72 & 73.

The old spring at the edge of our land

 

I didn't update last week as it wasn't a particularly exciting week and there are only so many times you want to read 'and we did some plasterboarding'. So I've rolled it over and now you've got another two week extravaganza to read - and this week has been a goodun! So without further ado...

 

Monday 22nd

 

This feels like a lifetime ago already so I'm just using the photos to remember what we did last week. It rained in the morning so we moseyed about the house just doing this and that - oh and I gave myself a haircut. In the afternoon the weather cleared up and we went out to Chirpan to do some shopping for building stuff. We'd been invited to a BBQ this evening at some friends in SG. At about 6 'clock S & G kindly picked us up and gave us a lift over. Unfortunately the rain returned quite heavily but our friends have an awesome undercover BBQ area so we were all still able to sit outside and enjoy great food and wine. As well as our usual, lovely friends there were also another 'expat' couple there, that we hadn't met before, who were really lovely and we got on with them really well. Sadly they only have a summer house here but we hope to see them again! It was a fantastic evening - so much so that it was 2.30am before we all went home.

 

We are very sad that the pine forest at the top of our garden has a disease :(

 

Lovely evening

Tuesday 23rd

 

We had a bit of a lie in today, as you can imagine, and then we were off out on another shopping spree. This time we were in search of a cooker - a more difficult task than you might expect here in BG. Pete (being a chef) wants a good quality, big cooker with at least 5 hobs and they have to all be gas. Here in Bulgaria they really only do electric hobs or half and half. We'd searched high and low in Stara Zagora before and even asked if it was possible to order what we wanted, but we were told they just didn't sell them. So today we decided to drive to Yambol as we'd been told that a shop there sold what we wanted. To cut a long story short we drove a long way to find nothing. Our only hope now is to keep an eye on the Bulgarian 'Ebay' style websites to find a second hand one.

 

Rainy morning

On the plus side - we found a big charity shop in Yambol and bought some things!

Driving all day

Motorway views

 

By the time we got home it was getting late and I took Lucy out for a sunset walk whilst Pete made some dinner. Then it was time for a movie and bed.

 

Walkies

Sunset over the house

 

Wednesday 24th - Thursday 25th

 

Plasterboarding. Finally got the vaulted end finished - what a tedious and difficult job (for Pete mostly.) It does look good though!

 

The obligatory animal photo No.1

Harvesting toms

Plasterboarding...

 

We also removed this rotten beam (which was just there to hold up the old ceiling.)

Tea break

 

Woohoo! It's finished!

 

I can't get enough of this view (shame about the wonky vent pipe!)

Friday 26th

 

Market day! Spent the morning out doing the usual food shop. Back home, in the afternoon, we did a big house tidy and clean and other few chores, including changing the compost toilet. I also fixed the garden gate so it closed properly and filled all the gaps in the fence as the chickens had been sneaking though and had eaten all the chard!

 

Brunch stop in Chirpan

Driving photos of the local area

No.2

Collecting old saw dust for the compost loo

Gate is fixed...

... to stop this happening again.

The most incredible toms from our neighbour

 

Late afternoon our friend Veso came over and we had a beer in the garden. We were also joined by 'Blue Lady' who is a very sweet 87 year old neighbour of ours who popped over to give us a bunch of grapes! Once Veso had gone we went down the road to do a bit of gardening down there and when we went to leave we found that our van was broken. The clutch pedal was completely loose and we couldn't get it into gear - disaster. Typically it was a Friday as well, so all the garages would be closed until Monday. This meant we had no choice but to leave it where it was and walk home. Back home it was a beautiful evening (as usual!) and after dinner we sat out for a while, under the stars, with a glass of wine.

 

Pretty garden lights

Saturday 27th

 

Now we'd finished that damn plasterboarding we were ready to start the 1001 other jobs that need doing upstairs. Today we decided to make a start on re-building the stone reveal where we'd taken the window out. We weren't exactly sure how to do this without taking our more stone (which we didn't want to do) so after a lot of umming and arring we decided we'd fill it back in with concrete. We'd have to do this in stages, so it would take a few days, but seemed like the best option. We built a wooden frame for each side and then secured them in place before getting out our trusty cement mixer.

