101.

A gorgeous, sunny week

 

Hi all! Firstly - I'm not sure how many 'locals' read my blog, but anyway I just wanted to advertise a car boot sale that is happening in Sredno Gradishte this Sunday. It is the first of it's kind and if all goes well it could become a monthly event, which would be fantastic! If you live nearby please try and come along to show your support and perhaps pick up a bargain! We hope to see you there :-D 

 

 

Okay... onwards with the weekly update. What with the clocks changing we have worked until a bit later than usual today, so just a quickie this week!

 

Tuesday 21st

 

What a gorgeous day! In fact all of this week has been incredible, it has got up to about 22 degrees. We started the day by getting the outside taps and toilet block all plumbed in and turned on again for summer. Annoyingly we were missing one part for the plumbing, so our work was interrupted by a quick trip to Chirpan. Back home all plumbed in easily and we connected the hose and watered the veggie seeds.

 

Water in the garden!

 

Pete then spent the rest of the day painting the porch with two coats of lime wash. As the wash goes on it looks thin, but it dries a brilliant white and in such warm weather it dried in no time and looked fab! We can't wait to get the rest of the house done, what a difference it will make.

 

Porch painted in lime

 

Whilst he was doing that I started work organising the barn. We've been storing everything in there over winter and in it's current state we could barely walk in the door one meter - so this was a big job! I started by dragging a lot of the bigger stuff out and then moving one of the bonfire wood piles into the wood store (which is now nearly empty of winter wood.) This created some space but by the end of the day the barn, and the garden, were looking worse than when I began! Well, it has to get worse before it can get better.

 

Clearing the barn

This is actually at the end of the day.. :-/

 

In the evening we hung our Martenitsas on our plum tree (a Bulgarian tradition to celebrate the arrival of Spring) and Pete made Moroccan meatballs and cous cous for dinner. Yum.

 

Martenitsas up

Tasty Moroccan inspired dinner

Wednesday 22nd

 

We had invited some English friends over this afternoon for a drink, they were here visiting Bulgaria for a week. We spent the morning cleaning the house and tidying up the garden and Pete made a lovely loaf of walnut bread to eat with our friends. They (let's call them P & T) came over around 3 and we sat up in the orchard, having a few beers, until it got dark. It was a lovely afternoon and great to catch up with them. Once they'd gone we ate some dinner and had another glass of wine in the kitchen. Although the days are warm it is still very chilly once the sun has gone down and we've even had the fire going a couple of nights.

 

Views of the orchard in the sunshine

Thursday 23rd

 

Now that the porch was painted and dried it was time to put up the gutter for around the balcony. We already had everything we needed so we started work on this first thing. The only problem we had was that we hadn't left enough overhang on the balcony to fit a wooden trim around as well as the gutters, so we (Pete) had to drill every fixing straight into the concrete. This made the job much longer, but even so it was very simple as these plastic gutters fix together like Lego. We got all the fixings in place today but couldn't put the gutters up because we hadn't finished painting behind them, and we needed to buy more paint in Chirpan. Still, that was the hard bit done so we were pleased.

 

Fitting the guttering

 

With that done and a coffee break had we both moved over to the barn to clear another huge stack of wood we had stored in there. This was a combination of broken furniture, beams from the house and just general scraps and off cuts - so most of it needed chainsawing to a manageable size, and that it what we did. I dragged everything out whilst Pete cut it and then I stacked it all into the wood store. We are creating a decent size bonfire wood stack already. We did sort though the wood and kept all pieces that might be useful for making stuff in the future. This inspired Pete to make another picnic table using some of the off cuts we'd kept, so he got to work on making a two seater coffee table for the garden whilst I carried on clearing the barn.

 

Bonfire wood

 

In the evening P & T popped over again - this time on their quad bike, which we had a go on! Oh my god, we need one of these in our lives!! They stayed for a quick beer but wanted to get back before it was dark, so once they'd gone Pete worked on his table for a little longer and I pottered about in the kitchen and got dinner going.

 

Our seedlings are starting to appear

Having a go on our friends quad bike!

Friday 24th

 

Market day. We went early today as we needed to take all our old metal fencing (that we'd taken down in the orchard) to the scrap yard as it was taking up all the space in the back of the van. We sold it for 25 lev, which is not bad at all and more than covered the price of all the wire for the new fence. :-)

 

Back home after doing the shopping we unpacked and had some lunch. Then on with the first couple of jobs - I finished painting the porch whilst Pete bolted this picnic table together. We then both fit the gutter into place, which was easy peasy. We were not massively keen on the plastic guttering but bought it as it seemed so much easier to fit than the metal one and all the shops recommended it. We actually think it looks alright anyway, especially in grey, and it was so easy to use that we've decided we will use it to replace the main gutter on the house too.

