July 2018

July was another fantastic month. It was unseasonably rainy which was quite good for the veg. We were harvesting lots of produce every day and trying to keep on top of preserving it all. We also had one friend visit and made a new friend in the village too! Here are a billion photos to show you....

I'll start with a few photos from around the village/home:

Our neighbour was getting a new roof so we took the
opportunity to buy the old tiles (for a bargain) 

Several rainy days in July this year

Nothing to show the scale here but this bug
 was bigger than Pete's hand!

Veg / Garden:

Outdoor (cold) shower, complete with
pebbles from Greece

So many plums for rakia

We tried drying courgette slices, but the rain stopped our success

We did successfully sundry tomatoes (in the oven!)

The living room and hallway area was our first house project this year. Stud walls, electrics, water pipes (for central heating), insulation and plaster board. Hard work!

House progress:

Message from Pete's dad!

We found this amazing t-shirt in a
second-hand shop! 

One of my bestie friends came to stay for a week (her second visit) and we had the World Cup to watch! We also made a new Bulgarian friend who works in our village, making honey, during the summer. Whilst Maisie was here we chilled at home, went to a village festival, picked and blended apples (for cider) and we visited the water park in Plovdiv - which was great and we'll definitely go again this year. One of the slides was absolutely terrifying - the floor dropped away and you just plummeted down a tube!

Maisie:

TV outside for the World Cup!

Our neighbour insisted we take her
apples too - we had so many!

With all the plums we made a mash (to make rakia later) and with the apples we made juice for cider. We had so many apples that we broke our blender, so we had to figure out a new way to blend/grate the apples without too much effort - there were just so many. We created a homemade 'scratter' - you can't see it properly in the photo, but it worked a treat! We were able to 'scrat' the apples, then make juice and then ferment it to make cider.

Beginnings of rakia

Apple juice fermenting