Monday 11th
It was quite a drizzly day today so we decided to just take a day off and hang out in the house. We did do one job, which was to put the half ped under the sink in the bathroom - it's been about 6 months and we still hadn't got around to doing it yet, although I'm not sure why as it took all of 5 minutes to do!
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| Half ped finally on! |
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| Walking Lucy in the village |
Tuesday 12th
Today the sun was back, and very hot - 20 something degrees, and it was time to get on with this porch at last! The first job was to get down the last of the concrete from the old balcony. Pete got on with jigger-jiggering that and, as I couldn't be much help to him, I decided to make a start on a new bed in the garden for us to plant our fruit bushes in. I didn't get much done on that though as once Pete had got all the old concrete down I went over to help him remove the old doors. We managed to keep them in tact which is good - everything can be re-used (I'm thinking cold frames!)
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| All the bad concrete taken off now |
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| Old doors gone |
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| Getting the last few bits down |
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| Upcycle project... |
The next stage was to get the three wooden beams across. One was easy as it was a lintel over the door and just sat on the two blockwork columns, but the other two needed to slot into the house - which meant making two holes in the stone wall. Easier said than done, as I'm sure you can imagine, especially as we are leaving this stone wall exposed so didn't want to make a messy job of it. But with the aid of the jigger jigger and lots of chiselling (by Pete) we finally made them.
After that it was fairly easy - we slot the beams in to place and got them level. I then filled the gaps in the stone wall as neatly as I possibly could, and made the beams really secure in that end. Whilst I did that Pete used bricks to fill the gaps between the beams and secure them at the other end.
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| Difficult work getting the stone out |
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| But we did it! |
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| Beams are in |
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| Stone replaced - hopefully it will look better once their re pointed |
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| Bricks to bring the level up |
So now we were ready to build the framework for the concrete - but not today! We cleared up and enjoyed and lovely sunny evening in the garden.
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| Where we want to plant our fruit bushes... before |
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| And after, we've made a start at least. |
Wednesday 13th
Another hot hot day and our job was to get the frame work and props in so we could pour the concrete for the new balcony. We wanted to be extra precautious as this is our first bit of real structural building, so we were a bit nervous about it! There's not much interesting to write about it really - we had to lay the chipboard down over the beams, get all the props up and the frame work in place at the right levels. We had to make a trip to Chirpan in the morning to get wood and load up on sand and gravel for the concreting. Once everything was in place we were able to walk on the chipboard and tie in the re-bar and connect it all to the existing metal. We also drilled in new ties to make extra sure it won't be falling down. All this ended up taking all day and as it was such a hot one we were completely exhausted by the end of it - but very pleased with what we'd done.
Another evening spent sitting in the garden enjoying the sun. This weather is fantastic - so different from when we arrived last year at this time and it was freezing!
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| OSB (chipboard) in place over the beams |
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| Loads of props inside |
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| Frame work and more props outside |
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| Re-bar all in place |
Thursday 14th
We decided to get up really early today, about 7, to get going on the concreting. It was forecast to drizzle in the afternoon so we wanted to get it done before that, although as it turned out the morning was overcast and the afternoon turned into another scorcher. We got straight into working - even before a cuppa!! - I was mixing the concrete in the mixer whilst Pete was up on the balcony laying it. Very annoyingly we run out of gravel and sand - with only about 2 more loads needed to finish the job. Luckily it was overcast so we were able to quickly nip into Chirpan, get more stuff and get back before anything had gone off. By the time we'd finished it was about midday, which was great.
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| Cold, grey morning - bringing all the sand and gravel over where we needed it |
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| Smoothing and levelling out the concrete |
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| Done! |
It was hard work doing this so we chilled out for a bit and some lunch once we'd finished. Pete had hurt his knee carrying the concrete up the stairs so for the rest of the afternoon he did a few chores around the house and garden and took Lucy out for a walk. As it had turned into a nice afternoon I wanted to do a bit of work in the garden. Yesterday, whilst we were out walking the dog, one of our neighbours had called us over to show us how to prune a fruit tree - this spurred me on to get ours done as they were all going crazy since Spring has sprung. Feeling proactive I also decided to lay a short amount of water pipe into the trench, cover it with insulation and plastic and start covering it with earth again. I did about five meters but it was too hot to for digging and it was definitely time for a beer after such a long day!
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| The trees are sprouting everywhere |
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| All are lovely and neat after a pruning session |
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| Water pipe in the trench |
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| Insulated and covered with plastic |
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| And covered up again! |
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| A beautiful Henbane in bloom - which we've found out is hallucinogenic! |
Friday 15th
Market day. We had planned a BBQ on Sunday for about 13 people so we had a lot of shopping to do today! As well as that we wanted to sell a large pile of old metal we had in the garden to the scrap yard, and get a new sim card for our phone as our last one had been cut off (we didn't know you had to top up your credit monthly.) So it turned out to be quite a long morning. First top was the scrap yard, we had 41 kilos of metal and we got a grand total of 7 levs for it all!! I suppose it's better than nothing. On the way home we stopped off at the wine lady in Spasovo to stock up for the BBQ.
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| We're rich after selling our metal! |
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| In the wine cellar |
Back home we had plenty to be getting on with - now the porch was done we needed to get the trench finished as it is cutting right through our garden and we didn't want any accidents happening when we have guests here on Sunday. So Pete carried on digging at the barn end whilst I lay the pipe and did the plumbing to connect it to the water meter. I also plumbed in a T connection where we want to dig another trench to where our outdoor sink will be in the veg garden. I was quite pleased as there was only one leak when I'd finished, which was easily fixed. Pete got all the way to the barn, but not through the wall, so we have decided just to leave that section open to finish next week. Once all the pipe was in we covered it with insulation and plastic, so it's now ready to be filled.
