Friday 18th June

As for you Mikey B...what's with the moving goffer?  Or are you just waiting to be out here and enjoy the fun!!

Men are just taking a holiday from me and making hay while the sun shines, literally but they should be back next week...it's quite good, I've got used to being in the place on my own and settled into a little routine....very necessary or you could start drinking at lunchtime and never stop...as it is I'm just growing the stuff so D in Samoviva can be responsible, or not responsible. for processing the outpourings of my gradina.  Cherries are finished, twenty litres of cherry wine on the go, cherry vodka, brandy and gin...just stocking up for when I have guests.

Now today is cool so a good day for earth shifting...I think my new name should be JCB (just can b'bovered) to get the earth where I want it but it has to be either morning or evening. The day times are for siestas or books and guaranteed it you pick up a book, the second  phase kicks in rapidly...ask D of Samodiva fame

Off with you Mikey B...get some work done...just a few pickies for you....and I've got some to be getting on with...catch you later...

Saturday 19th June

I now know what it's like to be working on a chaingang, a bit like the opening scene from Les Mis...prisoner whatever number he was.  There just seems to be more, much more to move than I anticipated but I suppose I can always move to another part of the garden if I don't like what I'm doing.  This morning I looked at a tree stump that I dug out a while back and on it's end it looks like Willy Koyote...if that's how you spell it so now it is firmly established as a 'feature' pointing the way to my 'gradina'.  Pickie to follow.....

I haven't been into Djebel for the last few days.  The grocery van seems to have everything I need and so you pay a few stotinki more but you don't use fuel.  If he hasn't got it on...he makes a note in his book and you get it the next day...now that's service for you.

My special lady came round today and obviously has taken pity on me. She brought round a dish of home made yohurt and two crispy type pancakes....delicious....so I took a break from the garden.  She's got to show me how to make it but I suppose the bottom line is...take one cow and I believe she has two.

Anyway...onwards and upwards....I found another pile of earth to be moved...

Saturday continued

Well I've not long come in from the garden...I have now dug out what I think is the old septic tank and scattered it on my other garden and now I have the idea that if I line it and run a water supply and a pump....I can have a little water garden.  These things just pop into my head as the project progresses.

Unfortunately you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs and the rest of the garden looks in turmoil.  I really do need another bonfire but I'm giving the neighbours a break.  Not like they've complained and I wouldn't understand them if they did   language problem.

My top garden is looking great and I have now embellished the gradina sign with some rockery and there are more logs and dugouts.  I think I shall have to be taking the roof off my other house just so I can get some long beams to finish my garden...It's a bit like having B & Q on your doorstep but there's no till at the end...I've just been sampling the cherries out of the brandy, gin and vodka and perhaps it's time to go to bed.....well it is 10.35 this end and six o'clock looms...as regular as clockwork so to speak....my internal body clock kicks in...LN

Sunday 20th June

Can I just add a Happy Father's Day to those of you that are fathers and on this day I'm going to have a drink to my old dad (but not yet for those who are little worried about my drinking habits. )    He was a most generous spirited man and  I suppose most of us when we are growing up don't really appreciate what we have until it's gone.  He didn't say much, but when he did, you listened.  He wanted a boy, he got me, and I think he was disappointed that the family name wouldn't live on.  But I bet he's proud of me in this place with my circular saw, router and six inch nails.  It was always mum's little joke that if anything wanted fixing and it entailed six inch nails and a hammer...then he could fix it.

Now I was just out viewing my handiwork of yesterday in my night attire with coffee in hand....and suddenly there appears a man at the bottom of the garden...well it is 100 yards away so no real panic and what is he doing...reinforcing my fence with really spikey branches so that his sheep can't get through.  Perhaps he thinks I'm stocking up the deep freeze with the occasional lambkin......quick breakfast and then back to the chain gang...

