54.

A very short post this week - it's not quite been a week since the last post and, although we have been working, there isn't actually too much to write about. This week has just flown by and now it's not long now until our first guests of the year arrive. :)

Pretty heart grass

Wednesday 20th

 

So after I'd written the blog last week we had a message from some friends who want to visit with their campervan - our first 'campers'! They wanted to arrive in about a week and a half - so our new priority was to get the land under control and make sure there was good access and somewhere clear and flat for them to park. So all day today Pete was up in the walnut orchard strimming the long grass.

 

Strimming

Whilst he got on with that I watered the veg before heading down the road to do a bit of gardening for an hour or so. When I was back I got on with painting our fence posts with bitumen paint again. We wanted to add more paint as we realised they needed to go much deeper than we'd originally thought. This took about an hour and once I'd finished we stopped for brunch and then I got Pete to help me carry the futon in from the van so I could set it up in the yellow room. It looks so big and bulky compared to our palette sofa, but I'm sure we'll get used it - and it is so much more practical.

 

More bitumen paint on the posts

New sofa

Once I'd done this it was time to bottle the nettle beer! I rinsed out and bleached several old beer bottles and added a spoonful of sugar to each. I then needed help from Pete so I called him down and we syphoned the nettle beer into the bottles together. We should really have done this outside as we made such a mess, but it worked great and we got 25 litres in the end - pretty good! Just a day or two to wait until we can drink it now. :)

 

Preparing the bottles

 

Syphoning

Finished product!

Once this was done Pete finished off strimming for the day whilst I wrote the rest of the blog and we again sat outside in the sunshine for the evening.

 

Great work by Pete

Thursday 21st

 

A deja vu morning this morning - Pete was strimming again whilst I tidied, watered the veg and painted a second coat of bitumen on the fence posts.

 

Once I'd done this we stopped for brunch - we're loving the fresh eggs and homemade bacon sandwiches at the moment! I the joined Pete up in the walnut orchard and whilst he strimmed I got a bonfire going to burn all the brash that was still up there from clearing the fence. We then decided to clear the entrance to the walnut orchard - it needed pruning to widen it and the whole road needed strimming and raking to make sure it wasn't slippery. We ran out of petrol for the strimmer so had to stop, but it already looks great - we'd want to camp there!!

 

Strimming again

Fireee

The entrance before...

... and after.

And from the otherside

Still a way to go with the road

Once the petrol had run out we packed up and went to the garden to have a late lunch. After we'd eaten we were feeling lazy, so decided to stop and enjoy the sun. We did fill the garden wall with stones in attempt to be productive and we dug out a flat area under the vines to put the palette sofa - so we can use it as a sun lounger. We then decided to use the sun lounger and give our nettle beer a try! It's got an interesting taste - a bit ciderish and slightly bready (because we used bread yeast I imagine) - but it is really light and refreshing, and definitely drinkable! So there is room for improvement, but we are quite chuffed to have made alcohol ourselves.

 

Wall filled with stone - ready for cementing

Sun lounger under the vines

Nettle beer testing!

Whilst we were chilling out our friend George popped by to give us a bottle of his new wine - which really put our beer to shame! He stayed for a bit and once he'd gone we took Lucy out for a walk. On the way we stopped at Hristo's house, with our beer, and asked him if he could measure the strength of it for us. He only had a measure for spirits and it showed that our beer was 0%!! Ohhh! :( He did say the measure might not work for beer and we still think it must be at least a little bit alcoholic as it was fermenting for 3 weeks!

 

Anyway, we gave Hristo the beer (he thought it was okay, he said) then we took Lucy for the walk - we found Bilko following us, so she ended up coming out for a walk too!

0%!

Bilko out for a walk with us

 

Friday 22nd

 

Market day of course. We had quite a lot of shopping to do for building bits and bobs so we out until after midday. We also ordered and picked up new glass for our front doors, so once we've done the rest of the messy work on the porch we can get the glass in. Whilst waiting for the glass to be cut we bumped into a friend from the village and ended up sitting with him a tiny bar having a midday beer!

 

By the time we'd got home and un packed everything it was gone 1 o'clock. After a coffee break we headed down the road to do some more gardening and mow the lawn.

 

When we were home Pete spent the afternoon in the kitchen making more lemon juice whilst I did a bit more gardening in the veggie patch - including planting the tomato, pepper and cucumber plants we'd bought in the market. I also lay more grass seed up on the camping spot in the orchard and connected the new sprinkler we'd bought to water it (we'd failed to water it last time and the grass hadn't germinated.) In the evening Pete cooked a lovely dinner (including fried chillis, mmmm) that we ate sat out the sun.