 

Quick morning walkies

Look at this cool guy who's living in our kitchen!

Wall plugs and rebar to secure the concrete

Wooden frame in place

Our old friend Cement Mixer

 

We were about 3/4 of the way through the job, with concrete still wet in the mixer, when a lady banged on our gate and told us we need to come and move our van. We explained that it didn't work and we couldn't move it but she insisted that we had to as there was a big tractor trying to get past, so we walked down there with her to have a look. As we were walking down one of our neighbours asked what was happening and decided to come down and have a look too - this was turning into an event!! I didn't take the camera so you'll just have to believe me that this tractor was HUGE. It was as wide as the street with tyres two times taller than me and it had some machinery attached to the back that was just as big! Who knows why it was trying to drive through the centre of this tiny village! Anyway, it meant that the van did indeed need to be moved - so with the help (or not) of three very bossy Bulgarians with different ideas of where the van should go, we finally got the van pushed on to the side of the village square and out of the way. We waited for a minute to watch this monster tractor drive away and then, who should we see drive down the road but Dan, our volunteer from a few weeks ago! We greeted him and jumped in his van to drive home! Back home Pete and I quickly finished the concreting, cleaned up and then we all sat in the garden to have a beer and catch up.

 

Both frames in and filled

Dan is back!!

 

Due to some transport issues Dan had had to cancel his trip to Mongolia so instead had turned around and decided to do some more volunteering around Europe. Of course he wasn't back to volunteer with us but we invited him to stay with us for as long as he wanted. We sat around for a few hours chatting and then when it was cool enough, at about 6, we went down the road to do a bit of gardening for a couple of hours. On the way home we bumped into Hristo and invited him over for a drink too. Pete rustled up a tasty sausage dish and we had a really fun evening chatting away in Bulgarian/English/German/Russian and drinking wine and rakia into the early hours!

 

Sunday 28th

 

A lazy morning this morning with a strong coffee and an egg and bacon sandwich for breakfast! Pete and Dan then drove off to Chirpan as Dan had offered us a lift to get anything we needed - including a tow rope! Whilst they did that I had some more gardening to do down the road. This took up all the whole morning and the we all spent the afternoon relaxing in the garden and preparing some food for the evening. Oh, one thing that did happen was that our phone broke (everything is breaking!), which is quite sad as I've had this trusty phone for many, many years! Luckily we had a spare phone lying around that accepted foreign sim cards, so not a huge disaster.

 

RIP :'(

Pete and Dan found this old scales being sold for 15 lev! This will look awesome in our kitchen (and it works!!)

 

At 5ish our friends (the ones we'd met the other night) came over to have a look at our place and stay for a beer or two. Pete had prepared a veggie feast of falafels, flat breads, houmous, salsa and Baba Ganoush and we had a lovely evening getting to know them and their daughter. They left at about half nine and we stayed up for a night a cap with Dan, as it was his last night with us, again! :)

 

Monday 29th

 

We were all up earlyish and had a coffee whilst Dan packed up. We then headed down to the village centre to get the van in tow. It is a bit of luck that Dan turned up this weekend - and with a tow bar on his van as well! He has been our saviour!! We drove very slowly to Chirpan and everything went well with no problems. We got to the garage and our mechanic friend (who usefully speaks amazing English) had a quick look and said he'd be able to fix it but not until next week. Oh. Well the van was there now and we couldn't get it home again so we towed and pushed it up on to the verge and left it there. Dan very kindly let us do a bit of shopping to stock up on food and then drove us back to the village - what a guy! Once back in Izvorovo we said farewell to Dan and wished him luck on his adventures.

 

Back home we chilled out for an hour or so and cleaned up the house and garden. We then decided to make a start on making our rakia. We've given up on the cider this year as we haven't made a press and the apples are ready now, so instead we've decided to have a go at rakia! We had a barrel of plums that we'd collected and we'd talked to a few neighbours to ask them the best way to make it (NOTE unless you have a spare 45 minutes to an hour do not ask a Bulgarian on how best to make rakia!) Anyway it was my job to get my wellies on a squash the plums in the barrel and Pete got a few kilos of sugar dissolving in hot water to add to the barrel. We're not too bothered about the quality of our rakia as neither of us particularly enjoy drinking it, it's more for the enjoyment of making it really! Once the sugar and water was added that was it for now, we just leave it to ferment.

