Weeks 50 and 51.

 

Well I have a huge update to write today! We had an unplanned kind of week off last week so I didn't have much to write about, and this week we've been enjoying the long evenings, so haven't got around to writing the blog. But I can't leave it any longer as I'm already starting to forget what we've done! So here goes, get comfy...

 

Tuesday 22nd

Oh I'll start with the photo of the bottom step, as promised in the last update. I know you've all been waiting for it. We used a metal pole in the wet cement to shape a gutter style thing so that the water doesn't puddle in the corner.

 

Tada! Now we can use the steps properly again.

Today the weather was still nice and when we woke up we decided we'd have a day out in Plovdiv - because why not! We got the train in and decided to wander around some areas we haven't yet visited. We've been to Plovdiv a few times now but always with guests and have gone a similar route through the centre with all the tourist attractions, so this time we explored the back streets and found some nice areas. We were happy to discover some second hand shops and do a bit of shopping and we found a really nice restaurant with a traditional Bulgarian lunch menu. We also visited a small art gallery and a history museum, where the girl working was really friendly and we had a good chat with her.

The streets of Plovdiv

Restaurant - with Willy Peter! :)

Museum

 

We then headed to our favourite bar to have a couple of afternoon ales. Oh how we miss proper beer! We even splashed out on some bottles of craft beer made in Bulgaria and Romania, which were absolutely delicious (and one of them 9%!) We got the train back at about 4.30 (the next one wasn't until 7, which was a bit too late) so it was quite a short day out, but a very nice one. It is good to visit the city, and civilisation, once in a while!

Oh we also saw loads of stalks whilst on the train - so Spring has officially arrived and we can hang our Martenitsa bracelets on a tree!

 

 

 



Beer time in the trendy part of town

Stalk! (sorry about the scratched camera lens)

Wednesday 23rd

 

Unfortunately today was rather grey and cold, and set to stay like this for a few days. In the morning we planted our new herbs bushes, that we'd bought yesterday in Plovdiv, and hug our Martenistas on the tree outside our bedroom window. We then had a call saying our lawn mower had been fixed, so we nipped into Chirpan to pick it up. It was threatening to rain but was holding off for now so we went down the road and mowed the lawn, as well as weeding and a few other bits around the garden. 

Difficult to photograph, but these are our hanging Martenitsas

Planting our lemon thyme

Flowers coming up

Mum - these are the ones you planted! :)

Fog coming over the hills

Mowing

In the afternoon we took Lucy for a walk and then I braved the outside to cut down some more bushes in the campsite field - in preparation for building the fence. But it got really cold and started to rain so I called it a day and we got cosy by the fire for the evening. 

 

Walkies

Before

After

Grey day

Thursday 24th

Another dreary day but we dragged ourselves out in the morning to go picking for more nettles - this time we want to make nettle beer. We stopped in the shop and explained to a few people what we wanted to do, much to everyone's amusement - why would we want to make beer from nettles!? Anyway, we were out foraging for a few hours and ended up with two huge sacks of nettles.

 

Nettle picking

Wild hops in the village - we'll be getting these to make real beer later in the year!

Our street

 

We had a fairly chilled day after that, whilst making the beer. To make the beer you have to boil the nettles - we had to do this in several batches, so it took a while. We ended up only using half the nettles we'd picked as we ran out of time and thought we'd better just do a test batch first. We made our own air locks using hose and a jar of water (we've seen our neighbours using these on their home made wine) and left them in a cold, dark room to ferment. We also balled up the boiled nettles and put them in the freezer to use in cooking later - so nothing was wasted. Another evening spent hunkering down by the fire.

 

Left to ferment

We still haven't cleared this room since we arrived!!

Nettles balled up, ready to freeze.

Friday 25th

Yet another wet and grim day. Nothing to report from today really - we went to the market in the morning and then tidied the house in the afternoon. We stopped round at a neighbours house to have a chat and a look around their garden. She gave us several hibiscus plants that she had weeded, so we planted them temporarily in a raised bed - we will eventually plant them along the fence in the campsite. We also planted the blueberry bush we'd bought in Chirpan, and that was about it for the day. In the evening we packed for our weekend away and had an early night.

 

Hibiscuses planted

Blueberry bush planted

The garlic and onions are doing great!

Saturday 26th

It was a very early start for us as we were going away to see our friends in VT for the weekend. We woke up, had a cup of tea in bed, packed the van and set off, with Lucy, by 8 o'clock. We were actually meeting our friends for lunch in a small village near Troyan, in the Stara Planina mountains, and we had a table reserved for midday. Google told us it would take 3 hours to drive there, but we know what the Bulgarian roads are like so we gave ourselves an extra hour. The drive up to and into the mountains was absolutely stunning and it was a beautiful day as well. We stopped for a coffee in a small town with a glorious view before heading up into the snowy mountains, where we stopped again to let Lucy have a little run around.

 

Loads of driving photos!

