We spent this lovely, sunny morning smoking the large batch of bacon that we were planning to sell in sandwiches at the car boot sale this weekend. We were expecting several (British) expats at the car boot and what do Brits want at a car boot sale - that's right! Bacon butties! As you can't buy English bacon in Bulgaria we thought it would go down well and we were also going to offer to make bacon in larger batches to have at home. To do the smoking we first cut into a cherry log so that we could collect and use the woodchips to get a nice flavour on the bacon and then we made a fire in our homemade smoker and chucked the woodchips on top. The smoker needs to be watched so I did a bit of weeding in the garden and kept an eye on it whilst Pete prepared some bread dough. Once the bacon was done we sliced it and put it all in the freezer.
In the afternoon I wanted to clear the toilet block of the stuff we were storing in there - the biggest thing being a huge mattress. To get this into our bedroom we had to do some re-arranging and this meant we had to finally put a small mattress up into the mezzanine. We put the normal size mattress up there but it looked so big and imposing and took up way too much room up in the very low ceilinged mezzanine! So we took that down and put up a much thinner foam mattress instead, which was perfect. Then the huge mattress was moved into our bedroom and we wrapped the small mattress in plastic and stored it in the barn - how many mattresses do we need!? Anyway, now the toilet block was much clearer and I could tidy up, give everything a clean and hang up a few decorations of old items from the house. Whilst I was doing that Pete made the first batch of buns (also for the boot sale) and stored them in the freezer.
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| Toilet block back to how it should be |
In the evening we decided to make the most of this gorgeous weather and have a BBQ - the first of the year! We made huge burgers (with bacon in too) and then sat out having a few drinks by the fire. A lovely evening.
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| BBQ |
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| Sun light on the blossoms in the village |
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| Yum yum |
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| Sunset |
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| Fire |
Wednesday 29th
Another gloriously sunny day and today we had set ourselves the task of moving stones - what fun. In total we gathered about 50 sacks of small stones and drove them over to the track to the campsite. This took pretty much the whole day. We have now covered the most uphill section of the track, so vehicles should get up there even in wet weather. We also had a few approving comments from the neighbours who think it is good we are improving the village, so that is good! Whilst doing this all day Pete also made another batch of buns, as well as a couple of loafs of walnut bread to give to our neighbours. Late afternoon, whilst Pete was baking, I made a couple of new signs for the campsite - including a bigger welcome sign for the entrance.
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| The animals (not) helping collect stones |
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| One load |
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| Two loads |
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| ... four loads! |
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| New campsite signs |
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| Buns for the butties |
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| Walnut bread for the neighbours |
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| Can't get enough of these blossoms |
Thursday 30th
We were up early today to go to SZ as we needed to get a few things from the supermarket and the bigger builders merchants. We decided to go to the central fruit and veg market in SZ so that we wouldn't have to go out shopping again the next day. We had quite a nice day out getting everything we needed and stopping for lunch and coffee in the city centre.
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| Fab sunset |
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| Bilks |
Friday 31st
No market today as we were already stocked up with food. The weather was a bit miserable and I had some things to sort out with my laptop, so we spent the morning inside doing that and pottering about. Pete also made the final batch of buns for the boot sale. By the afternoon I was unable to solve my laptop problem so, very annoyingly, we had to drive to SZ again to buy something to get it sorted. We ended up having to spend an hour or so at McDonalds using the free WiFi, but in the end got everything fixed. A boring and frustrating day!
Saturday 1st April
Today was our official campsite opening day, and also 2 years since we left the UK! We weren't expecting any visitors (it is not really camping season yet) but we did want to get the place looking tidy and ready for guests so we are prepared if and when they do arrive. We finished off raking the leaves and did a last big tidy up of all the tools, wood and other bits that were lying around. We also re-made the fire pit in a different area and Pete bought up some more big logs, that we'd saved from our fire wood delivery last year, to use as seats around the fire. We think it looks rather good - the trees just need some leaves on them now and it will be perfect! :-D
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| Clearing up the campsite |
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| Campsite looking pretty in the sun |
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| Fire pit |
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| Gifts from our neighbour |
Once we were happy enough with the campsite we moved on to preparing for the car boot sale in the morning. I dug out the old camping gas cooker and gave it a good scrubbing and we wrote a list of everything we needed and started to pack. A lot of kitchen utensils couldn't be packed until the morning but we did manage to get everything else organised and into the van. We also made some signs for our stall to advertise our bacon rolls!