 

First concrete layer worked a treat

 

Sini Slivi (Blue plums)

Crushing the plums

 

Adding sugar and water

 

The beginnings of rakia..

 

Once that was done we decided to go out for a walk with Lucy. We went a route we hadn't been before which was lovely. We also found an area that could have once been our village dump, or perhaps just an area for fly tipping, where we had a rummage and found a few treasures - including 8 big glass jars. This is a great find as jars are treasured here in Bulgaria and are difficult to find, even in shops (although you can buy new lids for them everywhere!)

 

Izvorovo

Surrounding fields

Following the pine forest

Abandoned farm buiding

Dump diving!

 

Back home, now armed with jars, Pete got a big pot of tomato and pepper sauce on the go, ready for preserving. We've been getting regular tomatoes from our garden and although it is not enough to completely overwhelm us, it is still more than we can eat. Combine this with the bags of huge tomatoes that our neighbours keeps giving us and we were starting to get overloaded - hence making the tomato sauce. Pete let the sauce simmer away for a few hours whilst we had dinner, watched some TV and then had an early night.

 

Ready to be sauced

Tuesday 30th

 

Up early today to crack on with work! First thing I adjusted the wooden frames so we could concrete the next section in the upstairs door reveal. Whilst I was doing that Pete jarred his tomato sauce and put them in a water bath to seal the jars. We then both got the cement mixer out and ready, only to find that the water had been turned off - typical! Oh well, the frames were ready for later anyway.

 

Second frames ready

Tomato sauce

 

Todays job was to replace and secure the beam that had a rotten section underneath the chimney. The chimney had been broken for years and all the water leaking through had damaged an important beam that we couldn't remove and that would be very difficult to replace entirely. Luckily the rot was limited to a small section so, with advice from my dad, we set to work on mending it. These beams are made of oak and are extremely heavy, so with just the two of us having to hold them in place and lift them up and down it was quite hard work and took us all day to do. But we did it and it worked out exactly as planned. We quite like seeing the repair as it tells the story of the house and will remind us of all our efforts in the future!

 

Cutting out the rotten area

Replaced - look how the cracks in the wood line up!

Another beam out to use as support

Support beam bolted in place

Once that was finished we made a load of concrete and filled the second layer on the reveal. A good and productive day. Once we were cleaned up we got a phone call from Veso asking if we wanted to go for a beer at the bar, so we walked down there to see him for an hour or so. Back home we had dinner and watched telly again (Pete's friend is on the 'Great British Menu' this week so we've been watching everyday!)

 

Concrete in

With Veso at the bar

Wednesday 31st

 

Another day working and up early again. The first job was to actually tidy up and organise upstairs as it had become quite chaotic up there again. We were still doing this at about 10.30 when our neighbour, Baba V, called us over for coffee. She had a big road map of the UK and she wanted us to show here exactly where we, and all our family, came from - so sweet. :) So we popped over there and, as well as coffee, were given a huge shot of rakia! I slowly sipped mine but Pete made the mistake of finishing it, which means it is instantly topped up again - not what you need at 10.30am! Anyway, we stayed for about an hour and it was lovely - Baba V is just such a nice lady and we are very lucky to have her next door.

 

Tidy tidy

 

In Baba V's pretty garden

 

Back home we had a bit of breakfast to soak up the alcohol and then got on with working. We'd decided today to finish insulating the roof on the central section where we will have a mezzanine level. Although it was hot and stuffy up there it was slightly easier to work as there was a floor and it meant I could get up and help too. Also there were no tricky corners to deal with so it only took us a few hours to get most of it finished. With only one section left to go our drill ran out of battery, which meant it was time for lunch. After eating some food and washing the fibres off ourselves we decided not to go back up there today. It also started to rain, so there was a rush around the garden to get everything inside and then we sat inside for a bit to watch the storm.   

 

Almost done insulating

Clouds rolling over the hills

A wet couple of hours

No.3!

