Week forty four (and a half.)

Tuesday 9th

To start this weeks post I will let you all know our chickens have started laying again! Today was the first day since last year and we have been getting 2 a day since then.

Bilko loves the chickens

 

On Monday we'd had a call from a furniture shop in town telling us that the shelves we'd ordered last week had arrived. So today we decided to have a bit of a shopping day, as a list of stuff we wanted from SZ had been growing over the last few weeks. Not much to say about this day, except that it was a slightly disappointing. Everything we wanted from SZ either wasn't there/was too expensive (this happens almost every time we go though!), the music shop we tracked down for new guitar strings looked as if it hadn't been open for about 20 years, and as well as that we seemed to be surrounded by nightmare drivers all day too!

 

We did pick up the shelves from Chirpan though and put them together (from flat pack) when we got home. They are not our usual style but they are SO useful and have changed our lives in the kitchen as we now have so much extra storage space - we were keeping most things on the floor before!

Flat pack

Organised

Bought some flowers in SZ

Wednesday 10th

 

Back outside to work today, after a pancake with lemon curd breakfast (a day late I know, but still so good!) I finally finished the big, stone raised bed - this had been so time consuming as I was trying to find good stones from the rubble pile and it was more and more difficult the more wall I did. Whilst I finished that off Pete was back in the trench and also finished this job - so a good, successful day. :)

Breakfast

Digging

Raised bed finished - I love the colours of the stone

Trench finished

 

Pete also made tortillas for the freezer today. Chirpan doesn't seem to have the widest selection of bread, so yesterday we'd looked for tortllias in the supermarket in SZ. We'd found them to be relatively expensive (for us anyway) so instead Pete managed to make loads, using only one bag of flour - bargain! And they're probably nicer!

 

In the evening we went for a few beers at the bar with S & G.

The kitten at the bar is very friendly

Thursday 11th

 

It was a gorgeous sunny morning this morning, so we were up early to make the most of it. I started the day by planting some flower seeds - on my new seedling table in the kitchen window. Then I planted my new primrose and loads of bulbs in my flower bed - we'd bought a selection box of bulbs a while ago, as well as some we'd dug up from the garden before doing the raised beds.

Planting flowers seeds

Planting bulbs and flowers

 

Whilst I did this Pete was in the kitchen getting started on a huge batch of marmalade - ready for summer (oranges are so cheap at the moment.)

Marmalade

 

After a delicious brunch of kippers and poached egg on toast we decided to start moving some of the crappy earth into the trench. I know it sounds mad as we've just dug it out and now we're filling it in again - but it does make sense, I think!! Pete filled the trench whilst I bucketed some of the slightly better earth into the newly finished raised bed.  We both found all the digging pretty back breaking - pick axing through the rocks and clay - as well as just being extremely boring, so we didn't last too long, and used the clouds rolling in as an excuse to stop. Jobs like this are better done little and often anyway.

Mmmm kippers

Filling the trench

Bed half full

Storm a comin

Friday 12th

 

Market day again, although we didn't have much shopping to do today. More excitingly was the 'wine and love' festival getting started in Chirpan, complete with traditional dancing and music and freeee wine! Nothing like a glass of red to kick start the day! The festival is actually on the 14th - they celebrate valentines day (hence the love) but it is also the traditional day to trim your vines for a good wine season (hence the wine!) We got some breakfast in Chirpan, to soak up the wine, but didn't stay out long before heading home.

Morning wine!

 

When we got back we unpacked and did a few chores around the house. In the market I'd bought a few pansies, so I planted them in the flower bed, and we'd also bought a table and 3 stool set from a guy in the street - handmade by the look of it. We wanted to keep them outside so Pete gave them a coat of linseed oil and left them out in the sun to dry.

Pansies planted

Oiling the furniture

 

In the afternoon we decided to go down the road and do a bit of paid work. There is still not loads to do at this time of year but we managed to do a few hours of weeding, raking up leaves and pruning. We are going to try and make Friday afternoon our 'paid working day', as it should be easier to keep doing regularly if we get into a routine.

Snowdrops everywhere

 

When we got back it was still quite early and the sun was shining so we sat out (on our new table and stools) and had a cheese board for a very late lunch - we'd treated ourselves to some blue cheese, as well as getting some local home made cheese from a man in the market. Yum yum yum. Pete also made some buns (another variety of bread unavailable in Chirpan) and they are now in the freezer ready for burgers!

Cheeeese board!

Buns

Saturday 13th

 

A bit of a foggy and gloomy morning today, so we had a bit of a lie in and a relaxed brekkie of fried quails eggs on toast - how luxurious! We then spent a few hours giving the house a major tidy and clean. Whilst doing this Pete also put his bacon in the smoker to get all tasty.

