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This week has been a pretty miserable one, weather wise, and the constant rain/threat of rain has stopped us doing a lot of work. This is frustrating as we had a list of stuff we wanted done before our guests arrive - but hey ho, that's life!

So, as of tomorrow we have guests (family and friends, in the house and camping) staying with us non stop until nearly the end of June. We are looking forward to this alot as we've had no one here since December and it's great to see everyone and have a busy house (and it will make a nice change from just the two of us!) I will try and keep the blog updates as regular as possible, but there may be a longer wait between posts. Anyway, as for this week it should be quite a short one...
 

Our little friend about to feed her babies that are nesting in our big tree

Tuesday 3rd

The day started off with okay weather so we were up at normal time and made a quick journey into Chirpan to buy building stuff, now that the long holiday weekend was over. Once we were home the sun was still out so we quickly got on with finishing the last bit of rendering on the porch. Before starting we had to hammer a load of tiny nails into the chip board so the render had something to grip to. This took ages and was very achey for the arms! We did the rendering together again (Pete applying it, me smoothing it out) and got it done quite quickly.   

 

Loads of tiny nails

First coat done

 

Whilst I was finishing the rendering Pete got started on finally sorting out the last raised bed. We've left this bed as it had lots of flowers coming up and we thought we'd see what they were. Amazingly these flowers (bulbs) have pushed up through over a foot of soil, so trying to dig them out has been an absolute nightmare. We managed to pull out two full buckets of bulbs, but there are still many many more still in the ground - we will have to keep digging them out every year I think. Once we'd got out as many bulbs as we could manage we decided to stop as the earth was just to wet and sticky to work properly.

Neglected raised bed before

Now looking good after

Two buckets full of bulbs - I'll keep them to replant later.

After a coffee break we walked down the road to pick up bread and took a tub with us to collect snails - there are some down falls to having an adventurous chef for a boyfriend!! We collected about 50, and apparently they are the good ones that they eat in France - all the Bulgarians collect and eat them too.

 

Searching for snails

Mmmm

 

Once we were home we cleared up in the garden and had a beer outside as the sun was shining. All around us there were black clouds and very loud thunder and eventually it actually started to hail, but it was beautiful as the sun was still out over our village! We sat in the porch watching the storm for a while, but then the sun went down and it was time to go inside and put the fire on.  

 

Dark clouds to the east

Hail and sun in the garden

Wednesday 4th

It rained allll day today so we just sat inside and watched the entire series of The Island. I don't have much else to say about today!

 

Bilko was feeling chilled today too!

Thursday 5th

 

It was another gloomy day today, but at least the rain wasn't hard - it just drizzled constantly. We started the day by collecting several wheelbarrows of compost from our neighbour for the newly cleared bed. We got enough compost but didn't mix it in today as the earth is just so sticky and horrible.

 

A dark morning

Starting to dig the compost in

 

After that was done we didn't really know what other work there was to do in this weather so we decided to go for a walk - there's nothing like a long walk in the rain, we are English after all! :) We aimed for a hill that we can see from our house and actually managed to find a track that went to it. It was a stunning walk through meadows and forest, with great views down to our village, Spasovo and Chirpan - on a clearer day you could see the Rhodopi mountains too.

 

We're aiming for the first hill

View of our village

Lucy loved the walk

Amazing view to Izvorovo, Spasovo and Chirpan

Gorgeous wild flowers about

 

Back at home we just did a few chores and avoided the, now heavier, rain for the rest of the afternoon.

 

Bunch of wild flowers for home

Friday 6th

 

We woke up both feeling really tired today as both the animals had kept us up in the night. We dragged ourselves up and went to the market - it was a big shop today in preparation for our guests arriving. Although more rain was forecast for later, the day actually started off really nice.

More wild flowers on the road to Chirpan

 

We got home from the market before midday and unpacked all the shopping. Once this was done we decided it was finally time to make a start on fence for the campsite. We just wanted to get a post or two in and see how difficult it was going to be. I tied up string between the corner posts and Pete strimmed the area we'd be working on. We dug down one hole, but about 20cm down we hit a lot of rock. We tried another hole a couple of metres away and it was the same - it was hitting bedrock that obviously lay under a lot, if not all, of the land. This was really depressing as we need to go down at least 50cm to make the posts stable. We think our large hammer drill could do it but the problem is that the land is so far away from the house it would take a lot of extension leads to get power up there. So, annoyingly, it's back to the drawing board for fence ideas.

