Monday, June 6, 2016

59 & 60.

Stara Zagora last week

So here goes another 2 week extravaganza! It's been another great and very busy couple of weeks so I have a lot to write about. Annoyingly my camera broke over a week ago so I am slightly lacking in photos, although luckily I have been able to use my brothers camera a bit. Usually I use photos to jog my memory of what we've been up to, but this time I will have to just try and remember myself - so hopefully I won't miss anything important!


Sunday 22nd May

After a day off working yesterday we were all back on it today - and there was plenty to do. It was an overcast morning, but not raining so to start the day it was all hands on deck back on the toilet block. Mum and Charley were allocated the thrilling job of passing the huge pile of wood up to where the loo block is. Whilst they did that Me and Maya were cutting the boards to length whilst Pete hammered them in place and started to create walls. This was quite a repetitive job but fairly easy and we got 6 sections of wall done in no time and the cubicles were really starting to take shape. Dad was also busy making hand railings for the stairs and the verandah. 

Pete and Dad

Mum and Charley

Me and Maya

6 sections done! Hand rails done!

Once mum and Charley had passed up all the wood they went off to do a tidy up and bit of work in the garden. Charley decided to get our chicken coop a bit more organised by making them a self filling water bowl from an old plastic bottle and giving them a new feeder which he'd found in the barn. 

New feeder

Refillable water bowl

After a few hours it was time for lunch and we all sat down for a feast of Spanish omelette and salad fresh from the veg garden. After lunch Charley, Maya and Dad went back up to carry on boarding the loo block whilst me, Pete and Mum went to bottle up our elderflower champagne. We cleaned and sterilised a load of old beers bottles and then syphoned in the liquid in - all they need now is a week or so in a warm temperature and they'll be ready to drink. We did have a taste of it and found that it was extremely dry so perhaps we'll have to add sugar or honey once they have finished fermenting again. 

Lunch time

Elderflower champagne

Cress is growing!

Once we'd done that me and Pete went back up to help with the toilet block. We have learnt from experience that the untreated wood you buy here shrinks over time and creates large gaps between the boards - because of this we wanted double up the wood at the back of each cubicle to avoid people having to look at other people showering or on the toilet! This obviously meant that the back panels took much longer to do, but we got more than half of them finished today and it was looking fabulous!

Half the sides and back done

Looking gooood

Once we'd finished work it was time for a well deserved beer but it started to rain so we all had to retreat inside. In the evening we had dinner under the gazebo and then a movie night in the yellow room.

Bilko having a lazy day

Back under the gazebo
Monday 23rd

It was a gorgeous sunny day today (yay!) and it was straight back to work on the loo block. We got all the boards up so the walls were finished, as well as getting the spindles along the verandah. Five of us were working on that whilst Mum was busy cutting the grass in the walnut orchard with our mower. We have never tried this before as we thought the land was too bumpy and it wouldn't work, but surprisingly it worked a treat which is fantastic news as it makes keeping the grass under control so much easier. 

Mum with the mower

The orchard looks fab after it's been mowed

Finishing the back of the loo block


In the afternoon me, Pete and Dad carried on working - we managed to get the bases built for the two composting toilets and they look great. Dad is not only a master builder but also a designer, so our toilets are 'floating' and match all the wooden walls - amazing! Charley and Maya took Lucy out for a walk and Mum started work on digging a level area for the swimming pool. It was a hot day and this was hard work so she did an amazing job. However since then we have decided to move the pool, so there has been no more digging done - sorry Mum! :) 

The front of one toilet

And the view from the loo!

Mum digging

Looks big from the side

Beer time!

For dinner Maya cooked us an amazing veggie Indian feast, which was absolutely delicious, and we had a lovely evening around the fire - with no rain! - staying up until late to celebrate my birthday after midnight!

