Move to Bulgaria: Week four.

Sunday

The party was great! We met some lovely expats (all English) - some had been here for about 9 years, others had arrived recently like us. Pete made great food and when it got dark we had a bonfire. A really good day/evening. :)

Pete lighting the barbi.

Bonfire.

Monday

The alarm was set for 8 as we had to go and pick up Nasco, however M rang us and said he had to go and work elsewhere today so we were given a bit of a lie in - which we appreciated! We weren't feeling like we wanted to work very hard today so instead we decided to go to SZ to get some things we needed. It was a lovely sunny day and we set off about 10.30.

In SZ there are two big builders shops (kind of like B&Q but better) opposite each other. It took us hours to buy the tools as we kept going back and forth between the two to check the prices! Anyway in the end it was a success and we got, amoungst other things, a cement mixer. Woohoo.

As it was such a lovely day and we hadn't eaten yet we decided to try and find the centre of SZ to explore a bit. We followed the signs and found somewhere to park near what looked like a nice area with cafes. We weren't expecting much but actually it was really nice. The whole centre is pedestrianised and lined with big trees. All the cafes and restaurants were full as well - which was odd on a Monday afternoon. We wandered around a bit and then chose a busy looking pizzeria to have some lunch. We also discovered a huge under cover market - which I think gets even busier on market days. After getting an ice cream and strolling around abit more we decided to head back to Chirpan as we had some stuff to do there before going home.

Lovely centre in SZ.

In Chirpan we went to the bank and picked up our Bulgarian bank cards, we also went to the internet shop and paid for a year so we don't have to visit every month. These were both quite straight forward so we could get by with sign language - although the internet guy did ring his mate who could speak English and get him to talk to us! We then went to the phone shop as we wanted to buy a sim card. In there we bumped into an expat lady who lives in our village. She was with her son, who is fluent in Bulgarian as he goes to school here, and he offered to help us buy the sim card. So we had a 9 year old boy as our translator!! Good job too as they were asking lots of questions!

Real people now!

By the time we were home it was already about 5 o'clock. Pete went up to the tent to chill but I wanted to start putting the cement mixer together. I thought it would be quite simple but you needed loads of tools and I was there for about 2 hours and it's not even done yet! Anyway, in the evening we ate left over food from the BBQ and watched a film in bed. Good day.

Tuesday

Nothing exciting to write about really today. Pete picked up Nasco in the morning and they were working hard all day. We were back in that bloody dark, dank room digging out rocks and earth. Eurgh! After dropping Nasco home at 4 we went down the road and dig some paid work - weeding and mowing the lawn. In the evening we had dinner and watched some TV series. Oh there was a big storm that we watched come in for ages. It was black and lightninging all around us but it wasn't actually raining where we were (until later when we were in bed, then it rained alot!)

Wall coming along.

Wednesday

We were up early again today to pick up Nasco and the other worker - his name is Dimir. We spent the morning doing a few 'chores'. I washed the clothes (I'd been avoiding it so there were alot) - it is so boring and difficult with a cold water tap in a muddy corner! It took about two hours. I then had a little fire and burnt all our burnable rubbish. Whilst I was doing all this Pete was trying to fix his strimmer as it was broken - it will start eventually but not stay on for long. Nasco and Dimir obviously saw what he was doing and tried to help - Dimir did seem to know what he was doing and seemed to work out what was wrong with it, although we needed a special tool to fix it. In the end they all decided it would be best to go to take it to Chirpan and try and get it fixed.

After all that it was back to work. We were again in the horrible room and we dug for a couple more hours. Eventually we hit just huge, huge stones which I can't do anything about and Pete can't really do it on his own. We decided we would get labourers in the finish the job as we couldn't handle any more! We did rake it out and after measuring realised we had pretty much dug out as much as we needed - so it's just the massive stones and the trench at the back that needs finishing. The pile of rock/soil we've dug out is HUGE! Anyway, it was a relief to finally finish in there and Nasco was getting on very well with the wall - they said they will finish it tomorrow.

As much as we can handle.

We've dug all this out of that room!

I went along to drop Nasco and Dimir home and then we carried on into Chirpan. We needed to get cash out to pay Nasco and tomorrow and do a bit of shopping. We had planned to see DW this evening and found her, with M & D, at our village shop. DW had just moved into a new house in our village so we all headed up there and had a beer or two - as a kind of house warming! She had no water or electricity yet so we sat outside on the patio until it was nearly dark.

Oh we popped by to see that cat - this is one of the kittens!

House warming at DWs.

