Week forty three.

Our village

Back to the weekly updates! We've been very busy, so here goes..

Monday

When I left you last week we were sitting in a café waiting for the van to come out of the garage. We ended up sitting in there for nearly 8 hours - not the most exciting day. At about half five the garage phoned saying they had finished, so we walked up the road and found our van with two lovely new bearings. We'd also shown the mechanic the rusty hole we had in the engine mount - he wasn't able to fix it himself as it was a structural problem, not mechanic, but he had managed to find a friend who could fix it for us. Yay! It was going to take a few days to do so we ended up leaving the van in the garage that evening and the mechanic gave us a lift home. Slightly annoying as if we'd known earlier we could have gone home that morning. But nevermind, we are happy it is getting sorted and our van will be safe. It was also a slightly weird feeling being stranded in the village with no vehicle!

In the cafe planning the toilet block!

Tuesday

For the rest of the week the sun has been out and it has been as hot as 20 degrees for a couple of days. This was sooo nice and really made us feel that Spring is on it's way! It also meant we could crack on with work in the garden and get our raised vegetable beds done.

Brunch in the sunshine

Spring flowers coming up in the garden

So on Tuesday we were up early and straight to work on our last two wooden raised beds. We made them in the same way, and to the same measurements, as the last one we did - so it was quite easy to put them together as we'd done it before. The more difficult part was actually getting it in the ground as we had to dig out deep holes for the pegs and then surround the wood with stone for drainage. So in the end we only got one finished, but we built all the sides for the next one so are ready to get going in the morning.

Making the sides

One side up, stones going in

Lucy relaxing

And now we have three beds!

Ready for the morning

Once we'd finished we had a beer in the last of the lovely warm sunshine and for dinner I cooked a lasagna with our homemade pasta, and it was delicious.

Wednesday

Another early start and another hot day! We were straight outside and put together the final wooden raised bed.

And then there were 4 beds!

Once we'd done this together, I set to work putting stones around the wood and pinning plastic to the inside of both the new beds. Whilst I was doing that Pete started moving more earth into the beds we'd already finished, and then into the new ones once the plastic was in. This was tough going, especially on such a hot day, and also we started to realize most of the earth that has come out of the septic tank is rocky and clay-ey and not great for growing vegetables in. This is annoying as we need to move this earth pile somewhere, and of course we need good earth for the beds. But we did what we could and then finished working at about half three so we could sit and enjoy the glorious weather whilst we had it.

Bilko loves the sun

Plastic going in

Stones and earth going around the edges

Earth pile slowly getting smaller

4 pretty beds :)

In the evening the mechanic called to say that our van was ready to be picked up tomorrow. We asked around for a lift from friends and it turned out M & D were going to Chirpan at 9 in the morning - perfect.

Thursday

Another early start and we walked down to the village shop to meet M & D at 9. The garage didn't actually open until 10 so we sat with them and had a coffee which was nice as we haven't seen them properly for a while. At about 10 we walked up to the garage to get our van - everything fixed and a really good job they'd done on it. Whilst we were there we also replaced two light bulbs and the air filter - which was apparently in the worst condition the mechanic had ever seen! Oops! Anyway, once that was all done we drove off with a healthy van at last. On the way home we stopped off to see S & G and have a cuppa with them.

It was about midday by the time we got home and although it was another warm day the forecast was due to rain this afternoon so we weren't sure whether to start work on our stone raised beds. In the end we thought we might as well just go for it and get as much done as we could. We started with the circular bed as it is the smallest - I was laying the stones whilst Pete mixed pug and rummaged through the stone pile to find good ones that I could use for the wall. We ended up actually finishing the bed as I just wanted to get it done. The last stone went down as it got dark and started drizzling - perfect timing. We covered the whole thing with a sheet of plastic and hoped that the rain didn't wash the pug away.

Starting

One layer done

Finished just as the rain starts!

In the evening we decided to get out our seeds - we had bought a whole box with us from England and had also been buying then here in Bulgaria since we arrived. It is still too early for most things to be started yet, but it was fun thinking about what we're going to grow and researching companion planting, so we can decide what to put in which beds. Oh yes I do love organizing! :)

After dinner we had Eton Mess for pudding with the left over meringues and frozen strawberries S had given us last week. So good.

Friday

Market day again so we were up at about 8 and were quite surprised to open the curtains to a blanket of white outside! How can it go from 20 degrees to snow in only one day?! It was actually still snowing as we drove into Chirpan, but it wasn't really settling and eventually it just turned to rain and made everything horrible and slushy. We picked up S & G on the way to the market as their van was having problems and they needed to get a new part from the garage - not a good week for vans! Once we'd done our shopping we had a coffee with them in Chirpan before heading home.

And now this!?

The snow/sludge had obviously put a stop to our outside work for today but we didn't let it get us down! We decided to do some cooking instead. Pete salted another batch of bacon and then planted some of our seeds out in egg trays to get started inside the house.

Please grow :)

Whilst he did this I made a cake - I had seen a recipe for an orange and carrot cake which I thought was a nice, seasonal thing to make now as oranges and carrots are two of the things they are selling most of at the market at this time of year.

Once I'd finished Pete took over the oven and roasted some beetroot (the biggest beet we've ever seen) for a beetroot and orange soup for dinner. The rest of the day was spent by the fire, eating all this yummy food!

