99.

This week has flown by! As expected the amazing February weather didn't last and it is been drizzly and miserable most of the last week. We've also had a few other things to do, so it feels like we haven't made much progress work wise - but ah well, malko po malko (or 'little by little') as the Bulgarians would say.

Cloudy days

Monday 6th

 

Our van insured ran out this week so this morning we got up early to this sorted and out the way. We headed to Chirpan for 9 so we could be first in the queue. However, in true Bulgarian style, we still had to sit and wait for over two hours. Three random phone calls and one queue jumper later we were fully insured and free to go! We then stopped for some brekkie and at the builders merchants and we were home after midday.    

 

In the afternoon I carried on building the stone wall up behind the house and Pete started turning over the raised beds in the veg garden. He dug right down to the original ground level, mixed all the compost in and raked out the top layer so the soil was fine and ready for seeds at a later date. I got quite far with the stone wall but I ran out of stones around the area, so decided to call it a day.
 

Excuse the awful work clothes - Me and my cat

The stone wall I'm re-building

The wall from the top

 

In the evening we went for a sunset stroll to the top of the hill behind our house.

 

Tuesday 7th

 

Another early start today as we had plans to go to SZ for the monthly supermarket shop, as well as a few other shops. We got everything done by around 2 o'clock and then stopped off at some people's house on our way home - they were expats who had just arrived here in the last few months and had contacted me via the blog. They were a lovely couple and we look forward to seeing them again soon and introducing them to more people in the area!

 

By the time we were home it was nearly dark so it was just time to have dinner and watch a film.

Cat pic

Wednesday 8th

 

We started today back in the orchard on the tent pitch. We'd bought some grass seed whilst in SZ so I raked out all the soil and then Pete flattened it down with a plank of wood and we sprinkled/raked grass seed over the top. There was rain forecast for the afternoon and for the rest of the week, so we thought we'd just leave it to do it's thing and with any luck it won't just look like a pile of mud for ever!

Flattening the camping pitch

 

Pete then went down to finish turning the veg beds, which he managed to finish all but one because our garden fork snapped. Whilst he was doing that I walked up and down the orchard picking up any stones I could see on/in the ground. The land is quite rocky up here and we damaged our lawn mower blade last year by not clearing the stones - so this job was useful to prevent that happening again this year as well as the fact I needed more stones to finish the wall I was re-building.
 

Turning the beds

Collecting stones for my wall

 

I'd collected a couple of wheel-barrows full and then I got distracted by wanting to use some of the bigger stones to make a hard floor area for the washing up sink. Again, this was useful to use up some of the millions of stones we have lying around, as well as to stop that area becoming a mud patch in the rain. I spent the rest of the afternoon digging these stones in and think it looks pretty good there now, or will do when the grass grows back anyway. As one last quick job before packing up for the day I also dug a small trench and planted our left over Jerusalem artichokes. We've decided to take them out of the raised beds where we'd planted them last year and instead have put them along the border of the garden and the orchard. They can be left alone here - free to multiply (which they apparently do very quickly) and, hopefully, give us some pretty sunflowers in the summer.   

Laying out the stones for the floor

And they're in!

Planting Jerusalem artichokes

 

In the evening I made a butternut squash, chickpea and spinach curry, which was delicious - especially as it was accompanied by Pete's homemade garlic naan and our homemade lemon pickle. Mmm. 

 

Thursday 9th

 

Today was a particularly grim and cold day so we got off to a slow start as it was not at all tempting to go outside. We decided to concentrate on planting and planning our veg today as it was time to get our seeds going! We shuffled everything around in the room we're currently using as a larder (un-renovated) and cleared two tables and put them in the large, south-facing window. We dug out the large collection of empty yoghurt and butter pots that we've been saving all year and planted a load of tomato seeds and a few other veg that need to be started off inside.

Inside seeds

 

We then chose to brave the outdoors and went out to plant a load of seeds straight into the raised beds. We added our own compost to the top layer of soil and planted onion sets, root veg, broad beans, leafy greens and pick-and-come-again salads. I am getting excited now about growing veg again this year! Because of the wet weather we didn't need to water the seeds yet, which is lucky as we still haven't re-connected our outside water taps (we want to be sure there is no chance of freezing.) I just hope the seeds don't rot in the ground before they have a chance to germinate.

Planting seeds outside

 

In the afternoon our neighbour H popped over with his wife and they watched us approvingly as we planted our seeds - so that is good. We took the opportunity to ask if H could weld our garden fork back together, which he said he would, right now, so off we all went to their house. Pete stayed with H whilst he did the welding and I walked the garden with his wife, P, as she showed me the seeds they'd planted and the flowers that were starting to re-emerge after winter. She also pulled up some spare flowers, including a load of daffodils, for us to take and plant in our garden. I'm not sure what flowers they are but I am told they will spread and get bigger every year, which is my kind of easy gardening! Once the welding was done (a bit of a slap-dash job but it will last a little longer at least) we headed home to plant the flowers and then go inside to warm up by the fire.

