Move to Bulgaria: May 2018

The hammock is up, under the pear blossom

Daffs in early April

What a month! Aside from one epic thunder storm it has been hot and gorgeous every single day! This has done wonders for the garden and everything is happening much earlier than we are used to. I have just looked back at the photos from the month and the garden has exploded even in the last week or so. I will have to take some more photos tomorrow morning before I post this! We've been working hard - of course! - and the shed is now pretty much finished, just a window and door to fit. There has been lots of grafting in the garden too as we plant out more and more veg every day.

Easter day - gifts from the neighbours

Garden path over grown

First big harvest of the year - spinach
that's been out all winter

Radishes coming up

Planted courgette and salad from the market

Looking back to the beginning of April we had a slightly frustrating week after saying goodbye to our friend Ben. We organised with some friends (including a friend who can translate for us) to go to SZ to get our car put on to Bulgarian number plates. This ended up taking almost the entire day only to be told that our engine number didn't match up to the number on the V5, therefore they can't register the car.

Now, apparently, in most municipalities (counties) in Bulgaria they won't register you until you get this changed, which obviously involves contacting the DVLA and blah blah blah. I haven't looked into this, so don't quote me on it, but if this were the case it would be an absolute nightmare as you then can't insure the car etc. (So maybe something to think about before bringing a car here from the UK.) Thank god, for some reason, this rule doesn't apply in Stara Zagora so we were told to go and get a letter from a lawyer saying that the car was ours.

Unfortunately our translating friend was busy for the rest of the day so Pete and I were left to fend for ourselves to try and get this letter! We knew of a lawyers office near where we got our Residency Cards so we drove there and walked into the office, with not much clue of what to say besides 'engine number! There was a big queue inside so we had quite an audience as we attempted to explain what we wanted, but luckily the lady in the office was very kind and patient and somehow knew exactly what we wanted. Result! By now it was too late to go back and finish the car registration so we headed home.

A very early start the next morning meant we were first in the queue to get the car registered. We were actually there before the boss, so we had to wait around anyway until he could sign our piece of paper. Luckily he remembered us and was very helpful so the morning went smoothly and we were all done before 9.30! So all legal and not too painful really - it's just the waiting around for hours (whilst the staff keep going for breaks) and the 45 minute drive each way (to SZ) all adds up and can feel like a bit of a waste of time.

BG reg!

Shed news. In shed news I think a picture paints a thousand words really. But here are some words about it anyway! Our main objective was to finish the walls and the roof before our next guest arrived on the 18th, which we completed! Yay! It took a few days, and several more trips to buy wood, to finish all the walls - double sided and weathered. We also moved a lot of rocks and rubble into the space under the floor, which was very hot and tiring in 28 degree heat. We managed to clear up the huge rubble pile that was just outside the front door, which is great.
We then had to demolish half the stone wall which was currently in the way of where we wanted to build our roof. We moved all the small stones into the floor of the shed, but we did create another huge pile of rocks which we will have to move later!

The next stage was the roof, which we'd been sketching out and trying to plan for a few weeks - it is our first time building a pitched roof and obviously we wanted to get it right. We knew how we should do it, but just needed some reassurance. As it turned out someone in the village was building a roof almost identical and we happened to drive past it one day. A quick nosey over the wall gave us the confidence we needed and we were able to crack on ourselves!

Here are some pictures of the process.

Walls - done

Got to make this wall flat

Pushing it down

And on to the roof

Getting there

Rafters - done

With the wooden structure in place it was time to get some tiles on. For our house roof and the toilet block roof we were able to buy second hand tiles from a large farm in a nearby village. The first year we paid 60 stotinki per tile, which we later realised was a complete rip off but luckily we had only needed a few to replace broken ones on the house. The second year we managed to get several hundred tiles for only 30 stotinki per tile - that was more like it! Feeling confident we would get that price again we went early to the farm, ready for a day of loading tiles. We were very disappointed to be told they were now 85 stotinki per tile! Yeah right - they must be dreaming! Well we were not having it, that is more expensive than some of the new ones.

