Weeks 39 & 40

Hello. It has been a while since my last post again, but this is because it has been quiet here and I was waiting until I had a few interesting things to write about!

Keeping warm!

 

The snow stayed with us for a few more days. It didn't actually snow any more but it was still cold and everything got very wet as it slowly started to melt, so we spent the week hiding out and keeping warm. All big projects for this year involve being outside, so it is really a waiting game to get started with work again.

Horrible day

Lots of this happening

Bilko is chilllled!

 

We went out for a few walks - one of which was to a lake near our village that we hadn't yet visited. It is a very pretty lake and because it is behind a hill and doesn't get much sun at this time of year, it was almost completely frozen over, which was pretty cool! We were throwing big rocks and it wouldn't break - although we didn't dare walk over it.

Slowly melting snow

Frozen lake

There is one deep patch in the middle that is not frozen

The trees are showing the usual water line

 

By Friday the snow was melted enough that we could go to the market - the first time in 3 weeks! There are about half the amount of stalls now as there were in summer, but still a huge variety of winter veg to pick from. When we got back from the market I unpacked the shopping, which reminded me to finally look up something crafty to do with all the plastic bags we have. (We do take our own shopping bags to the market but the stall holders almost insist of wrapping every item individually in it's own plastic bag, so sadly we still end up bringing home several plastic bags every week.) I found an easy project to make a basket/bowl with plastic bags and spent the next two days making it. It used up all the bags, - I didn't count them but there must have been AT LEAST 100 odd - it looks pretty good and kept me entertained for a while! Another day I made a bloody delicious lemon drizzle cake and we ate the whole thing within a couple of hours.

 

All these bags...

...turn to this!

 

Also this week our boiler broke - disaster! :( As far as we could tell there was electricity and water going to it, so there was nothing we could try and fix ourselves. It is of course has a guarantee but we have heard these mean almost nothing in Bulgaria and usually involve you taking the broken thing to the shop and them 'looking at it' for at least a month before fixing it - if you're lucky! This obviously didn't sound tempting, especially as we'd got the boiler in Stara Zagora (an hour away), but we told Hristo (our neighbour) and he kindly rang up the company and found out there was a shop that could service the boiler in Chirpan. This was great news, although we were still doubtful that it would be so easy, and we decided to wait until we next saw M & D so they could help us get a man out to our house. So for the next few days we washed from a huge pan of boiling water, cooked over the wood burner - which really is luxury compared to our solar shower!

Heating the shower water for free

After several days of good weather the snow in garden had finally melted. As the sun was shining we decided to use the opportunity to get outside and do some work, whilst we could. The first job was to build a cold smoker. Pete has been salting more pork and has also been wanting to build a smoker for ages anyway (we want to make bacon, panchetta, smoked cheese, smoked paprika etc - the options are endless really!!) We had an old wood burner that came with the house and we'd bought a flue, so the last job was to knock up a wooden box with a rack, where the food will sit and get smoky. This didn't take long at all and we used scraps of wood from the barn, so it didn't cost any money whatsoever. The end result it pretty good and works a treat. Lots of yummy food on its way!

Tada!

More bacon in already!

The big job to get started on are the raised beds. We have marked them out and originally wanted to build them all with stone, as you may remember. But over the last few days we have been deliberating this and ended up deciding against this idea. We will still build 3 of them with stone but the other 4 square ones we have decided to make from wood. This is for several reasons, the main reason being we don't think we actually have enough good stone to finish them. We also have a big pile of logs sitting in the garden from when we made the scaffolding for the roof - so why re-use them instead! Annoyingly the good weather only lasted long enough to get two built, but at least it is a good start, and we are very pleased with them indeed! :)

The first, and smallest, bed we decided to with upright logs. This looks fantastic but involved digging down quite deep to make them sturdy, and also was not the most economic use of the wood, so there will only be one like this. We are also quite concerned about the wood rotting, so we filled the gap in the ground around the wood with stone (French drain style), as well as putting plastic on the inside to avoid the earth touching the wood as much as possible. Hopefully this will last a few years - and it should be relatively easy and cheap to replace if/when we need to.

All cut to size

Stones going in.

One side done

Filling it in

One bed done!

For the second bed we used the wood horizontally. This is much quicker and more efficient to build so we will do the rest in the same way. It also looks nice as well! Actually the hardest part was shoveling the earth into the bed - but we are finally starting to make a dent in the pile of soil that has come out the septic tank, so we are on our way to having a tidier garden.

Chopping to length

4 sides ready to go in

Filling the trench with stone

Plastic in

And another one finished (not quite full yet)

Celebratory beer in the sun 

During this short bout of working we had another Friday morning at the market, where we stopped in a local café for some lovely, warming soup.

And then the weather turned. We had a day of solid rain and then the next day we awoke to this again... so changeable.