In the evening our friend George came over for a bit but then we had an early night so we would be spritely for bacon day (sorry, I mean the car boot sale) in the morning! ;-)
Sunday 2nd
We got to Sredno Gradishte at 8.30 and set up our stall with a few other people around. This boot sale was the first of it's kind here so we weren't expecting a massive turnout - in the end there were around 12 stalls including a food stall (not ours) and, of course, a beer stall! Most of the stalls were run by expats but there were a good amount of Bulgarians there too, intrigued by this funny British tradition and by our bacon sandwiches! Our stall was a hit and we very nearly sold out of sarnies, as well as getting several orders (by the kilo) for people to have at home. Everyone agreed that although it could have been busier it was a successful day and this hopefully means it will become a monthly event - which would be fantastic. We really enjoyed ourselves and it was lovely to meet some new people too!
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| The bootsale |
By about 2.30 things were beginning to wind down so we packed up and went home. It was a scorcher of a day so after we'd unpacked the van and cleaned up everything we lay in the garden reading our books and dozing in the hammock.
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| Chicken and lentil salad for dinner |
Monday 3rd
This morning we needed to go to our friends garden to mow the lawn and do some weeding. We spent a few hours down there doing that, in the sunshine, and once we were finished headed straight out to Chirpan. We needed to buy the pork for our bacon orders but when we got to the butchers they didn't have what we needed so we had to wait an hour and half for them to get a delivery. We decided it wasn't worth driving home in that time so we walked around the park and had some lunch whilst we waited. One we'd got the pork we came back home ad started the bacon process!
By now it was late afternoon so we took Lucy out for a long walk around the village and then chilled out for the rest of the evening.
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| Walkies |
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| Blossom |
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| Our neighbour with his bees |
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| Me and Bilko in the hammock |
Tuesday 4th
Back to work on our house today! Whilst in SZ we'd bought all the new guttering for our house and with a few days of good weather forecast we set to work replacing the broken, old gutters. We knew this was going to be a tricky job, especially as we only had one ladder to work with, so we started on the balcony, where we could at least reach a little better. I'm using the royal 'we' here as Pete really did everything - I was just the ladder holder and the getterer of stuff! We weren't actually sure how the old guttering was held up but after some investigation we found that to remove the whole thing we would have to take of the bottom row of tiles on the roof - not good news. In the end we realised we would have to cut each bracket off as short as possible and then we could take the old gutters down. This meant Pete had to do some very scary and precarious cutting with the angle grinder whilst standing at the top of the ladder - no health and safety regulations here.
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| Pulling the old gutter down |
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| All the bits at the ready |
Luckily the new, plastic guttering screws easily into the soffit so once we (Pete) were in the swing of things it wasn't as difficult as we'd imagined. By the end of the day we (Pete) had removed all of the old gutters and had put up more than half of the new one - which we think is pretty good going!
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| Et voila... the right side finished |
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| Just the left side to finish |
After a very long and hard day we had a beer in the evening sun, dinner and straight to bed to watch a film.
Wednesday 5th
Today we finished the guttering. The rest of the actual gutter went up in no time but it took us a little longer to get the down pipes on as it involved drilling into the stone house. By the end of the day everything was finished and looking good - we just needed some rain now to test them!
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| And we have downpipes! |
Thursday 6th
So now our campsite was in order it was time to get back to concentrating on our own garden. This year we wanted to get the area underneath the vine trellis sorted as a seating area - currently it is just a huge pile of weeds and earth dug out from the septic tank. In order to move all this mud somewhere more raised beds were planned and we decided to use up some of the concrete posts we had lying around to make them. We think we will render these posts in the future as all the concrete is making it feel a bit like a prison yard! Anyway, they did the job perfectly (and for free) so once they were in Pete started to dig the earth and fill up the bed. Whilst he did that I gathered a few large stones and finished the other side of the raised bed using them - we wanted a curve here and the ground was uneven so the concrete posts wouldn't do.
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| Building a bed from concrete posts |
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| And from stones |
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| Very good digging |
By the afternoon the clouds had started to roll in and the forecast storm looked like it was on its way. We packed up our gardening tools and I took Lucy out for a quick walk before heading home for shelter from the rain. A short but heavy monsoon style downpour followed so we spent the rest of the day hanging out in the house and even got the woodburner going as it got quite chilly.