The only problem was we didn't have a back up plan and we had a roof that needed finishing. We also had our Bulgarian neighbour in tow who needed 200 tiles for his pig shed. We decided to drive to Chirpan and ask around. It is very frustrating driving past huge abandoned houses and warehouses, with roofs caving in, all covered in the tiles that you need! We tried several different places before asking in one of the smaller builders merchants. The owner rifled through a stack of papers and found a post-it note that said 'old tiles' and a phone number on it! Thankfully we had our neighbour with us who rang the number and got an address. We were invited into some ones back garden and shown a big stack of tiles - woo hoo! They weren't the style that we wanted sadly, but beggars can't be choosers and the man only wanted 35 stotinki per tile. So we spent the next few hours carrying 700 tiles, in stacks of 5, through this back garden, around the vegetable patch, over the road and into the van. The tile owner and our neighbour spent a lot of time chatting whilst Pete and I carried the tiles out! It took two trips in the van and it turned out the guy had almost exactly the amount of tiles that needed, which was lucky.

500 tiles ready and waiting

Meow

With all the tiles now in the garden we spent the next couple of days getting the roof on! Pete did all the hard work on the roof whilst I cleaned and passed up the tiles one by one. It was very satisfying to put the cover on our new building.

Measuring out and fitting the baton

'Pass me a tile!'

Luckily we had some cooler weather
whilst Pete was on the roof

The final baton before the tiling begins

(Almost) all the tiles on

The loungers are out too!

Beautifully strimmed garden

We are hoping to get a lot of cherries this year!

On the 18th Pete's brother, John, joined us for his second visit to Bulgaria. The first time he came was back in June 2015 - when we didn't have a toilet and he had to sleep in a small tent for the month he was with us! A lot has obviously changed since then and it was nice to show him around what we've done. When we show guests around it feels like everything should be shiny and new, but some things are looking old and worn out already - how time flies!!

Welcoming John with coffee and baklava

The weather was glorious and we spent a few days just hanging around at home enjoying life in the sunshine. John wanted to help us with some work whilst he was here so he helped us finish the ridge tiles on the shed roof and we also lay the floor. We didn't want to work too hard (we needed a rest!) so we did the work slowly, over a few days, and did a bit of gardening here and there too. The floor looks fantastic and has made the space feel so big!

Goodbye rubble! We left a message in a bottle under the floor too!

Lovely floor

Flooring

Vines beginning to grow

Ridge tiles finished (not pugged on yet)

Extending the flower beds

Evening meals on the patio

Sunsets from the balcony

Watering the garden

Bonfire evening

On the Sunday that John was here we decided to go to Rakovski market. It's a huge market, not far from us, and it quite fun to go and have a look around - especially because they have an animal section, which is so cute! We went early and spent the morning wandering around, looking at the stalls, picking up a few bargains. John is an excellent photographer and there were some great photo opportunities at the market. There was a small drama whist we were there - after taking some photos of some of the animals we got accosted by two angry men who were forcing us to go with them. They were very upset about the photos being taken and they took us to see the vet, who luckily was a lovely man who spoke perfect English and explained why the men did want photos taken. Reluctantly John had to delete all his photos (of animals) before we were allowed to leave.
After a lovely morning at the market we headed home, diverting slightly to go and visit the Chirpan Monastery. We'd never been there before and had no idea what to expect, although I was quite surprised to find a very well looked after building and a full car park! The monastery wasn't particularly exciting but there was a very nice picnic area down by the river. Unfortunately we didn't have any food on us so it was time to go home and have some lunch. We spent the rest of the day relaxing at home.

BBQ for breakfast at Rakovski

Animals for sale

Some cool art on the blocks of flats on the way
to Ravkovski - a quick Google search tells me

he is a musician

Stunning rape fields

Brothers on a bridge at the monastery

Country walk

Cat in the orchard

Late brunch in the sunshine

John was heading onwards to Romania after staying with us and he planned to go to Veliko Turnovo for a night before going onwards to Bucharest. We decided to go with him as we hadn't visited VT since our first ever trip to Bulgaria in 2013! We caught the daily bus from Chirpan and were pleasantly surprised how quick it was - around two and a half hours. Before 1pm we were checked in to our hostel and setting off for a look around this beautiful city. I won't go on about visiting the city - we just did what you do when you visit a city! It was interesting to see how much more geared towards tourists/expats it is compared even to Plovdiv. We didn't have to speak Bulgarian once, but it did help when getting the (much cheaper) 'lunch menu', which only came in Cyrillic. We also tracked down a very small restaurant for dinner, which the hostel worker described as 'very underground'! In the evening there was a big storm, which we had the pleasure of watching over the view of the city and mountains. A fantastic day - we will visit again soon I hope!