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| Plumbing in the hole |
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| All done, stop tap and all |
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| Pipe ready to be connected to our garden sink |
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| Pipe laid to the barn, insulated and covered with plastic |
Late afternoon some friends popped over and we had a cuppa with them and a catch up and once they'd left we finished off working and sat out again enjoying the warm evening.
Saturday 16th
Today was another boiling hot day and I got straight to work filling in the trench so we could have it finished by tomorrow. It took me almost all day, and was bloody hard work - especially as it was soooo hot, but I managed to get it all filled and level. We'd used most of the good earth from the trench in the raised beds, so this meant I had to use the horrible, clay-ey earth that we had previously dug out for the septic tank. The area I was collecting that from is the place we eventually want to use to sit in as it will be outside the summer kitchen and all shaded by vines, so it was also good progress to start getting that flattened out.
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| Trench all filled in |
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| Starting to flatten out the seating area under the vines |
Pete spent all day in the kitchen making LOADS of food - he made bread, falafels, marinated the meat, prepared all the veg etc. etc. At the end of the day we gave the garden a massive tidy up and Pete strimmed all the grass so it was looking lovely and tidy. In the evening we took Lucy out for a sunset walk and then had dinner sitting out on our new balcony.
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| The garden all strimmed and looking pretty |
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| Views! |
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| Walking the dog |
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| Wild flower |
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| Wild strawberries - why are we growing them!? |
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| Dinner on the balcony |
Oh I forgot to mention last week that we have heard, and seen, the first cuckoo of the year. Also the starling is back nesting in our big plum tree, the swallows are back and trying to nest in our house again (with less success than last year), the wild flowers that are around are lovely and everything is looking so lush and green. We've also seen quite a lot of snakes on the roads and Bilko has kindly bought in to the house a few massive lizards and a rat!
Sunday 17th
Pete was back in the kitchen again today making even more food - I think we could feed the village with all the food he made! Whilst he did that I tidied up the house and set up the BBQ and table in the garden. We used the chainsaw to slice a log and make place mats, which we thought looked pretty good! It was yet another scorching day - temperatures got above 30 apparently. Our guest started arriving at about 4 and we had a really great time eating, drinking and catching up with our friends. We were having too much fun to remember to take many photos, which is a shame, but you'll have to trust me that all the food was fabulous and it was a fantastic evening.
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| BBQ and table all set up |
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| People arriving, Pete on the barbie |
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| Later - after all food and lots of drink had been consumed! |
Monday 18th
We had a bit of a lie in this morning and then spent the morning clearing and washing up. It was yet another gorgeous day so we decided to take it easy and relax. Having said that though I got reading one of our books about growing veg, which got me excited so I actually spent most of the afternoon planting loads of seeds and some of our small seedlings out into the garden. It was a really nice chilled day.
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| Our tiny home grown tomato seedling (right) next to the huge market bought one! |
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| Weed free and new sees sown |
At 4.30 we headed out to Chirpan as we had bought a second hand futon off a Bulgarian 'Gumtree' style website and needed to pick it up this evening. The whole conversation to get this organised was written through Google translate - Me into Bulgarian and him into English - so it was quite funny and we weren't really sure if we'd been properly understood. We arrived at the address at the organised time and found that no one was home - annoying. Then this quite strange, and possibly quite stoned, looking man came out from the house next door to see what we wanted. We couldn't say what we were doing there in Bulgarian so ended up just saying 'sofa', 'bed' and 'internet' - which probably sounded quite odd! He then beckoned us into his house, took us upstairs and pointed to his bed - not the one we wanted! We quickly got out of there as it was all a bit too weird, but in the end the same man ended up finding the home owner for us and we got the futon successfully. A very bizarre experience!
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| New sofa bed for all our guests this year |
When we got home Pete got dinner going whilst I watered the veggies and then we took Lucy out for a stroll around the village. We decided to take Honey Lady some rosehip syrup and ended up stopping in there for a glass of rakia. They also gave us a sack of lettuce and about 15 tomato plants.
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| Walkies |
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| Pete and Honey Man enjoying a glass of rakia |
Tuesday 19th
Having started off doing work in the veg garden yesterday I had realised that I had quite a lot more to do to get on top of everything - it's time consuming this veg stuff! My last two attempts at planting seeds in trays have both failed miserably, for some unknown reason, so I've tried again - this time mixing the shop bought compost with our neighbours super worm compost, so hopefully it's third time lucky. I also weeded the beds and planted more stuff straight outside - it's the weather for it after all. I also planted all the tomato plants the Honey Lady had given us, so hopefully they'll survive, and planted out several flowers that I've grown from seed..
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| Lots of tomatoes |
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| Radishes are nearly ready already! |
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| Flowers planted under cups |
Pete also was working hard - he foamed all the gaps in the blockwork wall and fixed the gutter that has been leaking for months. He also got a scratch coat of render done all over the porch, so it is starting to blend into the house a bit already (kind of!)
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| DIY |
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| Rendering |
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| One coat done |
We finished working earlyish and had a G & T in the sunshine whilst I started to write up the blog. I didn't manage to get it all finished yesterday though, as we had dinner and skyped my parents so I ran out of time. It was a lovely evening.
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| Writing the blog with a G & T |
Even though it's Wednesday now I'm going to finish the blog here as it is just getting too long - I'll write about today next week! Thanks for reading again everyone. Chao :)
