December 2018

Happy belated Christmas and New Year! Again, I don't have many photos from this month - more chilling out, staying warm, walking the doggy and faffing with the heating system. We were adjusting to the quietness and slower pace of the winter months. We had a spattering of snow and, again, temperatures were much lower than our previous Decembers here. 

Events in December included helping our neighbour slaughter his pigs and going to Plovdiv to watch a ballet. Two quite different experiences, but both very interesting!! One job we did in the house was put a supporting beam in the downstairs bedroom, below the living room, as there was so much extra weight upstairs now.

Christmas and NYE was very low key. We had a great Christmas Day at home with a visit to our neighbour for a few rakias, a shooting of a gun and some ribs of the pigs we'd helped kill and butcher earlier in the month! 

The rest of our time in December was spent cleaning the house from top to bottom and making sure everything was nice for our housesitters to arrive on New Years Day - yes, that's right! We were off for a month long winter vacation to India!

Feeling relaxed and Christmassy

Frosty mornings and chilly walks:

New snow suit!

Beam downstairs:

Christmassy kitchen

Night out watching the ballet in Plovdiv:

Smoking salmon for Xmas brekkie and making chorizo:

Helping our neighbour slaughter is pigs was a new experience for us. It's something we hope to do ourselves in the future, so it was very educational! The amazing thing about it was that the entire family was there and helping - grand kids and all. They all know exactly where their meat has come from... unlike most of us in the UK. Some bits of pork went straight on the BBQ and the rest was stored in the cellar to eat, preserve or make sausages etc later. Don't worry, I haven't added any very gory pics.

Everyone's involved!

Christmas day:

Parsnips from the garden for our dinner.
They were much better than they look!

Lunch at our neighbours

And a massive dinner at home too!

Thanks everyone for reading/looking at photos! I wanted to say thanks for all the nice comments too, I'm glad people are still following! Until next time :-)