Graffiti for me :-)

Pretty city streets

Lunch views

Happy boys

We had a look around the Veliko Turnovo Hotel, which was all very large and concrete.
We were surprised to see it was still operating and the enormous dining room was all laid out.

Walking back along the river

This hostel cat was the best! (Sorry Bilko)

Sunset beer time at the castle

Dinner (and thunderstorm) view

The next day we said goodbye to John and headed back to the bust station to head home. For some unknown reason the bus stopped twice, for half hour breaks, so ended up taking an hour longer than the way there. We were home by 5ish and I'm sure everything in the garden had more than doubled in size after the storm (which also happened at home!)

Since then we've been back to work - in the shed and garden. We finished the gable ends of the shed and neatened up the ends of the roof. We then sprayed the building with Borax (eco insecticide) and have starting filling it up! But more on that next time.

Measuring wood for the gable ends

Neatening up the edges

View from the back!

Keeping the grass (weeds) down in the garden is a weekly job and we are watering every night - we have still not gotten around to fitting a irrigation system yet. Maybe next year! We are already eating radishes, rocket, parsley and spring onions from the garden. We've planted out all the tomatoes that we've grown indoors, from seed, and we've bought and planted seedlings of courgettes, cucumbers and aubergines. Other things that are more slowly plodding along are corn, beans, peas, carrots, beets, globe artichokes, kale Asian salad varieties and several other herbs. I'm sure I've forgotten some others.

Walkies

Making nettle tea for the veg garden

I was asked by a blog follower if it is really worth growing vegetables here when you can so cheaply buy everything you want, especially in season when you can buy sacks of vegetables for pittance! The short answer is - no, it's not worth it. Most expats we know here don't grow veg and I imagine most Bulgarians wouldn't grow them if they didn't need to. You have to do it because you like it and want to - and it is a lot of hard work so you need to love it and keep motivated! We have chosen mainly to grow things that are easy and plentiful (radishes, courgettes, carrots, cucumbers, herbs) or that you can't get here (yellow, black or cherry tomatoes, globe artichokes, rainbow chard and beets, kale, different salads.) We have chosen to grown some other things just for fun (like making a 'three sisters' bed with corn, beans and courgettes or growing peas just to eat them fresh from the pod) but at the end of the day if they don't work out we won't starve. And we will still buy the Bulgarian tomatoes and cucumbers because we will never grow them as well as they do!

I would really like to grow broccoli but I haven't had much luck with brassicas (aside from kale) as they are fussy about soil and the caterpillars like them. They also take up a lot of space for a long time. I have planted some 'purple sprouting' this year though, to give it another try, oh and our parsnips have sprouted for the first time - so I hope those will work too (they are surprisingly fussy and spacious as well.) We don't bother with potatoes, garlic or onions (only spring onions) as they would take up too much space and we eat too many of them.

Herbs are really an essential, I think, as you can pick them fresh as well as dry/freeze them for winter. We've got basil and coriander on the way again and we've got fennel, thyme and parsley, that survived from last year, coming out of our ears! We've also got oregano, sage and rosemary bushes which are growing like crazy and we can't keep up! I've sown some mint seeds this month which I hope will flourish and become a permanent fixture. I've also sown chives and tarragon, but they are taking their sweet time so I'm not too confident they will do much (however, saying that, basil is also very slow but once it's going it goes!) Our flower beds are blooming too and, although not professional looking at all, we think they look quite good - especially considering we have grown them almost for free by dividing friends plants and waiting for them to spread.

I'll finish today with a few photos from the garden, taken this evening.