This time with the snow storm came a power cut and we had a WHOLE DAY with no electricity! First thing we got the fire going so we could boil water for a cuppa, then we had a morning game of scrabble and carried on the day in much the same way. At first we kept switching on the lights when we went in a room, opening the laptop to go on the internet and saying things like 'we'll just listen to music..' or 'I'm going to make some toast' - you don't realize how much you rely on electricity for everything! But in the end it was actually fine and thankfully the power came back just as it was getting dark. (Unlike other areas of Bulgaria that apparently have had 2 meters of snow and days on end with no power, so I think we got off lightly.)



Fire and candles lit for the day

 

The snow we had a few weeks ago obviously settled, but it was really powdery and blew around everywhere. This time the snow had stuck to everything - even the washing line - so looked much more like a winter wonderland. Once the blizzard outside had stopped we got in our snow gear and went out for a walk around the village.

 

 

 

 

Our land!

 

Out in the village

The snow has even stuck to the rosehips

Everything is frozen!

 

Since then it hasn't snowed again, but the weather this week is set to hover around 0 in the days and get as low as -15 by night, so it may take a while to thaw. Yesterday we saw M & D who called a guy to come and look at the boiler - and miraculously fixed it within an hour, all for free under the guarantee! Result - we have hot water again!!! We also went with M & D to SZ to apply for our Bulgarian resident cards, so - fingers crossed - when I next update we will be official Bulgarian residents at last.

 

 

I've also done a few odd bits and bobs around the house in an attempt to keep myself busy and feeling productive. There were a some patches around that needed repainting - like where the wood burner had leaked a few months ago - as well as filling in some cracks and linseed-oiling the yellow room doors - which now look fab!

 

We made cracks in the yellow room when doing the hallway

 

Starting to cover the water stain

 

Linseed oil going on

 

Done!

Thanks again for reading everyone!! I'll leave you with a photo of Bilko being used as a scarf. xx

 

Christmas Holidays.

Hello! I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! We have definitely been on our holidays and have done almost no work around the house whatsoever. It's been great! I'll try not to blab on too much about how we've been doing nothing, so it'll be mostly photos of us relaxing and all the food we've been eating (exciting stuff!)

Christmas

 

Christmas day was really lovely. We woke up early and had a cup of tea in bed before taking Lucy out for a sunny walk. The weather was gorgeous. Back home we had bucks fizz and salmon and eggs for brekkie, before opening our presents. We got each other mostly silly things (my presents included a walking stick and Pete's a plastic gun - which he actually loved.)

Christmas walk

Yummy breakfast



Mulled wine warming up, coffee staying warm



Still a kid!

Bilko hated her socks...

... but she did love playing in the paper.

In the afternoon we had a big Christmas dinner in the garden (amazing!!) which was absolutely delicious - we even had parsnips! - and then spent the rest of the day drinking mulled wine and playing various board games. Perfect.

Chocs, cheese and homemade chutneys.

New Years Eve

 

For New Years we went to Plovdiv. We had booked a hostel right in the centre and in the afternoon we set off to Chirpan to catch the 3.40 train to Plovdiv. We hadn't got the train to Plovdiv before but it was really easy and only took about an hour, so in the future we may opt to do this more often than driving, as it saves the nightmare of driving in a city and is actually cheaper than parking for the day.



 

View from the train of Bulgaria's highest mountain.

Anyway, we arrived at 5ish and walked about 20 mins to the hostel (Hikers Hostel in the old town) which was perfect and had amazing views over the city. But we didn't hang around for long and after a quick shot of rakia with the hostel owner we were off to find our favourite bar and start the night off with an ale! Sadly our favourite bar was closed for a private party (as were, it later turned out, all of the restaurants and we ended up having dinner from a burger stall!) Nevermind, we found a few other nice bars and an especially good one that George had recommended. We ended up staying at that one drinking cheap cocktails until after midnight. There was also a big gig happening in the centre of town with several live acts, which we did stop to watch for a while but we ended up going back to the pub as the -6 temperature got to us! All in all it was a really fun night and a great evening to have our first night out in Plovdiv - we love that city!

Lights and ice skating in the city

Sunset view from the hostel dorm

First beer outside the offie!

Celebrations in the city centre

In the hostel common area

Plovdiv on New Years Day

Walks

As I said the temperature was still hovering at about 16 - 17 degrees on Christmas day, but this was set to only last until the end of the year, so we decided to make the most of the sunshine by going on a few walks. One day we got ready for a day out in the mountains - supposedly only an hour and a half drive away. As we should have learnt by now this was definitely not the case as the roads were absolutely horrendous and with a slightly dodgy van we thought it best to turn around and come home. This was quite disappointing as I have been wanting to visit the Rhodopes for ages, but we did manage to have a nice walk and a picnic by a river, so it wasn't a bad day out after all.

One of the better roads, looking at the snowy mountains.

A very, very bad road - this hole actually went all the way through this BRIDGE with just a twig to warn you not to drive over it. Outrageous.

