Week sixteen.

Well we've had a slightly slower week this week as Pete has been pretty ill (sore throat, cold, general ill feeling) for most of the week and then I caught whatever he had as well. Annoying! Also it has been bloody hot - late 20s to early 30s IN THE SHADE (as they say!) So both these things have made working quite unbearable. We have powered on though and got bits and bobs done, so here we are...

 

Saturday

 

Pete was feeling alot worse today so stayed cooped up in our room with the lights off and the fan on. Me and John used this as an excuse to have a day off, although I couldn't help myself doing a few things. Firstly I needed to sort out the pool as it is much needed now! This was a harder task than I expected but I did eventually manage to drain the last of the water out, scrub the bottom with bleach and mould spray and then get it all set up and re-filling again. So in about 10 hours we will have a pool again! We bought a chlorine dispenser thing and have vowed to have the filter constantly plugged in and the cover over when we're not using it - hopefully this will keep it all in order.

 

 

Drying

 

Next day, looking lovely again :)

 

I also knocked up a small compost bin in the garden as the other one was now very far away, past the tent and chickens. This meant we hadn't been emptying the compost tub from the kitchen and it was getting rather smelly. So that was useful.

 

 

After a lazy afternoon in the sun we got around to getting ready for the Lavender Festival in SG. We had been looking forward to this for ages - it's a biggish (for a village anyway) festival to celebrate the lavender harvest and apparently was being headlined by a famous Bulgarian popstar - Djena! Sadly Pete was feeling too rough to come, but me and John went anyway and had a fabulous night, catching up with lots of expats from other villages we hadn't seen for ages.

 

Lavender fest

Sunday

 

In the morning Pete was still in bed whilst me and John got to work in 'the horrible room' re-pointing the stone wall. Pete did eventually get up - bored of being in bed - and decided to set to work making a huge outdoor table. We had bought wood for it a while ago and not got round to making it yet. We wanted a big party table and planned for it to be 3 metres long by 1.5 metres wide! Massive! Whilst Pete and John got on with that I took the opportunity to go down the road and do a few hours weeding at our paid job. This garden has several fruit trees and although most of the plums had already dropped, I did manage to collect a few so we could make some jam.

 

Also we finished the step at last, rather good we think.

Pointed

Legs

Net down to catch more plums

 

When I came home I found Pete and John sitting at a humoungous table and getting ready for a BBQ! Excellent! The table is so big we had the BBQ at one end, all sat around to eat, a drinks area and still room to spare!! In the evening me and John stayed up and had some beers - Pete did join us for a while but was still feeling crap.

 

HUGE table!

BBQ

Drinks and Bilko being cute!

Monday

 

Views looking much drier in the summer heat.

 

Everyone was feeling well today so we decided to have a good days working! In the morning me and Pete nipped to Chirpan to buy wood for the front wall in 'the horrible room', whilst John stayed at home and set to chipping all the old paint and plaster off the wall. By the time time we were back John had almost finished and we all cracked on with building a wooden frame (like a stud wall) for the wood to screw into.

 

Buying wood

John is chipping away.

Frame done, electrics in.

 

This took the majority of the day and in the late afternoon we did a few other things like re-pot our mimosa to a bigger tub and re-silicon the shower as it had a leak. Our paid job garden has a lawn which is struggling in this heat so now needs regular watering. In the evening me and John took Lucy for a walk and went to to garden for an hour to water it and do crosswords! When we came back Pete was ready to hit the village bar, so off we went and spent the evening down there doing more crosswords and drinking beer.

 

Fixing the shower.

The bar :)

Tuesday - Thursday

 

We did several jobs around the place over the next few days...

 

• Making plum (purple and yellow) and apple jam.

 

• Building the wooden wall in 'the horrible room'. It looks so good!

 

• We got an AMAZING worker in to finally make some more progress with our septic tank. He is very friendly and a bloody machine! He did more in one afternoon than two blokes did in a whole day last time. We want him back to dig more for us! Also, whilst digging about 1 metre down, he found a piece of handle from a clay jug or something - may be Roman we think!!

