Clearing and cleaning.

Wednesday

 

So last night 'a beer' turned into about a litre of wine each, so this morning we woke up with quite sore heads. (Oh just to mention - last M told us she had been in our local shop and heard the villagers speaking; apparently they all think I'm 16! So god knows what they think about Pete!! Ha!) Anyway, we'd arranged to go to the mayors office at 9, so we walked down there with our passports and house deeds. We knew which building it was but found it quite confusing to find the entrance (and we had an audience of villagers!) We eventually found the way in and after a few minutes of waiting in a very strange waiting room we decided just to knock on the office door. Luckily we did, otherwise she'd have never known we were there. Anyway after some very unofficial looking 'recording' of our details onto a random sheet of paper we trotted back home to start work.

 

Strange waiting room.

We planned to clear all the brash in the garden today so that the place would look a bit tidier. We started a big fire in the base of an old out building and got on with it. Facing those bloody clematis and thorn bushes again was certainly challanging!! But very satisfying to finally see our clear garden.

 

We were up at the tent at about 1 o'clock having our usual lunch of a big yummy salad, when we heard this shouting and whistling in the street. At first we ignored it, thinking it was for the neighbour, but after a while we decided to go down and see what was happening. Outside our gate were two Roma gypsies on a horse and cart. They smiled alot and introduced themselves, and then told us they were looking for metal. We obviously had quite alot of metal going (we were going to dump it all) so we let the lady in to have a rummage around our rubbish. She took one of the old beds and the old fridge and then got really involved and was picking out every single piece of rusty metal she could find - which was alot. She was really friendly and thanked us alot when she left with a FULL cart of scrap metal. Her husband was also really friendly but had a broken leg so stayed sitting outside. We were very happy to help them, but slightly wary as we have been told many stories about thefts by Romas. Anyway this couple seemed nice and we said we would give them more metal tomorrow after we'd cleaned out another room.

 

 

After lunch Pete carried on with the fire and I decided we finally needed to wash some clothes. Unfortunetly our solar heated water wasn't quite hot yet but I did a big wash (the first since we'd left!) and hung it out in the sunshine to dry.

After this I went back to the fire. All the brash from the garden was now cleared, so we moved on to burning all the old clothes, mattresses and other furniture from the house. The area around the house was beginning to look clear!

 

A mess before!

A lovely garden after.

We had no food at home so we finished up earlyish and had a lovely hot shower to get clean. We were literally walking out the front gate to go shopping, when D arrived - he'd come to connect our lights in the house now the power was on. He took down the old fuse box and found a complete mess of wires - there was no way he could easily find out what went where. We decided that having lights in the house was pretty useless anyway, especially as we wanted to knock walls down etc. so best not to have live wires we didn't know about. Instead D connected another socket.

 

After D had left we drove out to Chirpan to do some shopping. We decided not to shop at the supermarket and instead went to a small veg shop (the guy was very friendly and knew a bit of English) and a local store.

 

Back at home we had dinner and had (another!) early night.

 

Thursday

 

Woke up fairly early and after a coffee set to work. Pete went down to the garden to get the fire started whilst I got the washing in and tidied up the tent a bit (what a good homemaker!) Today we wanted to clear the horrible room downstairs. This room has an earth floor, quite a small window and was just dark and covered in years worth of crap and cobwebs. It wasn't going to be a pleasant job! With our gloves on we slowly started emptying it. We burned everything we could straight away and we kept a pile of metal for our Roma friends. We also found some quite nice wooden furniture which we stored in the barn to be done up at a later date.

 

Lovely flowers in the garden.

At some point in the morning M came by with a man from the water company. She explained to him about our problem with the stop tap and he said he could fix it, but he'd have to come back after lunch! Tomorrow! Ha. So we stopped to have a coffee break and just as we did three men turned up to connect our internet. It's wireless here, so they got up on to roof to connect a reciever and then plugged us in a router in the house. Once they'd gone we went online and browsed the web for a while - exciting stuff! Eventually we realised that we had been distracted and went back down to the gross room to keep on clearing. The couple came again to collect the metal and whilst the lady was in our garden picking everything up a neighbour we hadn't met yet came by. He was very nice and friendly with a big smile! Of course he didn't speak English but I think he came around to check what the couple were doing hanging around our house. Looking out for us I guess! We explained we were just giving them the scrap metal and he smiled alot and seemed happy!

 

ONLINE!

Anyway after everyone had left we decided to have a lunch break. We were working a bit slowly today but that room was so dusty and damp and smelly it wasn't nice to be in there for long. We did eventually get back to it though - we cleared hundreds of glass bottles and also loads of jars full of preserves. Lastly was just layers of mud, walnut shells, broken glass and plastic bits etc. so we got the shovel in. We filled nine rubble bags!! But finally the room was empty.

 

A few before and after photos... I cannot emphasise enough how gross this room was before!

 

We carried on burning the old furniture and we started to burn some of the plastic stuff, thinking it might be better than dumping it. However the smell was so bad and making Pete feel really sick that we had to stop. We bagged it up and loaded the van with all the rubbish we couldn't burn - ready to take to the dump in the morning.