Saturday

Not a great start to today. Pete was up first to find that we had no water running in the bathroom. Not again! I was straight up and outside to check the pipes - they didn't look frozen but we poured some boiling water over them anyway. This didn't seem to work so our only hope was to wait it out and hope that the village water was off. We decided to crack on with the day anyway as the sun was shining again - in fact it has been beautiful again for the last few days, but the temperature has stayed around 6 degrees and the mornings have been very frosty.

This morning was a very cold one - too cold to be moving stones around - so we thought we'd do some other jobs instead whilst the sun came up properly. We started by cleaning out the chicken coop and then we decided to clean out the van because it is in a complete state and I was embarrassed by it when we gave S & G a lift yesterday! We still had a tonne bag of straw in the back that we hadn't moved for months! It didn't take long to clear it out and it now looks lovely, although we still can't vacuum it as we have no hoover anymore since breaking the two we've bought.

Cleaning the chicken coop

The van before - what a disaster

After.

By the time we'd done these jobs and had some breakfast we found that the water had come back - who knows if it was frozen or turned off. Also the sun had been up long enough to make the stone feel less like ice blocks, so on we cracked with the veg patch. We unveiled the circular bed and it looks fantastic, so I got started on the next bed with the same technique. We are using lime mortar mixed with a small amount of cement for the pug which has come out quite a nice colour.

Good eh?!

The day carried on with me laying stone and Pete going through the huge stone pile (where a wall has fallen down) picking out good stone for me. We also decided to start collecting the 'un-useable' stone around the bottom a tree, as we've seen this done around the village and it is a prettier way to store the stone until we think of something else to do with it.

We finished earlyish as it had been a long day working and we had run out of lime mortar. We had been invited out to Hotel Trendafiloff with M & D and K & R this evening to play pool and table tennis. We decided to drive to Chirpan first to buy 30 bags (600kg!) of lime mortar and have a cheap and cheerful dinner at Flamingoes before meeting everyone at the hotel. We ended up having a really fun night - the highlight for me being playing 'Killer Pool' and me actually potting a few balls (with lots of advice from D) - very impressive as I can't play at all! :)

Flamingoes restaurant  

Playing pool!

Sunday

Another very frosty morning today so we had a bit of a lie in and did a few chores whilst we waited for the garden to warm up. By the time we got started working it was already 11 o'clock and we could only do a few hours as we'd been invited to a party at our neighbours house (Honey lady and Honey man - yes they make honey.)

I lay some more stone on the second bed - this one is taking a lot longer to finish as it is a lot bigger - and Pete started digging a large trench where we are going to build a new wall. We have come up with an idea to get rid of all the useless stoney, sticky earth: Pete is going to dig a big trench, taking out a lot of lovely, rich soil to put in the raised beds and replace it with the stoney earth which we can then build a new wall and another raised bed on. It is going to be quite a lot of extra work, but we think worth it to move the pile of crappy earth.

Pete found a donkey shoe is the stone pile

Starting to dig the trench

After a couple of hours of working we got cleaned up and headed down the road to Honey ladies. We had seen her the other day and from what we could understand she had said she has a lot of wine, she has a lot of potatoes and she has guests at the house - so come over on Sunday. From this we assumed she was having a party so we psyched ourselves up for some difficult Bulgarian conversation and walked round there. It seems we had understood 2 out of 3 things - there was lots of wine and potatoes but no guests. This was actually quite a relief as it's much easier to try and understand only 2 people! We had a really nice afternoon with them - they are so lovely and they seemed impressed at how much Bulgarian we have learnt. After a couple of hours we were feeling a bit tipsy so headed home laden with gifts - a bottle of homemade wine, a bottle of rakia and a huge sack of potatoes! Back at home we carried on drinking the wine and had a fun evening sitting outside on the balcony - it almost felt like summer again!

Gifts

Honey lady also gave us these bracelets - they are for a traditional Bulgarian custom where you have to wear them until Spring (1st of March, first blossom or first stalk - depending on who you talk to) and then you hang them on a tree and you will have good health and abundant crops for the year.

Monday

This morning was very frosty again so we took Lucy for a long walk first thing to wait for the garden to warm up again. When we came home it was starting to de-frost but actually all the lime mortar was frozen in the bags so we couldn't use it for a while. Pete was still able to carry on digging his trench so I decided to make a start on the flower beds I wanted to build in front of the house. For this I wanted to use to remaining concrete posts we had lying around the garden as they needed using and they would also match the concrete border that is already there. I got quite into doing this and it ended up taking all day, so I didn't get anymore stone laid, but I am very happy with the flower bed and can now plant all my bulbs in time for Spring (hopefully!)

Walking

Frozen lime mortar!

Trench is getting bigger

Starting the flower bed

Flower bed :D

With flowers in!

In the afternoon one of our neighbours popped by - a really old lady - and she was asking us for help. We weren't sure what she wanted so we followed her to her house to find that she needed us to thread the needle on her sewing machine as she couldn't see. Poor lady! She was very thankful once we'd done it for her and she pulled up a few snowdrops, with bulbs, from her garden for us to plant. So sweet. :) 

A thank you present from our neighbour

This evening has been quite chilled - Pete is playing guitar whilst I write the blog. It feels good to be making progress again and we think the garden is looking fab - can't wait to start planting and eating our own, grown food! 

Goodbye for now. xx