Foggy

Lovely clean house

Quails eggs and Marmite on toast

Bacon smoking

 

Once the house was all nice we went outside for another hour or so of moving earth. Pete shoveled good earth into the raised bed, whilst I moved more rocky earth into the trench.

Bed is getting fuller

Trench is also getting fuller

Splitting wood for the fire

 

We decided to finish the day early though, and we went inside and got the fire going as it was grim and grey and drizzly. This weekend is our 4 year anniversary so we cracked open the bottle(s) of fizz we'd bought in SZ and had a lovely evening chatting and playing games.

Bulgarian red fizz - yes it tastes as weird as it sounds!

Animals by the fire

Sunday 14th

 

Valentines and Wine festival day! We'd heard around from our neighbours that something might be happening in our village today to celebrate - although no one seemed 100% sure what! We'd been given a rough time of 10.30am - obviously a normal time to start drinking wine - and had arranged to meet S & G in the centre to check out what was going on.

 

We found a group of men sitting inside at a big table (even though it was 20 degrees and gorgeous blue skies outside) and they invited us in and offered us wine and food. Not the 'festival' we'd imagined, but we were happy anyway! Not much to say except that we ended up staying from 10.30am, and drinking, until after it was dark and had the most ridiculous and fun day ever!! Obviously everyone was quite sozzeled by the end, shouting, dancing and lots of laughing, and we got to practice our Bulgarian a lot! We also met some people from our village we didn't know already, so that was nice.

 

Monday 15th

 

As expected not much was done today except watch a few films. I did actually do a bit of baking and made some walnut macaroons from a recipe I'd seen on another blog. They didn't come out looking perfect but they tasted GREAT and were made using our own walnuts and our own eggs. :)

Walnut macaroons

Tuesday 16th

 

Back to work after a few days off! We decided just to get this trench filled and spent a couple of hours just digging and wheeling barrowing earth - so dull, but we did it! Once we'd done that Pete used a plank and the sledge hammer to flatten the earth where we're going to build the wall, whilst I started laying the base stones for the raised bed.

Compacting the earth

Earth flattened and raised bed base in

We also filled some of the holes that were created by taking stumps out

 

We'd done this by midday and we decided to have a short break by taking Lucy for a walk, as well as going to the shop to get our bread order.

Spring is in the air!

 

Back home we carried on work in the garden. As I've mentioned we plan to build a wall where the 'trench' was - this is so eventually we will be able to separate our own garden from (what will be) the campsite café/bar in and outside the barn. We have also decided to get rid of half a wall that is in the garden already, as it is not really doing anything (except falling down) and it will give us plenty of good stone to build the new wall - which we are going to drystone properly. So we spent the next hour or so heaving huge stones to form the base of the wall, and then filling in the middle space with all the tiny stones and rubble.

Big wall base in

The wall we are removing

Some of it has gone already

Once the base was finished we'd had enough of lugging stone about for one day and instead decided to spend the end of the day trimming our grape vines - I say grape vines, but last year we didn't get any fruit from them at all. We're not too bothered about grapes though (we get enough wine from our neighbours!) but we do want to train it to grow over the huge metal frame so we can have a shaded seating area here. Once we'd trimmed the vine back we kept going and trimmed back all the horrible, thorny rose bushes and other weeds and Pete even pulled up a few more stumps so they can't come back! You can't really tell from the picture - but it looked great and we realized we'd never actually stood in this part of the garden as it has been covered with an earth pile/crazily over grown since day one - at one point we didn't even know that concrete sink was there!!

Vines, and other plants, trimmed back

Wednesday - Thursday 18th

I'll put these days together as I don't have much to write about. We've been working in the garden - me laying the smaller stones, with the pug, for the raised bed, and Pete has turned his hand to dry stone walling. As it turns out he is a natural and our dividing wall is starting to look fabulous - although it is going to be quite a time consuming task as every stone has got to be just right. I've managed to get the raised bed finished in the two days and that is looking great too. It is now set to rain over the weekend so I'm glad I got that done (and covered.)

Laying the stone in the sun

I got a lot done in one day

Hristo popped over to look at our work

Last raised bed is finished!

Both side of Pete dry stone wall

Newly finished end protected from rain

This afternoon we went for a lovely, but slightly drizzly, walk and saw our first blossom on a tree! Oh and this morning my first seed has germinated! It is one of my flowers which is exciting - although, to be honest, we are more looking forward to the veg getting going.

Nice walk

Cherry blossom!

Seedling :)

Corr that was a bit of a long post - I need to get back in to the weekly swing!!

Thanks everyone for reading, until next time. xxx