Curry time
Tuesday 24th

It was my birthday today so it was a compulsory day off, and luckily it was another gorgeous sunny day. We had a bit of a lie in and then we all got ready to go out to Chirpan - it may be a day off but there were still some building materials to be bought! It was only a quick stop in the builders merchants and then we all went into town for a coffee. The 24th of May is a big holiday in Bulgaria (to celebrate Saint Cyril and the Cyrillic alphabet) and in Chirpan there was a children's parade with kids doing different dances. We watched the parade briefly but then headed home as it was time for brunch!

Stalks nest in Chirpan

Cheerleaders in the parade

We had a long, relaxing early afternoon and I even had a few presents to open from my family - including a parcel sent by my Grandad, which was a lovely surprise. 

Chilled brunch

I got given gardening stuff!

In the afternoon we all set off for a walk to a nearby lake - this is now tradition as we went last year for both mine and Pete's birthdays! It was a lovely walk with lots of wild flowers and it was even hot enough to have a swim when we got there. The lake has filled with water again since winter and the banks have been cleared so there was even a little 'beach' area to sit at and chill for a while. We tried tried to walk home a slightly different route but there wasn't another track, so after navigating through a few fields we joined our original path back to the village.

Our village spring
Towards the hills


Pretty flowers



At the lake

Lucy having a swim too

Back to the village

Over grown village streets

Back home we relaxed for a bit and then the clouds started to roll in and it was really threatening to downpour. We tried to put up a makeshift cover over the outside table but the winds were so strong that it nearly took off! So in the end we took a table into the yellow room and made the bed back into a sofa so we could all fit inside and keep cosy out of the rain. For dinner Pete made some epic burgers and then we sat inside and played games - a very fun evening and a great birthday!

BIG VEG

Broad beans coming

Chard is looking good

Birthday lettuce!

Storm coming

We tried to make a shelter!

But inside was better
Wednesday 25th

With only a few days left of Dad's expertise we wanted to try and get as much done on the loo block as possible. The last major thing to do to complete the building was put a roof on - which we wanted to tile with old tiles so it blended in with the surrounding houses. Rather frustratingly the shop in Chirpan had run out of old tiles and the farm in Spasovo, where we'd got some tiles last year, had a disease and weren't allowing anyone in until after June 1st. We knew of one other farm that sold old tiles in a nearby village so today me and Pete went out in the morning to try and track it down. We managed to find the farm but there was no one there to be seen, so that was a bit of a failure and sadly we won't be able to get the roof done whilst Mum and Dad are here. 

Whilst we were out we also drove to Stara Zagora to go and buy a solar panel that we'd seen, for a very reasonable price, in one of the large builders merchants. When we were there we enquired about it and then ended up talking to one of the managers who spoke excellent English. He was able to tell us all about the different solar panels they sold and how each one worked, which was great. Unfortunately the cheap one we'd seen worked only on gravity and needed to be at least 3 metres above the shower cubicle - much too high for us to build up to. The one that would be ideal for us was more than double the price we were expecting to pay, so we decided to go away and have a think about it. So it was another unsuccessful trip! One thing we did get was another gazebo so were are now able to sit at our garden table in the rain.

New gazebo up


We arrived back home (almost) empty handed after 3 or so hours and found everyone had been hard at work. Dad had built the steps up to the loo block and was getting started on making the partitions and benches in the shower cubicles. Charley, Maya and mum had turned over and added compost into the last raised bed and planted more carrots and radishes - we could get used to having so many helpful hands here! :) They'd also started strimming the bottom of the walnut orchard, which was still crazily over grown, and clearing more dead wood that was lying around.

Steps finished


More veg planted

Charley strimming

In the afternoon Charley and Maya went out again for a walk and chilled out for the rest of the day - she is leaving back to England tomorrow whilst Charley stays here for another two months. Mum did a great job of organising the dead wood into kindling and firewood whilst me and Pete helped Dad in the look block - there were bolts that needed to be cut off and more spinals to be made for the banisters up the stairs. Dad also got one door built and finished - so we now have one shower cubicle completed!! (Without the shower obviously.)