Another walk we did was over in SG. There is a hill with a track leading up to a radio mast which we followed all the way to the top for gorgeous views across the valley. On the way back down we came across these really long trails of caterpillars all joined together, which we had never seen before (picture and video below!)

Turkey in SG (after Christmas!)

SG

The top!

Huge trail of caterpillars

 

Another afternoon we had a walk around our village, including looking in the old school and discovering a whole new area of the village we hadn't been to yet (not sure how we've managed that - our village is tiny.) On this walk we went down a street where there were several people sitting around a table butchering a wild boar that one of them had caught that morning! It was incredible, they were BBQing some, making sausages with some - and none of it was going to waste, they were sorting all the innards as well. They offered us a sip of rakia, warm homemade bread and some of the cooked meat, which was absolutely delicious. We left when they gave us a slice of raw skin and we couldn't bare to eat it!



Snowdrops in our garden :)

Outside and inside the old school in our village (they had communal toilets apparently.)

Our village.

Men butchering a boar

Small jobs

In the warmer days Pete got several layers of linseed oil on our big outdoor table, so hopefully it will survive the winter.

We also did the last bit of insulating the outside tap and the indoor pipes upstairs where it never gets warm. This was actually done in an emergency after our upstairs tap froze - thankfully it hasn't happened again so we think we have fixed the problem.

Outside tap covered

Pipes are wrapped up warm (obviously they will eventually be properly insulated and in the walls - for now sheets will do.)

The other thing I did was to try and connect the plug sockets in the yellow room, as they still haven't been done since we finished the room! Now I have connected a light fitting myself, and re-connected several light switches and plug sockets I thought it would be a breeze. I was only half right. Firstly it is just a really fiddly and annoying job anyway, and then, even though I obviously had the fuse turned off, when I touched the wire with the plyers it kept tripping the main fuse for the house. We since have thought it is probably because it is meant to be on a circuit and at the moment it's not, but whatever it was we don't know enough about electrics and we got scared, so I stopped. I am 99.9% sure I was doing everything correctly and I did manage to get one extra plug socket in before the scare, so that's good I suppose (don't worry I haven't left any live wires sticking out the wall. I hope.)

I also made two mobiles with shells and other bits and bobs I have collected over the years and they are now hanging in the bathroom.

Oh, and we hung up our clothes rack in the yellow room as we can't afford a tumble dryer and it's too cold to dry clothes outside. It's more useable now the Christmas tree is down!

Food

Not much to say... we've been eating nice food and here are a few pics.

My tea is never big enough so Pete got me this mug for Christmas!

Making the most of our oven!!

Cauliflower cheeeeese

Home made pumpkin banitsa (Bulgarian speciality)

TOAD IN THE HOLE! YES!

We found avocados in the veg shop and they sell quails eggs in the market (they are so cheap) so we had a posh breakfast :)

SNOW! Sorry there are LOADS of photos.

First spattering of snow.. this is nothing!

A day or so before New Year we woke up to find the garden white. It wasn't very deep though and it melted away quite fast. A couple of days after New Year though we woke up to find the garden looking very white and snow still heavily coming down. It kept snowing for a couple of days and we had lovely walks around the (very quiet) village in our snow suits and boots that we'd bought a while back.

Out in the snow storm!

Staying warm :)

Getting deeper..

Looking pretty at night

Angels!

Village centre

The animals have also been enjoying the snow! Bilko hasn't ever seen snow before so she was quite apprehensive at first, but after a bit of an explore she seems to like it and keeps meowing to go out! We assume Lucy has seen snow before and she has been in her element - running through and rolling around in it!

Avoiding the snow at first

Wolf dog

For the last two days the chickens have been hard work. Their water has been freezing every hour and the food just keeps getting covered in snow. They've survived though and today has been much better and they are out of the coop and happyily eating.

Today it has stopped snowing, the sun is out and it has been slightly warmer (a whopping 3 degrees or so) so we decided to come out from the yellow room and the warmth of the fire and have a snow day! We've built a snow lady, an igloo, rolled around in the snow and even had a go at sledging - although this wasn't too successful as the snow is quite powdery and deep (about a foot in places.) It's been a fantastic day!! We are also quite pleased to find that a tractor has been around the village to plough the streets and has even made it all the way up the hill to us - although, unless it's completely necessary, I don't think we'll be braving a drive until it's melted a bit. Here's even more photos of us playing...

Pete shovelled our path

Fat balls out for the birds

Not going out for a while!

Past the ankles



Off I go...

..and wipe out!!

Snow Lady Bulgaria, face 1.

Snow Lady Bulgaria, face 2.

In our igloooo

Views from the igloo

After we destroyed the igloo!

We have stayed very warm and toasty in the house and have made use of our frozen dinners, cooked over the woodburner. We are still enjoying having some time off, and with the snow here there is not much work we can get on with anyway - even if we wanted to.

That's all for now, Happy January everyone! These are our names in the snow in Cyrillic (we think anyway) can you tell which is which!!? xx