 

Little two man table

Gutter finished

 

By now it was already late afternoon so I spent some more time organising the barn whilst Pete did some housework and made pizza for an early dinner. We ate up in the walnut orchard, in the gorgeous sunshine, before showering and getting ready to go out for the evening. We went to Spasovo bar with S & G and P & T and had a fun evening there over a few beers. It wasn't a late one though and we were home before midnight.

 

The barn is slowly getting clearer

We could open a museum with all the cool, old stuff from the house!

 

Pete and Bilko enjoying dinner in the orchard

Saturday 25th

 

Today was a boring day! We wanted to get the leaves raked up and the orchard fully cleared of debris before the forecast rain tomorrow. We got a fire going in our portable fire pit (an old wheelbarrow) and I raked the leaves and picked up the stones whilst Pete followed and dug up the many roots of clematis, saplings and large weeds. The weather was cloudy but hot and muggy and it was just such a tedious job. It was also hard work and took ages, so we didn't even get it all finished.

 

Raking and burning leaves, all day long

 

In the evening Pete took Lucy out for a walk and in the 20 minutes he was out I had three different guests turn up a the same time! Our neighbour H arrived with his two grandkids, who wanted to come and pet the dog. Our friend George popped over to say hello and pick up his bike we'd been storing for him. And another guy came, who we hadn't met before, but whose parents live in our village and he wanted to meet 'the young English people' who have moved here! We had a chat with him and he stayed for a beer - he was a friendly guy who was excited about our campsite and has said he will bring his friends here in summer, so that is great! 

 

Once everyone had gone we were tired after such long day - we had a dinner from the freezer and an early night.

 

Sunday 26th

 

Sunday funday! We were meeting some friends in Rakovski (a town around an hours drive from us) to go to a large market today. We met them there in the morning and spent a few hours browsing the stalls. There were three big sections to this market - the usual fruit, veg, plants and clothes, a section of second hand bric-a-brac and an animal section. We were a bit late in the day to see many animals being sold (as well as the fact there has been a bird-flu outbreak so there were no chickens for sale) which was a bit of a shame. But we did get to see some lovely piglets and cows and it is also good to know this place is here for when we do come to buy some animals down the line. We also managed to get several good bargains in the bric-a-brac section and even got to practice our haggling skills!

 

Cows for sale

Some horses for sale - this area is usually full, we are told

Once we'd been around the market we visited a near-by garden centre and then stopped in the town for a coffee before saying goodbye to our friends. It was around 3 when we got home so we had some lunch and then went out the plant the pomegranate and bay trees that we'd just bought. We finished doing this just as a huge storm came over the hills and we had a monsoon of rain and crashing thunder and lightning. Wow, we'd forgotten how loud these Spring storms can be! The deluge didn't last too long but it carried on drizzling all evening, so we chilled out for the rest of the day and I made a veggie curry feast for dinner. I made a beetroot dahl and a green bean and spinach thoran, which we had with lemon pickle and red onion. Yum.

 

Martenitsa tree in Rakovski

Veg is coming!

The bay we planted

The pomegranate we planted (photos taken the next day, after the storm)

Storm a-coming

South-Indian feast

Monday 27th

 

Thankfully it must have been a clearing storm yesterday as this morning was gorgeous and sunny, although with a cold wind. We were back up in the orchard this morning to finally put the last of the wire on the new fence and secure the ends to tighten the whole thing. Once that was done we built a stile for access into the forest. This involved bolting some poles across (we made them sturdy so people can climb on them) and then digging in some upright posts to get a step up. We also cleared the area behind and put a few stones in to outline the path. We think it looks pretty good!

 

Supporting the last post

Stile

Stile

 

Once that was finished Pete decided to sand the picnic table down, as we had the extension lead up there. So, whilst he did that I dug in two posts and made a very simple bench by one of the camping plots. After that we had some lunch and then both worked on finishing tidying the barn. I forgot to take a photo but it is pretty much finished now, aside from clearing and sweeping the floor. This means we can now empty and tidy the toilet block, which we have been using as winter storage because the barn was so full! 

 

Sanding the table



Rustic bench for campers

 

We worked until nearly 7, without realising, because of the clocks changing. For dinner Pete picked some young nettles from the garden and made spaghetti with a 'deconstructed' nettle pesto - fresh nettles, walnuts (also from our garden), lemon juice and cirine cheese on top. It was delicious.

 

Nettle pesto pasta

 

Thanks for reading everyone! Goodbye for now xx