Door from the outside

Door and bench from the inside

It was another drizzly evening, and Maya's last night here, so we decided to head out to Flamingoes for dinner. We were pretty much the only customers there all night but we had a lovely time and ordered way too much food again! 

Oh and this evening was when my camera broke!

Thursday 26th

A very early start today as me, Pete and Charley were driving Maya to Chirpan train station to get the 7am train to Sofia. We were there on time and said our goodbyes - thanks again Maya for all your hardwork! It was lovely having you here and we can't wait to see you here again in a few weeks!! :D

Once her train had gone we headed into town to have a coffee whilst we waited for the builders merchants to open. After a quick stop in the shop to get yet more wood (only a little bit more to finish the doors) we were home early - Mum and Dad were only just getting up! 

It was a cloudy day so we fitted a tarp over the roof joists on the loo block so that we could carry on working if it rained. We spent the day finishing the doors on the toilet block and doing a few last bits and bobs - that is it pretty much finished now except getting the roof on and, of course, fitting it out. We are sooo completely happy with it, and it looks so much better than we ever imagined! THANKS SO MUCH DAD!! Charley and Mum carried on clearing the bottom of the walnut orchard and helped to clear away all the scraps and tools once we'd finished work n the toilet block. Then it did start to rain again - it is so typical that the weather is crap whilst our family here! Anyway, it ended up being a nice relaxed afternoon/evening chilling out in the yellow room reading, chatting and playing Scrabble.

Friday 27th

Market morning! It was just me and Pete going this week and we only needed food, so it didn't take too long. When we were home we found everyone working on clearing the land at the bottom of the orchard. Mum had got a fire going to burn all the brash whilst Charley was strimming and raking the grass and Dad was digging out the stumps of our dead fig tree - a very hard job as the roots spread like crazy underground. The area now looks massive and has given us the new location for the swimming pool.

Chickens being sold at the market

After unpacking the shopping I went to do a bit of gardening - including harvesting radishes and another whole lettuce, as well as planting more beetroots and thinning out and transplanting the broccolis. Pete went up to the orchard and used our hole digging tool to get a few fence posts in place at the top of the stone wall - the ground here is soft so this was an easy job in comparison to trying the same thing on the campsite land..

Gardening

Good harvest

Fence posts going in (to be straightened!)

Late afternoon we all got cleaned up and decided to go out for a walk as the sun was shining and it was Mum and Dads last day here. We did the walk to SG which was a stunning walk, as always, and even has a bar at the end of it to stop for a beer! It ended up being a really hot end to the day and we were feeling quite knackered by the time we were home.


Picking wild strawberries on the way

Beautiful walk

In the evening we had a last BBQ with the whole family and were very happy that it was a clear, starry night and we were able to have a fire and sit outside. :)


Saturday 28th

Mum and Dad were leaving this afternoon so we had a slow morning and Pete cooked a massive fry up with all the trimmings! The rest of the morning was spent with Mum and Dad packing and hanging out whilst I helped Charley to build a small shelter opposite the wood store that could store, amongst other things, our cement mixer and lawn mower. This is because at the moment both of them just sit right in the door way of the barn and make going in and out very frustrating - and Charley is on a mission to get us tidy and organised!! It didn't take long to put together the shelter out of old palettes and off cuts of wood from the barn - I think it looks pretty good.

Me and Char building a new shelter

Keeping the cement mixer dry

Once we'd done that we all just hung out in the garden until it was time to say goodbye to Mum and Dad. It was so great to have them here, and even better that Charley was here too! Thanks again for all your hard work, you BOTH helped us LOADS and we enjoyed all the evenings drinking red wine around the fire. :)

We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out in the garden and writing the blog. Pete cooked some amazing pulled pork that we had ate in a burrito. In the evening our friend George popped over, with his girlfriend, and they ended up staying for a while and having a few beers. It was a nice evening.