 

Prepared area for fence

Trying to get through the stone with hand tools - to no avail

 

After this it started to drizzle a bit anyway so we packed up and went inside. We did a big tidy up and clean of the house in the afternoon and then both had a power nap as we were feeling knackered. In the evening we went to the bar for some beers and a catch up with S & G as we hadn't seen then for ages and we had a great evening. It was yet another public holiday (Saint Georges day) so the bar was quite busy with villagers as well, which was nice.

 

Threatening clouds

Beautiful sunset

Saturday 7th

 

We had quite a chilled morning as it was another cold and damp start to the day. We went to the shop to get bread and then spent a couple of hours down the road doing a bit of gardening.

 

In the afternoon the sun finally came out and it was beautiful for the rest of the day. We saw our neighbour who told us it was our village festival today and there was going to be a big meal, for free, for everyone in the village! We said we'd meet him later and go with him.

 

We spent the afternoon catching up on work in the veg garden - the rain is at least good for them! We weeded, thinned out and planted out a few more veggies that we'd bought from the market. I also sorted out some of the seeds that are growing in the house - at last these are sprouting after 3 attempts. It was a nice afternoon and we were very pleased to see the sun again.

 

Veg patch all weeded and nice

 

In the evening we were getting ready to meet our neighbour when our friend George popped over with a bottle of his new wine. We hung out with him until it was time to leave, and then we all went down to the festival together. We were actually a bit late so we missed a lot of the celebrations in the centre, but we remember from last year that it is quite quiet anyway. The real party started later, when everyone walked to the village farm where there were tables laid for about 200 people. There was free dinner, beer and wine for everyone and the band played all night whilst people got up and danced - including us! It was quite bizarre but a very fun evening!

 

Just finishing the celebrations in the village

 

At the meal

Bulgarian dancing

Pete and Hristo at our table

 

Above are some cool posters from communist times that are still up on the wall in the building we had the communal dinner.

Sunday 8th

 

Today has been gorgeous and sunny until late afternoon and now it is pouring down again. I hope this weather changes soon as we have lots to be getting on with! Anyway, we woke up happy to see the sun and get on with some stuff outside. I started the day by cutting the water pipe for the outdoor tap to length and putting an 'L' connector on to bring it up to where the sink will be. I then wrapped it all up in insulation and plastic and buried it all again. This is now ready for a metal pipe to be attached and the sink to be built.

 

The pipe is all cosy down there



And the trench is filled in

Whilst I did this Pete was back to work on that last raised bed. The earth is still wet and muddy so it was a lot of work to turn it and try to rake it out. Once he'd done it it looked fab and we planted a load of rocket in there - I want half the bed filled with rocket eventually!

 

Hard digging

Once I'd finished the pipe Pete was still working on the bed so I decided to mix u a small amount of render and do a second coat on the small area we'd done the other day. I interrupted Pete so he could help me get the render up - it just kept falling down when I did it! - and then I smoothed it all out. We then both did a big tidy up of the garden so it's nice for Pete parents arriving tomorrow. I also harvested loads of spinach as it had gone mad over the week and we want to keep it all as cut and come again. So it was spinach for dinner this evening!

 

Rendering

Loads of spinach to harvest!!

In the afternoon it was time to get the elderflower wine onto it's second stage of fermentation. We syphoned and sieved all the liquid out of the barrel and into large plastic bottles with air locks. This needs to sit and ferment for another couple of weeks before it goes into the final bottles - but it already tastes yum! We are excited for this wine! :) After we'd done this we pottered around in the kitchen and started to tidy and pack things away in preparation for moving the kitchen outside next week.

 

Syphoning

Fermenting stage two

Later on George popped over again as he has just finished making his (very tasty) homemade wine. We helped him to put labels on the bottles and he gave us a few bottles too. :) As I mentioned it started to rain again so once George had gone we came inside and I wrote the blog whilst Pete made dinner (spinach salad!) and we've got the woodburner going again.

 

Pete and George in the garden

Thanks for reading everyone!! Chao xx