it's been less than a week but I want to get a very quick post in as we have Petes mum arriving with us this afternoon so I won't be updating whilst she is here! Not loads to say and I need to be quick as we are picking Kathy up from the station in a couple of hours, so it will be mainly photos I think!

Thursday

We had an early start and Pete cracked on with plastering the hall. He got all of it finished by about 1 o'clock - good work!!

Whilst he did this I did several 'DIY' jobs that needed doing like fixing the broken toilet, replacing the lock on the bathroom door, covering the holes in the front doors where the glass had broken and hanging a curtain in the airing cupboard (it was going to be a temporary one but we actually quite like it.

So we'd got quite alot done in the morning and then at 1ish we set off to S & G's as G had kindly offered to have a look at our van for us as it has been making some strange noises! Spent the afternoon there, unfortunately found a couple of problems with the van - we need new brake pads and discs and there is a dodgy looking hole that needs repairing, but nothing too serious and or expensive (hopefully anyway.) Whilst the boys were doing that me and S had a nice wander around their village. Oh and S & G were very kind and gave us an old car radio they had lying around - unbelievably it just plugged right in a worked!! We no longer have to sing to ourselves whilst driving!! THANKS GUYS :D

Spasovo

Back home in the evening we took Lucy for a walk/went on a hunt for a christmas tree to cut down - sadly we didn't find any nearby, we will have to keep looking or we might end up having to buy a plastic one. :( We also bagged up the food that Pete had cooked yesterday.

Our village - Izvorovo

Freezer is looking good! 

Friday

Morning at the market. We also bought some straw to insulate our pipes with which only came in massive bags that filled up half the van! 

We were home by midday and Pete spent the afternoon back in the kitchen making veggie stew and jerusalem artichoke soup to go in the freezer. He also made bacon - which apparently should be ready in a week and we can't wait as you can't get bacon here at all! Exciting!!

Making bacon!!!

I was down stairs painting the ceiling with the white gloss paint we'd bought. I got one and a half coats on but my neck and arms were really aching and we were nearly out of paint - so we will finish it later! The wood was really soaking up the paint so I reckon we will need at least one, maybe even two, more coats before it looks good. I also hung up a couple of rugs in the bedroom as 'winter curtains', hopefully this will hold the heat in better.

Winter curtains

Second coat going on the ceiling.

Lucy!

Saturday

So ideally we wanted the ceiling done before we tiled the floor, but we were running out of time before Kathys arrival and a nice floor is more important than a white ceiling! So today was the tiling day. Pete made the adhesive and measured and cut the cut tiles, whilst I laid them all. This took all day and we got all of what we wanted done. Annoyingly we have to leave the back as next year we will be building a staircase and don't want to have to ruin our nice tiling. This is a bit of a shame as it takes away from the hallway being 'done', but we will cover it with rugs for now. The tiling we have done looks really good, we think, and should help decrease the amount of dust in the house - hopefully! :D

We had never noticed how wonky this step is!

First row in...

All done (for now)

In the evening we couldn't shut the bedroom doors as we needed planks as runways so as not to step on the tiles. We were worried that we would be cold as we normally only heat the yellow room with the woodburner, BUT we were very happy to find that our one little wood burner easily heated all of down stairs and it was lovely to be able to walk to the loo without freezing! 

Sunday

The weather this weekend has been fab again - whilst the sun is out it is definitely t-shirt weather, but the mornings have been gorgeous and frosty.

Frosty mornings

Today Pete was on grouting duty whilst I was tidying up outside - there was alot of random crap lying around in the garden! I also bagged up a load of straw and got our stop tap and water metre insulated so hopefully we won't get any frozen pipes. We were recommended to do the bags of straw as it is very cheap and also you can take the bags out if you (or the water man) need access. The water metre is already set in it's own little housing, but over the stop tap and used wood and tiles to make a waterproof lid.

Water meter

Insulated! Not just rubbish down there I promise!

Insulated

And waterproofed

Tidy garden

Lucy chilling on the pool area

Once Pete had done the grouting we got a big fire going outside for various bits of rubbish and then we both went upstairs to give the kitchen a good scrubbing! This took the rest of the day, but it is looking cleaner than ever! Oh yeah also in the day our neighbour, cow man, came over to have a chat with Pete. We've always thought he was quite rude, but he was being friendly today and Pete could understand more of what he was saying than usual! Apparently he is quite impressed with our work and said to Pete that 'your woman is very hard working, but be careful or she will turn into an old granny very soon!' Haha! 

Oh we also gathered some succulents from the street, to eventually go on the rockery. Hopefully they will survive here.

Tidy tidy

In the evening we had a beer in the last of the sunshine and then had a night in the yellow room by the fire again.

Relaxed dog

Monday

Today has been all about cleaning the house and getting it looking lovely for Kathy! The hallway is looking nice - we plan to decorate it this week so that will make it better. Pete is now upstairs preparing dinner for tonight and we need to go to Chirpan in about an hour to do a bit of shopping before picking our last guest of the year up from the train station! 

Hallway starting to take shape

Thanks for reading! Until next time xxx :D