Sunday 29th

Last night George had invited us out for the day to a nearby village, called Mogilovo, in which the winery was holding a street art festival this weekend. In the morning me and Pete went down the road to do a bit of gardening and catch up on the weeding and then, at about 11.30, George picked us up and we headed off to Mogilovo.

The winery in the village is called Midalidare and it is huge and very fancy. There is also a posh hotel/spa in the village and they are starting to get a lot of tourists in the area. This 'street art festival' was another tourist attraction and had 4 artists from around the world painting 3D paintings on the ground. I can't explain... there are a few pictures below! It was pretty cool and there were a few food and drink stalls about as well selling amazing cheeses and very good coffee.


In the winery


Two of the 3D art pieces

After a look around here we tried to go for a swim in the spa swimming pool but we found that you had to pay for a full day using all spa facilities so instead we decided to head back and go to another local hotel that had a nice swimming pool. It was a boiling hot afternoon and we had a really fun time swimming, diving and hanging out pool side!


When we got back to our village we stopped off in the garden down the road to mow and water the lawn before heading back for dinner and a nice evening around a fire. A perfect Sunday!

Monday 30th

This morning I spent a few hours down the road again as I had several flowers to plant and some other bits to do. Whilst I was there Pete and Charley nipped into Chirpan as our strimmer had broken and Pete needed some plastic pipe to fix it. Once they were home Pete fixed the strimmer and came down the road to help me with a bit of work.

It was another scorching day, and so humid, so everything was more difficult and took longer to do! In the afternoon me and Pete went up to toilet block and lay the cement board where we are going to tile the floor for the showers. This is easier said than done as it is heavy stuff and we weren't sure how to attach it down as we needed it at a slight angle so the water runs off. In the end we had to just screw it down and we will make the angle with the tile adhesive. We also cut the drain to length and attached that in place.


Whilst we did that Charley was hard at work clearing the barn and organising everything - so now it looks great and has so much space, we will have to try and keep it that way! He also made us a makeshift compost bin and has been teaching us about how to make good compost quickly - so we could have our own compost in just a few weeks time if we do it right.

Organised barn

Basic compost bin

In the evening it started to rain again so we had a night inside and watched a film.

Tuesday 31st

We have another friend in SG that we clear the garden for every now and then, so today we needed to go and spend some time there. We ended up spending the whole day there and it was a boiling hot day and very hard work. Woo we were tired by the end of it! Not much to say about it really except that we had one of the neighbours come over to sit and watch us for a while, leave and then come back with his scythe to help us! So that was friendly of him!

Whilst we were out Charley stayed at home and did a fantastic job of weeding all the veg beds - which was already much needed - and spraying our homemade nettle tea concoction on the plants to try and stop bugs. We've had a few things being munched and have loads of Cabbage White Butterflies that will soon be laying and eating all our brassicas - grrr. Charley also made us another herb bed for coriander that matches the two Pete made perfectly.

Before weeding

After weeding

Making the herb bed

Et voila! Waiting for coriander to grow

When we came home Charley was out walking Lucy and then when he came back we got a fire going and ate BBQed sardines for dinner, it was delish. We kept the fire going but it was actually too hot to sit anywhere near it and we played Scrabble in the garden until it got dark. Oh yeah and the firefly season has started and we are starting to see more and more each night - they are so pretty!


Wednesday 1st June

Finally we could go to Spasovo farm and get the roof tiles today! We set the alarms for 7 as when we'd been before someone had told us the owner was always out in the afternoons. After getting up and having a coffee we got to the farm at about 8.15. We managed to find a guy who spoke a bit of English and he made a phone call and told us to come back after 10 - typical! We needed to go into Chirpan anyway so we did that, got a bit of shopping and headed back to the farm about 10.30 - we were feeling slightly apprehensive as last year we'd bought tiles here and they'd overcharged us by quite a lot and we ended up having an argument about it.