We ended up getting to the restaurant early and had a walk up the river there whilst we waited for our friends. The restaurant was also really pretty, very traditional Bulgarian style, and had a nice looking guest house and some cute animals to play with. Our friends arrived at 12 and we had a lovely big lunch and a catch up. In the afternoon we drove to he next village and went into a hotel to use the mineral pools! They have these all over Bulgaria - they are outdoor swimming pools heated naturally and they are lovely. This complex had a big warm pool as well as a smaller hotter pool, one boiling hot pool and one freezing one - which you had to dunk between! It was a great afternoon chilling out and playing with the kids.

 

Animals at the restaurant

Fake house under the bridge

Pretty restaurant

Around the restaurant

At the pool

After a couple of hours at the pool we decided to make a move as it was another two hours drive back to VT - poor Pete's done a lot of driving today. Back at our friends we had some dinner and a few beers, but had an early night as it was another early start tomorrow - made even earlier by the clocks changing.

 

Sunday 27th

So the alarm went off at 6 (actually 5) and we all got up in the darkness and got ready to go out to the boot sale. The boot sale is something that happens near VT monthly (from spring - autumn) and it was the first of the year today. Our friends were going to sell some stuff and we wanted to have a look around and try and find some bargains! Also it is held in a campsite so we wanted to have a nose around that too! We got there early and left our friends to set up whilst we had a wander around. It was quite bizarre actually, we kind of felt like we were back in England - it was a bit of a cold and dreary morning, the café was selling tea and bacon sandwiches and more than half the stalls were run by English people! There was even a stall selling Marmite, Bisto and HP! Anyway, we had a really nice morning but then the rain set in and a lot of people decided to go - including us and our friends. We said our goodbyes to everyone and headed towards home.

 

Boot sale

It was still only about 10.30 by the time we were on the road, so we decided to make a small detour up a mountain to visit the town of Tryavna. We've wanted to go there for a while as we'd heard they sold a lot of traditional Bulgarian items, and now was a good opportunity as it was almost on the way home.

 

Tryavna was a very pretty town and we spent a nice hour or so there - but sadly didn't find any nice rugs, which is what we were looking for. We also got followed and flagged over by the police who wanted to see our documents, of course we had everything including our resident cards so they couldn't get anything from us! :) The rest of the drive home was long and Pete was knackered by the time we were back. It was time for dinner and then straight to bed.

 

Cup of tea in a cafe

Pretty Tryavna

Monday 28th

Finally today the sun was back again and it was time to get back to work! We had a bit of a lie in but we were still feeling pretty tired after the long weekend, so we decided to take it quite easy. The forecast has assured us we are past any chance of frost this year (we hope) so we thought it was a good day to get some veggies planted out in the garden. We planted 5 types of beetroot, 2 types of radish and spinach and we went into the village to cut down straight sticks to build our bean wigwam. We then planted turnips, beans, peas and 2 types of lettuce. It was great!

Loads of seeds

Making rows for the beets

Cutting down these straight poles

And we've made our wigwam!

There will be spinach here soon!

Chickens loving the sun

We finished gardening around 4.30 but as there were still a few more hours of light left we decided to drive into Chirpan to stock up on building materials. Once we'd got everything we needed we stopped in a bar for a beer and to soak up the sun. We also called a worker and got him booked into to work with us tomorrow - so we can finally get the trench dug to get water to the barn.

 

Oh also, just to mention, that when we came back from our weekend away we found that our nettle beer wasn't bubbling. We tested the yeast and it turns out we'd been sold dead yeast. Annoying. There is no where else to buy wine yeast in Chirpan so we've used bread yeast instead. It may taste slightly weird but it is now frothing away and should be drinkable, and alcoholic, in a couple of weeks.

Beer in Chirpan

Beer now bubbling

 

Tuesday 29th

Yet another early start as we had to be in Chirpan by 8 to pick up our worker. Once we were back home we told him what he needed to do and left him to get on with it. We spent the morning doing various things around the garden. Firstly we cut our wooden fence posts to length and dunked them into bitumen paint - this is one way we hope to stop them rotting in the ground. I then strimmed the garden as it is already getting really over grown - but first we saved a lot of the Lapad and Pete boiled it and then out it in the freezer in bags. We also sowed grass seed over the camping spot in the walnut orchard so hopefully that will get going soon.

 

 

Preparing the fence posts

Saving the Lapad

Sowing grass seed

We all stopped for lunch and we had a good chat with our worker - he was here our first week we arrived and, luckily, our Bulgarian has improved massively and we are now able to have a conversation! After lunch we decided to crack on with making our second gabion, which we managed to finish and it looks great. The old wall is slowly disappearing and now we just have a wall of earth - hopefully there won't be any torrential rains anytime soon. We all stopped working at about 4.30, after a hard days work, and we took our worker back into Chirpan. The trench looks great, although he only got down about a third of what we wanted, but Pete has decided he wants to finish it himself.