 

The rain passed pretty quickly and as soon as it was gone the sun was back out and it was blazing hot again. I decided to go back upstairs and foam the gaps in the plasterboarding. This took slightly longer than planned as I dropped the gun from ceiling height, which broke it and almost a whole can of foam squirted everywhere, which needed cleaning up. Whoops. Anyway, I got all of it done except the top two bits, which I couldn't reach and had to get Pete in to help.

 

All those tricky gaps are foamed

I threw the exploded can out the window, so even the garden is covered. Whoops.

 

In the evening we went for a beer with Veso again and then back home on time to watch the TV show.

 

Thursday 1st September

 

We needed to go over to SG this morning to do a bit of gardening so we'd organised S & G to pick us up first thing as they were on their way there anyway. So it was an early start and we got all the gardening done before midday. We stopped for a coffee and a banitsa before heading off for the walk home over the hills. This walk is lovely, but it was fast becoming a hot day so wasn't that enjoyable! Back in our village we bumped into Veso who invited us over for a coffee and then we went to the shop to stock up on a few bits.

 

Back home we spent the rest of the day finishing the insulation and another level of concrete in the reveal. Then it was dinner and TV again. :)

 

The last concrete layer in

Friday 2nd

 

No market for us this morning - the first time we've missed it in over a year I think! We had a slow morning doing chores and then spent the whole day upstairs working. Pete was back in the roof space - he cut back all the dried foam, taped up the joints and used filler on all the gaps - this was a long and arm-aching job which took him all day.

 

Monkey man back in the roof

Looks SO good!

 

Whilst he did that I was concentrating on the window reveals. I made some render with lime, sand and cement and used it to fill the last gaps in the concrete work, so that is now done and ready to be measured for a door. I then used the rest of the render to make a start on rendering the bottom of the stone wall - this area will be covered with kitchen units so we didn't want to waste time pointing it nicely, but it still needed to be covered otherwise it will keep crumbling and always be dusty. With that done I scraped out the joints and re-pointed the stone in the window reveal that we want to leave exposed - this now looks fab.

 

Rendering the wall

The concreting has worked perfectly.

Before, joints scraped out...
 

... and re-pointed

 

In the evening I made a 'white pizza' using left over chicken and sauerkraut with a cheesy béchamel as a base - it was good. We then watched the final of the TV show, which Pete's friend won! Yay!

 

White pizza

Saturday 2nd

 

It was another beautiful morning this morning and we decided to take our cuppas up to the walnut orchard for a change. This is the last place to get sun in our garden and it was actually quite chilly sitting up there first thing - autumn is definitely on it's way.

Morning over the village

 

Animals also enjoying the morning view

 

Without the van we obviously can't buy any building materials, so we are starting to become stuck for jobs we can do upstairs without buying anything. So today we decided to do some other bits and bobs. I spent a few hours in the morning cutting back the tomato plants as we've only really pruned them once or twice and they were turning into a jungle. We hope next year to have much more time to take care of our vegetables properly as this year they've been quite neglected.

 

Trimmed tomatoes

 

Whilst I did that Pete did a few chores and then we both headed down into the village. We needed to go to the shop and we also planned on visiting a man with a plum orchard who we'd been told sells his plums for rakia making. We didn't know the guy but we knocked on the door and found there were several other people there collecting plums for the same reason! It was really cool and it is exciting to find these things happening in such a seemingly quiet village. So we filled up the 40 litre tub we had with plums and then wheel-barrowed everything home - just like real Bulgarian villagers!

 

Collecting plums in the orchard

Our tub is full

Life without a van

 

Back home I finished pruning the tomatoes and then spent a couple of hours writing up the blog. Pete was busy with his rakia - he squashed the plums himself this time and got it all thoroughly mixed with water and sugar. We've got over 100 litres now which we're hoping is enough to book a slot in the still in a few weeks. Late afternoon we both stopped to give the house and garden a once over and get ready for our friends to come over. T & Z haven't been to our house before, but do follow the blog, so it was nice to show them around and they stayed for a few drinks and we had a lovely evening. Once they'd gone we had a quick dinner and an early night.

 

A true Bulgarian man mixing his rakia

No.4 - sleepy dog

 

An amazing hand made egg bowl - a gift from our friends

 

I'll leave it there for now and write about today next week! Hope that wasn't too long!! Dovejdanay xxx