 

New sprinkler on the mud patch

Yummy dinner

Saturday 23rd

 

Pete was back to the strimming today, what a boring and long job - he's going to have to start it again by the time he's finished! He focused mainly on the flat area at the top of the orchard (where we want the campers to stay) and the track leading up to the orchard. He got distracted several times by neighbours coming over and chatting to him - cow man even came into our land, with his cow, and just sat down and made himself comfy! It was good though as we were able to try and explain about our campsite idea, which people seem to be taking very well - which is relieving!

 

More strimming progress on the track

 

Whilst Pete was getting on with strimming I watered the veg and planted my marigolds in the tomato patch. I also harvested our first home grown produce - radishes! We've grow two varieties, but only one was ready now - the French Breakfast. Feeling excited I decided to make breakfast using them, so we had fresh poached eggs, home made bacon, buttery radish leaves and radishes on toast! Yum.

 

More marigolds with the tommies

 

First harvest

Home grown breakfast

 

After brekkie Pete got back to his strimmer and I finally got around to finishing the flower bed and planting those fruit bushes we bought two weeks ago! Thankfully they survived and are looking surprisingly healthy. I planted a gooseberry and a redcurrant bush either side of our homemade bench (which may need to be moved once the bushes are bigger) and two raspberry canes, with sticks and wire, just along from them. It has really neatened up the front wall which is also good.

 

Small fruit bushes by the bench

Raspberry canes

Whilst Pete was working up in the field Hristo had come over to chat to him as well. Hristo had suggested we have a beer soon, so we decided to invite him and his wife over this evening. This meant we finished work at about half 3 and nipped quickly into Chirpan as our gas had run out and we didn't have a cooker. When ever we go to Hristo's house he always makes us loads of food, so we thought we'd better lay on a spread for them this evening! Pete got busy in the kitchen whilst I tidied the house and garden and made everything look pretty. They came over at about 6.30 and we had a great time eating and chatting with them - they are so patient with our Bulgarian, it's so lovely! They didn't stay very late and as it was such a lovely evening we stayed up and had another beer once they'd gone.

Gift from Hristo's wife

 

Evening with our neighbours

Sunday 24th - Bilko's first birthday!

Birthday cat! :)

Today we had a day of rest. It was a drizzly day, turning into quite a rainy afternoon, so we had breakfast in bed and just relaxed in the house all day. I made some 'biscuits' from just banana, oats and walnuts, which were sooo easy to make and pretty tasty. We also hung our new curtains in our bedroom so finally the wardrobe is out of sight! In the evening we watched two films and then read our books in bed. A great day!

 

Rainy day - happy vegetables

3 ingredient biscuits!

 

New curtains are in

Monday 25th

 

It was due to rain again today, although when we woke up the weather was glorious. We'd planned to go to SZ again as we needed to buy tiles for the balcony and a lemon tree, but as the weather was so nice we did a few bits at home before leaving at about 11. In the morning I did the washing up and cleaned out the chicken coop (which was much needed - eurgh) whilst Pete got a new batch of bacon salting and took Lucy out for a walk (which was also much needed as she hadn't been for two days, poor doggy.) Once all this was done we set off to the city.

 

Chicken house is all clean

And they almost instantly thanked me with an egg!

First stop was the garden centre, which was about a 20 minute drive after SZ - we hadn't been here before but we'd passed it on our way back from VT last month. We found it easily and it was a lovely place with lots of beautiful trees but, of course, no lemon trees.

 

We then decided to make a short detour as I'd noticed on the map a small road, just north of SZ, following a river and thought it might be pretty or interesting. We drove a few kilometres and found a really beautiful area with several hotels and restaurants advertising mineral swimming pools. We also followed a smaller road and found several laybys where you could access the pretty, little river - perfect for summer days. We are very happy to have found this area as it's less than an hour from our house and absolutely stunning - we will definitely be visiting soon with our guests!  

 

Gorgeous hills and river

After a bit of an explore we headed back into Stara to do some shopping at Lidl and buy tiles for our new balcony. It did end up raining a lot on our way home but when we were back to our village we found it hadn't rained here at all! This evening Pete has made yet another lovely dinner whilst I have written the blog - sat inside this week as it is a bit wet and cold out there now.

Thanks for reading! xxx