 

Second gabion done

Old wall disappearing slowly

Trench both ways

Last raised bed filled with earth from the trench

Wednesday 30th 

 

Well today was a glorious day - early to mid twenty degrees, beautiful. :) We started the day by taking Lucy for a walk to the lavender fields. We then got on with working - we decided we'd both have a go at digging the trench deeper, Pete pick axing and me shovelling. We did this for a while but then Pete thought he could do it easier without me so I went off with the wheelbarrow to collect several more loads of compost from next door. I got about 8 wheelbarrows full and then chopped it all up in the soil, ready for planting. In the long bed I planted my 7 sunflowers, which were already getting quite big in the house. We also came across a mole cricket which is a hideous creature about 2 inches long (photo below.)

 

View of Chirpan and the Rhodopes

Walkies

More compost in the beds

Sunflowers going in

A mole cricket - the stuff of nightmares!

Pete in the trench

Also today we had the walnut man come around the village, so we decided we would try and sell all our walnuts. We stopped the car as it drove past our house and the guy came in to see how many nuts we had. We got off to a bad start as he only offered us 20 lev for the lot (less than £10) which was just ridiculous. He then told us he'd give us 2 lev a kilo - which was okay but we weren't sure how many kilos we had so we asked him to weigh them for us. His scales said we only had about 25 kilos so we decided we didn't want to sell them now as it wasn't enough money and apparently the price gets higher as the year goes on. We told the guy and his wife 'no we don't want to sell now' - we said it in Bulgarian - but as we turned for a second they picked up our bags and started pouring them out into their car! We shouted 'no no stop' - in Bulgarian - and eventually they did stop, pretending to have not understood us. We tried to get some of our walnuts back, but we lost quite a few and we all ended up shouting a bit - our neighbour even came over to see what was happening! In the end he tried to offer us 60 lev for all the nuts but we told him no. This is so annoying as I'm sure this only happened because we're foreign and also we will have walnuts to sell every year, so we need to find somewhere else to go now.

Anyway, in the afternoon we spruced up the house, had an early dinner and then in the evening S & G came over and we had a great night sitting out around a bonfire. It was a lovely warm night with loads of stars, we are starting to feel like summer has arrived!

 

Flowers from Baba Villay making our bathroom smell amazing

Bonfire with S & G

Thursday 31st

Another hot hot day! We were back to work in the garden, Pete again in the trench and me now laying bricks on the top of our stone wall. I started by marking a straight line with string and then used it to lay the old bricks we had from around the house and garden. This will give us two straight edges and we can then easily concrete the top and make the wall weather proof.

 

Digging again

String in place

Done for the day

View from the side

Late afternoon Pete was feeling a bit worse for wear (slightly too much wine the night before!) so we decided it was time to get the hammock out from winter storage so he could have a rest. Later on Pete went into the kitchen and made a fantastic chicken liver pate whilst I finished off laying the bricks, and then I enjoyed the hammock myself. So nice!

Hammock time



Friday 1st April - ONE YEAR SINCE WE LEFT ENGLAND!!!

That's right, this time last year we were packing up our van, in the rain, getting ready for our ferry crossing to France and a drive across Europe to our new home. :)

Of course it was market day again and as well as food shopping we also had a huge list for building materials, so we ended up being out until about 1 in the afternoon. We got home and unpacked everything and then we went down the road for a few hours to do some gardening. It was another scorching day, finally we are able to work on our tans! After that we took Lucy for a quick walk and by the time we were home it was already about 5.30 so Pete made a yummy meze style dinner. We ate dinner outside and drank bucks fizz to celebrate our one year anniversary. We had a couple more drinks and were able to sit out all evening with just a cardigan on and not be cold.

Gardening in shorts

Still hot whilst out walking at 5pm

Lovely dinner

Our animals!

Saturday 2nd

This morning was sunny again but really blustery, which was actually quite nice for working in. Pete cracked straight on with the trench again whilst I spent the morning untangling metres of extension cable and rewiring the plug. I also untangled our really long hose and found it has about 4 leaks - so that needs to be fixed. Once I'd finally sorted all that I got back to the wall and lay bricks all down the other side. I ran out of pug so there are still a few more to lay, but I think it looks great. At some point in the afternoon Pete broke his pick axe so had to stop digging the trench until we get a new one. Whilst I was still working on the wall Pete knocked up a simple wooden frame to be used as a herb box. We can get it filled with earth tomorrow and plant out all the basil we've got growing inside. This evening Pete made a delicious dinner, which we ate outside again, and then I've written the blog whilst Pete's been playing guitar.

 

Me and the chickens working on the wall

Taking a break from digging to trim the tree that's touching the electricity cables

Broken pick axe.

Bricks on the wall

Herb box

Spring time garden

Delicious dinner

Wooo that was long - I'll definitely get back to the weekly updates as this has taken over 4 hours to write! Well done if you've read it all! :) Goodbye xx