Back home Pete cooked an amazing chicken stew for dinner and we fed the local cats the bones - they are so scared of people so it's difficult to get close to them (although they have no problem coming in our tent at night and stealing our bread.)

Thursday

In the morning Pete went out to collect Nasco but came back straight away as he said the van was making a loud noise and all the warning lights were flashing. Uh-oh. We had a coffee to wake up a bit and prepare incase our van was a gonner, we also text Nasco to tell him to make his own way here (although god knows how he'd read the text and he only has a bicycle anyway.) But after all that we went back to the van and it started fine and made no noise - so not sure what happened there. We drove straight away to Spasovo to pick up the guys - expecting to find them walking/cycling along the road - but no, they were sitting in the cafe having a coffee! No rush then.

Anyway, they had another boy with them today and they were collecting stones from around the house as they had run out of good ones from the old wall. They were wheel barrowing about and we didn't want to get in the way so instead we decided to do a fire in the walnut orchard. There was a large pile of brash that we needed to get rid of, as well as a few of the walnut trees were starting to get covered by clematis. It was a gorgeous, hot day and it was nice to be working outside. Whilst doing the fire I also decided to build a temporary compost bin as we needed somewhere to dump it (eventually we will build a proper one in the veg garden.) The Roma couple came back to collect more scrap metal and we let them help themselves like before - which Nasco and co. seemed very disaproving of.

Wild orchid.

Temporary compost bin.

The guys finished the wall at about 3 o'clock (it looks great!) and we gave them all a beer. Pete took them home afterwards and I carried on with the fire. When Pete came back we finished up with the fire and uncovered a massive fig tree from clematis and thorn bushes.

Wall done! Just got to clear up the stones now.

Huge fig tree.

Just before 5 we realised we hadn't collected our bread yet so we ran down to the shop before it closed. We bought an ice cream as well and decided to walk a longer way home and explore the village a bit. We followed the stream through the centre and then up and past the house where apparently the lady sells honey - the garden is full of hives. Her and her husband were sitting out and we built up the courage to ask if we could buy some honey. They were really nice and invited us in and pinched my cheeks very hard! And we got a pot of delicious honey - so good!

Stream in the village.

Very local honey!

In the evening we popped over to DW for one beer to celebrate her having water and power, but we came home early to cook some dinner.

Friday

I was up at 7.30 to move the van out the way of the bin lorry. It was market day today and we had agreed to pick up Dimir on the way as he offered to show Pete where to get the strimmer fixed. In Chirpan he took us to a couple of shops but they seemed to only fix things that were bought there - annoying. Dimir said he had a friend that would know what to do so him and Pete drove off to find this guy whilst I went into the market and bought some veg. After about half an hour Pete was back and we finished off the shopping together. The guy had seen that the fuel pipe was broken on the strimmer so we also bought some new pipe so Pete could try and fix it himself. It's a bank holiday weekend here so Chirpan was really busy - we stopped for a coffee in the square and enjoyed the sunshine.

Back at home we ate some lunch and then got on with demolishing the outbuilding next to the house (we needed to dig a trench right underneath it for the septic tank so it had to go.) It was used as hutches for rabbits, geese and turkeys before so it was pretty grim in there. Pete got to use his new sledge hammer though and we did quite alot.

Outbuilding before.

End of the day - looking good.

In the evening we had planned to see DW and another English couple that we had met briefly the other day - S & G. As we had not yet visited our local bar (about 2 mins from our house) we decided to try there - although we had only ever seen one man there so weren't expecting much! It turns out the one man we'd seen was the owner and he couldn't believe how much business he was getting! A bit later some other friends joined us (English and Bulgarians) and we had another nice evening meeting new people. We didn't stay out late though and came home fairly early to have a beer ourselves and eat some toast with honey.

Saturday

Today we had a bit of a lie in as it was the first time all week we hadn't had to set an alarm. When we got up Pete went to try and fix his strimmer and I got on with demolishing the outbuilding. Pete was successful (YAY) and was very pleased that he he managed to fix it himself. We spent the day pulling down the rest of the building and then, mostly, clearing up all the rubble. We kept all the good bricks and good tiles and also made a big pile of useful hardcore. The rest we had to bag up and when we'd run out of rubble sacks we drove quickly up to the dump to empty them. When we came back Pete went down the road to do a bit more piad work whilst I carried on shoveling the rubble and re-filled all the bags. By the time I'd finished Pete was home and it was starting to drizzle. We're now sitting in the tent (out of the rain) writing the blog and chilling out.