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| More bread from Pete's bakery |
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| Storm a coming |
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| Lovely Lucy |
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| Horses in our field |
Friday 7th
Market day already and we spent the usual morning out in Chirpan stocking up on food and building supplies. There seemed to be an Arctic wind passing through today and it was absolutely freezing. It was so grim and cold that when we got home we got the woodburner going straight away and decided we would stay in and tidy the house today. Pete was on kitchen cleaning duty and I was downstairs doing the bedrooms. This gave me the opportunity to finally turn the bedroom back from a storage area into a bedroom again and put away the futon bed in the yellow room, so we now have a living room again! Late afternoon the rains came again so we cosied up in the yellow room and watched a film. Oh well, at least it is good for our veggies.
Saturday 8th
Another cold and overcast day today. I was not feeling the gardening work so I stayed inside most of the day and did a bit of sewing - which is nice and I now have space in the yellow room to get my sewing machine out again. Pete did brave the outdoors for a while and went outside to dig some more earth into the raised beds and start building another bed on the opposite side of the trellis. I went out for a while to help him move some stones and we managed to almost finish one side of this raised bed before it got too cold. We also arranged a place for our outside summer shower and lay a large stone as the base, which the flower bed is built around.
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| Another raised bed in progress |
The icy wind eventually got to us and we retreated inside for the rest of the day. In the evening we went over to K & R's for a few beers and had a great evening catching up with them.
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| Beautiful wild flowers |
Sunday 9th
We have recently decided we will have Sundays as our day off - we are 2 years in now and are finally in a position where we have somewhere to sit/sleep/cook/eat comfortably so don't feel like we have to manically work all the time (although we still have so much to do it is a wonder we can relax at all!) Having said that we did have a few bits to do today so after a lie in and chilled morning we went outside to smoke the big batch of bacon and do a bit of weeding and pottering about in the garden.
In the afternoon we gave the van a tidy and checked all our lights were working as we have our third MOT tomorrow morning. Once we'd done that we too the dog and drove out to one of the nearby lakes (which is actually dried up) to have a walk. It was a chilly day but the sun did make an appearance and all the sloe bushes and apple trees in blossom were very pretty. We also discovered that the spring at the lake had been turned on again (it has been dry for over a year now), so perhaps there is hope for this lake after all.
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| Walkies... |
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| The old water line on the trees |
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| Memorial from 1940's with a hammer and sickle |
Back home we were hungry so I cooked up an Indian feast and after an early dinner we watched a film and had an early night.
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| Tasty curry |
Monday 10th
We were up before 7 this morning and in Chirpan at 8 o'clock for our MOT. By 8.30 we were out the door and set for another 6 months (our van is old so has to be serviced every 6 months as opposed to every year.) We had to go to SZ
again today, that's the third time in a about a week, as we'd been informed that our strimmer had been fixed. I'm sure no one remembers (even we nearly forgot about it) that back in August our strimmer broke and we took it to the official shop in SZ to be fixed. Well, over 7 months later and it is finally finished. I won't bore you with the details but there was a particular part that they had trouble finding. Anyway... it was done and after parting with a decent amount of cash we could finally take it home and strim the garden - which is already in dire need of it. We did stop at a few more places on the way home and ending up getting back just after midday.
In the afternoon I put compost into and raked out the finished flower bed and planted some seeds in there, as well as planting our new juniper bush. I also planted the strawberry plants, that we'd been given by our neighbour last week, up in the orchard. Pete got the strimmer going and set to work on making the garden look lovely and tidy - only to find that it stopped after 5 minutes and conked out in exactly the same manner that it had done seven months ago. Arrrghh!!! We both screamed with frustration and then took the machine apart to try and find the problem. We ended up taking the machine apart three times and cleaning and replacing various things before it worked properly. Why the shop couldn't have done this in the last seven months is beyond me, but at least it is working now. So, Pete finished strimming whilst I did a bit more gardening and tidied up before coming inside to write the blog.
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| Raised bed finished and planted with seeds |
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| Tidy garden |
Sorry for the long post, thanks everyone for reading! Chao x
You two are amazing, well done ! :)
ReplyDeleteAw you are too kind! Thank you!! :-D
DeleteI admire your seemingly boundless enthusiasm and energy. Like the idea of the stall selling sarnies too !
ReplyDeleteYour garden looks amazing... love all the raised beds ... hope you have very good harvest this year x
ReplyDelete