We made some shade for him with Indian rugs :)

Just over 1 metre down

OLD!

• On the same day the boys (Pete and John) also dug a small hole for our toilet waste. They were more worn out than our Bulgarian worker was!

 

• Johns airbed exploded in the heat.

Too hot!

• The chickens have started laying again. The only problem is they aren't laying in the coop anymore, so we have to track down the eggs. This is obviously annoying as we may be missing some - but 4-5 a day is plenty anyway!

 

• scrubbed back and PVAed the stone wall - all finished now and looking great.

 

• Pete did one final coat of plaster in 'the horrible room' just to smooth it out and make it look lovely. I also filled in a few gaps and dodgy areas with filler so we were all ready to paint that room.

Gaps filled...

Last of the plaster done

• I painted the bedroom door light blue - the first colour in the house (not the brightest colour though, I have to say, but nice all the same!)

Outside and inside - just noticed we're wearing matching outfits!

 

• I also attempted to make a lampshade - it did work but not sure if we will use it.

 

• Lucy got something in her paw and was limping around and crying so we had to take her to the vet. Luckily he could see she was in pain so we didn't need to translate anything and after two days of injections and creams she is all better. :)

Poorly Lucy on her way to the vet.

• Baba Villay - our next door neighbour - gave us a huge bag of tomatoes from her garden. We need to repay her somehow for all her lovely gifts!

 

• Painted 'the horrible room' white! It looks so bright and airy. We had bought a greeny colour to paint it but when we did a tester we decided it didn't feel right and we wanted something warmer and brighter in there as it doesn't get very much natural light. But for now the white looks amazing.

 

It's getting there isn't it!?

 

 

• I cleaned the beams in our bedroom with white spirit asthey were pretty dirty and slightly covered in paint (not all from us!)

Before

After

• I made a nice dangly thing for our room with shells from Portugal!

 

• We lay the last of the wire for the sockets to complete the ring back to the fuse box. All we need now is for it to be connected!

 

• Covered the window sill to hide the horrible wooly insulation and at least some of the dust.

 

• Man came back and dug more - he has hit rock now though so I think we have to make the pit wider. There is alot of soil as well that we are going to have to deal with at some point (don't think about that now though.)

Down 180cm now

 

Friday

 

 

Market and shopping day again. We did a huge shop today in Chirpan and SZ - we chose a new colour from the 'horrible room' and also managed to get some tiles for in there. This took a long time to decide as Bulgaria doesn't have the widest range of tiles on the market and when you are on a budget the choice becomes even smaller. So in the end end we chose the best of about 4 bad ones - but it turns out the colour goes pretty well so we are pleased. And if in doubt we can always cover it in rugs!

 

Chirpan

Hilarious paint colour names - read from right to left!

 

When we were back from shopping I couldn't wait to test our new paint - a slightly louder colour than the previous green!

 

 

Pete is still unsure but I love it and I promise it will look GREAT! We also bought a sander so had a go at that - starting to make the table smooth. In the evening we chilled in the pool and then John cooked dinner whilst me and Pete went and did an hor of paid work down the road. Then an early night as Pete and me are both feeling a bit poorly still.

 

Saturday

 

I started today with getting up, sanding down and painting the wooden wall in 'the horrible room', whilst Pete and John made apricot jam and preserved chillis and cucumbers - oh there are no gender stereotypes in this house!!

 

 

 

The rest of the day was spent pottering around doing the odd job here and there. We tidied upstairs a bit and finally bought down the beautiful little woodburner that we hope to install in our bedroom. It needs a good clean and a re-paint, but looks like it works perfectly. I also finished painting the other wall yellow and in the afternoon we swam in the pool and went for a little walk in the forest at the top of our land.

 

 

The evening has been spent writing the blog and eating a lovely dinner made by Pete. Tomorrow we are off to the mountains as it's John's last few days and we haven't taken him anywhere yet!

 

What we've made so far... :)

Goodbye for now xxx