Anyway, when we got there the guy who spoke English was no where to be seen so we wandered around for a while until we found a lady who looked like a cleaner. We explained to her what we wanted and she made a phone call and told us to wait. 10 minutes later another lady pulled up in massive car, we told her what we wanted and she also made a phone call. Whoever was on the phone said we could have the tiles and at 50 stotinkis each, which is a very good price as far as we're concerned! We followed the first lady to where the tiles were and she helped us sort through them and find 400 that were not broken or warped - easier said than done! Almost two hours later we had our 400 tiles all piled, we thanked the lady and drove home with 100 tiles in the back of the van. At home we unloaded them and then repeated the whole thing 3 more times until, another two hours later, we had 400 tiles stacked outside the toilet block ready to go on the roof.

Sorting through the tiles

By now it was definitely time for lunch so we had a big spread of cheese, salami and salad (from the garden of course.) We'd had enough of moving things about already but, unfortunately, we had a bit more moving to do as we needed to go and clear a few piles of grass that we'd left at the garden in SG yesterday. We roped Charley into helping us and actually it wasn't too bad - it only took a couple of runs to the dump, which is in SG anyway. One we'd done that we dropped the keys back to our English friends (B & D) and ended up staying there for a couple of beers. By the time we got home it was nearly six so we chilled in the garden, had a quick pasta for dinner and had an early-ish night in preparation for roofing tomorrow.

Sour cherries growing in the garden
Thursday 2nd

As the days have been getting hotter and hotter we had grand plans of getting up at sunrise today to avoid being on the roof at the hottest time of day. This didn't quite work out! The alarm went off at 6 but we snoozed for a while and didn't end up starting work until nearly 7.30 (which is still pretty good.) The hardest part of doing the roof was getting it started - we needed to measure how many tiles across it would be and put in the first baton so it was square and we wouldn't tile off at a funny angle. We knew this would be hard but we didn't expect it to take a Skype call to my dad and four hours to get just one baton on!! So by midday we had the first baton on and were ready to start laying the tiles! Haha - so much for avoiding the sun!

First row of tiles!

Anyway, once we'd got going it was not difficult at all - the only thing that slowed us down slightly was that we needed to drill holes in and nail down every other row of tiles as there are going to be no ridge tiles to stop them blowing off. Pete and Charley were on the roof doing all the hard work whilst I was down drilling the holes and passing the tiles up one by one. At about 2 o'clock we ran out of baton and I'd gone through the 2 drills bits we had so we stopped and drove into Chirpan. We'd also not eaten all day so we stopped in a cafĂ© where they sell massive wraps!

Tiles at the ready

Bilko helping

Me drilling holes

When we got home we were very thankful it had clouded over as Pete and Char were getting way too hot up on the roof (at least we know our solar panel will work!) We cracked on with tiling and worked and worked until it was finished. By the time we'd sat down with a G & T to admire our work it was 7 o'clock - nearly 12 hours of working! But MY did it look good!! For dinner we ate cheese, salami and salad and all went to bed as soon as we'd finished eating.

Replacing a broken tile



Finished!

G & T time!
Friday 3rd

Market day again - yet another big shop was in order as we've got friends arriving here on Monday. It as just me and Pete out and again it was just a food shop so only took a couple of hours. The weather has been on and off all day with sun and rain showers so after a bit of a strim and harvest in the garden we retreated inside. Me and Pete blanched a huge load of spinach (which hasn't even dented it in the veg patch) and put it in the freezer for future use. We also harvested three turnips and pickled them with beetroot. For the rest of the afternoon I wrote the blog whilst the boys chilled out reading and playing guitar.

Harvesting turnips

Pickling turnips

Hanging out


In the evening we went for drinks in the bar with S & G and another English couple that we hadn't met before. It turned out to be a really fun evening and we stayed quite late.

That's all for now folks, until next week!! xx




1 comment:

  1. Brilliant as always. You have all worked so hard. Understand about the drill bits!! Have fun xxx

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