 

 

We had a beer in the sunshine and splashed off the dust with some cold water. As we had internet now we skyped my mum and dad to say hello. In the evening we had dinner and stayed up a bit on our computers with our electric light on! Just like being in Brighton!

 

Friday

 

As the water guy was coming at anytime from 'lunch' onwards, we were up and out the house by 9.30 this morning to make sure we didn't miss him. First stop was the dump which is just past SG, so we stopped in to say hello to M & D on the way. The view from the dump was gorgeous - bright green fields with hills and mountains on the horizon.

 

 

Anyway, we drove back and then into Chirpan. We'd forgotton that it was market day - town was really busy with everyone out shopping and drinking coffee in the sunshine. Lovely. We stopped first at the builders merchants for a few bits and then carried on to the electrical shop, where we bought a toaster and a kettle! I wanted to stop for a coffee because it was so bustling in town but it was nearly 11.30 already so we drove home instead and made a coffee with our new kettle instead. And had TOAST!

 

Ooo new appliances.

We got the fire going again and started to clear the otherside of the garden (I know - the garden is huge!) This wasn't too difficult but it was about 26 degrees so we were very hot and there were even more thorns to deal with. We were making good progress though and after a few hours we stopped for a late lunch. The water guy had still not come - we had some hope that he would still turn up, although M had warned us that this particular man was notorious for just doing things when they suited him and was quite fond of the bar down the road!

 

Before

We now have even more garden!

Back to clearing and we eventually got there and could now see our lovely stone wall between the garden and the walnut orchard, and we could even see the tent from the garden now! It looked great. We burned another pile of wood (old beds from the house) and got the place looking a bit tidier.

 

The first we've seen of this wall - and we can see up to the tent now.

I'd refilled the solar showers this morning so when we'd finished working we had a lovely hot shower each. As today had been so hot we were both feeling exhausted and very hungry. We had a big dinner of egg fried rice and then Pete played guitar in bed whilst I stayed up and did a crossword whilst the sun set. We watched another film but didn't fall asleep too easily as there was a party going on somewhere in the village that was quite loud. Also there are these huge beatles that keep trying to get into the tent at night and it is so loud when they hit the tent!! It's quite funny but kept waking me up!

 

Saturday

 

Stara Zagora

Woke up and had a chilled morning with a pot of tea. At 10 we took the laptop to the house to skype Petes mum (the internet connection is not as good in the tent.) After chatting for about half an hour we said goodbye and headed out for a day in Stara Zagora. This was our first trip there without M or D so we were hoping we wouldn't get too lost! We found the tool shops easily and went in to buy a few things - some of the tools in SZ are better quality and cheaper than in Chirpan. We then drove around to try and find the mall - which we did successfully. Next to the mall was a shope called Technopolis where we went in a bought a fridge. Exciting stuff! We spent quite a long time deciding which one (Pete wants a massive double doorer with ice maker - sadly we can't quite afford those ones!!) We eventually picked one that was big enough and not too expensive and happily loaded it into the van. We then went into the mall and had a coffee. On the way home we stopped at Lidl for a bit of shopping. We have now promised that we will try and shop mostly at markets and local shops as shopping at supermarkets is so expensive in comparison - even Lidl.

 

New fridge!

Coffee at the mall.

By the time we got home it was already half three. We carried the fridge into the house and up the stairs (hard work) and then left it to sit - apparently you shouldn't turn them on for a while if they've been transported on their side. We then walked around the house for a bit planning the layout of the kitchen and living room :)

We had seen on the weather forecast that there was going to be a storm this evening so we enjoyed the last of the sun whilst the clouds rolled in around us. We listened to the thunder and lightning before the rain got to us, but when it finally did we went in the tent and made dinner. The storm only lasted an hour or so and it was much clearer by the time the sun set. It was quite a nice warm evening anyway so we stayed up in the tent playing guitar and having a beer.

 

Storm coming.

Hanging out in the tent.

In the night it rained ALOT and was very loud all night.

Sunday

 

We had lots of plans for today but when we woke up it was very chilly and raining. We made a pot of tea and watched some TV on the laptop, which didn't help with our lazy moods! In the end we decided to wait out the rain. We made more tea and hung out in the tent - I did some blogging - and then a bit later we watched a film.

 

Once the film was over, and we'd had some lunch, the sun was starting to appear again. We decided that we would prepare for our jobs tomorrow. We cleared out the other upstairs room (it didn't take long as it wasn't too bad - just sweeping and cleaning the mushrooms off the wall) and moved our tools and stuff up from downstairs. Now downstairs was completely clear and ready to start digging the floor up for our water and waste pipes. We had to load more stuff in the van to take to the dump and then Pete went up to the tent to start making dinner and clean up. I cleared an area in the garden, where we could pile the earth from the house, and made a ramp to it for the wheelbarrow. Not a very productive day but at least we are ready to go in the morning!

 

Before

Cleaner room with no mushrooms growing on the walls.

Ready to go in the morning!!

The sky is blue again but the weather forecast said it was going to 0 degrees tonight - so it's going to be a cold one! I'm going to post this now, make some pop corn and watch another film. :)