Flowers to plant from the neighbours

 

We also bottled our sloe gin - yum yum yum

Friday 10th

 

Market day. We'd organised yesterday to give H & P a lift to the market this morning so we picked them up around 9 and all headed to Chirpan. We did a very quick shop today and then went over to H's apartment to load the van with some stuff they wanted to bring to the village. With a full van we headed back home and then helped them unload their stuff into their garden. They invited us over for dinner in the evening to say thank you for our help.

 

Once we were home we un-packed the shopping and had some lunch. We then peeled, blended and strained the 10 kilos of lemons we'd just bought at the market! We sound mad but we use lemon juice a lot in cooking and drinks and the lemons are 5 times cheaper now than they are in summer. We then bottled the lemon juice up into small bottles and stuck them in the freezer. Pete stayed inside to tidy the kitchen and make a loaf of bread whilst I went outside to do a little more work on my stone wall. I used up all the stones I had collected from around the orchard and then called it a day. It is very close to being finished now so I've decided I will try to just use stones as I find them rather than spending time on bringing them up from the garden.

Making lemon juice

A bit more wall done

 

Late afternoon we took Lucy out for a quick walk and then got showered and ready to go to H's for 6 o'clock. We had a really nice evening over there - they are the best Bulgarian's to talk to as they speak very slowly for us and are very patient with our broken Bulgarian. We also always learn lots of new words from them. Just one funny thing to mention about Bulgarian manners compared to English - Pete made a delicious loaf of walnut and sunflower seed brown bread to take over as a gift for H & P. They tried it and said it was tasty but only the crusty outside was really good and the inside was too soft and should be given to the dog! Can you imagine saying this to someone in the UK!!? Haha, anyway we are used to this kind of thing by now and they are not trying to be rude by it - just honest I suppose!

Bread for the dogs ;-)

Pics from the walk - I love how bright green the fields are

Saturday 11th

 

Although the weather was less than cheery today we decided to brave it and do a bit of work outside anyway. Pete was on stump duty (yet again) and spent almost the whole day digging up big and small stumps from around the orchard. This is really feeling like a never ending job. I had (yet again) more fence to clear up near the top entrance and although it was only a small section it was heavily covered by clematis so took a long time to clear. I also had a go at moving some huge boulders and started to build a rustic stone wall/stone pile to tidy them up a bit. 

Pete digging again

Me clearing again

Before

After

 

The cold wind and drizzle got to us by late afternoon so we packed it all in and finished for the day. Our friend George popped over, which was nice as we haven't seen him yet this year, and then I took Lucy for a walk whilst Pete made dinner. In the evening we'd planned to go to the bar with S & G but the bar was closed so we came to our house instead - the joys of having a kitchen and being able to invite people over, even in the rain! We had a great night catching up with them.

Moody sunset

Sunday 12th

 

We had a day off today as the weather wasn't great and we felt like it - it was a Sunday after all! We had breakfast in bed (including a cheeky Bloody Mary!) and then spent the day watching films. It was great.

 

Monday 13th

 

Back to work! Despite the Baltic conditions we were determined to start work on putting up a fence - a big job we want to get done this month. The first thing to do was to put the corner post in, easier said than done. There is an old fence up there that has been pushed down by the weight of clematis and saplings and then has been completely grown over over the last eight years or so. Then, to make matters worse, out neighbour has rather rudely bulldozed a huge pile of earth on to the fallen down fence, which we needed to dig out (by hand) to get the old fence out and put our new fence in. Doing this job took up the whole morning, but was surprisingly easier than we expected as a lot of the clematis was dead anyway.

I didn't get a before picture, but this is after and it's a whole lot clearer

One section of the fence we uncovered

Digging up the neighbours mess

 

Once we'd cleared the way we were ready to start putting the posts in. We have a hand tool to do this - like a corkscrew type thing - and, aside from coming across the odd big stone to dig out, it is easy to use. We were able to use some old posts that we had already painted with bitumen to protect them from the ground, so that sped everything up and each post took roughly half an hour to get in. By the tie we were on the third post the rain had gotten harder and we were feeling pretty dank and cold, so we packed up and went inside for lunch.

Making the holes

First 3 posts in

 

After a couple of hours of sitting inside (Pete had made lunch and I'd started writing the blog) the rain had let up so we reluctantly put our work clothes back on and headed out to get another couple of posts in. Around 5 o'clock H came over to ask us for some help with his computer so we used this as an excuse to finish up for the day! After helping H there was just time to take Lucy for a quick walk before going home to make dinner and finish writing the blog.

5 posts in

That's all for now. Oh except I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who is still reading the blog (or at least looks at the pictures) after all this time and thanks also to all of you who leave comments - they are always much appreciated and keep me motivated to update regularly! So yeah, THANKS! Have a good week all xx