We go back to the best laid plans...we have had the big daddy of all thunderstorms this lunchtime...we even lost the electricity and so it has been like this ...'it's rolled around heaven all day'.  Finished one book, started another and took to my little bed to read and yes....well you've guessed....had a lovely nap and slept through the second bout.  I'm just giving this update before I switch off the computer again.... decided that after my gynormous sausage and onion omelette instead of that small breakfast I promised, I can only manage a pot of natural yoghurt topped off with my natural accacia honey....delicious...that's it...LN...I've just heard the distant roll of thunder.

Monday 21st June

And I suppose into each life a little rain must fall and my goodness, hasn't it.  Buckets of the stuff and now the garden is shrouded in mist and I can just about see the fence at the bottom.  So much so that I decided to turn one of my upstairs rooms into a workshop so that I can at least get some furniture underway.  So I'm negotiating that ladder today with all of the tools and workbench and my sweeping brush so that I can tidy as I go....Tomorrow it's Kardjali to the bank so reep my just rewards and then to buy a couple of mattresses so that I shall have something that resembles 'comfort' for my visitors...now let's tackle that ladder

Mattress? I was expecting a straw bed and a donkey!  

You be careful on those dodgy ladders... When is the staircase going in?

P.S. The gofer's coming with us... Dawn has got rather attached to him  

Monday continued

You go steady Mikey B....make do with your girlfriend there'll be no donkey's in my gaff and no straw beds...you'll get what you're given so stop fussing.  Dawn can cuddle up to the Gofer but that's as far as it goes. ...As for the ladder....it might be there, it might not...builders in fields again so I'm thinking I've got to get serious...well there's always a first time.

Only just finishing supper which is late for me but I managed to dig out the bush that was growing in the wrong place and part emptied the septic tank full of beautiful compost that is now on my little flower garden.  I intend planting out some flowering tobacco in the septic tank...it should grow well.

Suddenly a tropical storm blew up at about 7.30 tonight so I put out the bonfire just in case it brought the whole village down.  A few thunderclaps and then it went over, the wind dropped, the rain stopped and it's now a pleasant night.

I'm saying goodnight..it's ten thirty here and I'm off to Kardjali tomorrow as I said before with my shopping list already written out...LN...

Tuesday 22nd June

Need I say it...beautiful morning, mist lying over the river and it looks to be a far more settled day than yesterday.  Washing on the line (electricity cheaper overnight) and supper in the slow cooker (beef in red wine with a tomato and onion sauce and potatoes).  Already done a spot of gardening and planted my flowering tobacco and it's only 8.30 in the morning.....

Off to Kardjali as I said last night....let's see what gets bought from the list and how it just gets added to as the day wears on....bank is the first stop....

As anticipated the bank was not the first stop.  I had noticed that my front offside tyre had to have air in it regularly so went to the garage and ended up with two new front tyres.  The old ones were a bit bald to say the least but now fixed.  Then to Kardjali...bank sorted, went to my clothes shop and two pair of summer trousers later, a pair of shoes and a new top (not budgeted for...tehe)...and on to the hardware store and two new bowls, cooking dishes, and eighteen matching drinking glasses of three different sizes and then on to Billa to stock up with the things that we can't get in Djebel.

Supper from the slow cooker really good with an aperitif, sweet martini while serving and then more while I had a bonfire to get rid of the packaging from shopping.  Now time to get my head down....my men are working tomorrow so it's back to the old routine of in the car by 7.40....LN

Wednesday 24th June

My men are back...and Sally after a long absence had been release by his woman..for how long??? I don't know.

Today they plastered the upstairs landing and it looks like it will be a palace when MB arives and why would I expect anything else!!!!   Wooden floors and ceilings to follow tomorrow when I order the timber from Ysat.

I dropped off my men and popped in to see D in Samodiva who had just returned from the pub after watching the England Slovinia game.  He has his own key so three beers later and a result from England and I just caught him.  He proceeded to end the game with three red wines while I sat on the sidelines and drank coffee...my car was outside...but he very kindly offered me a tent to which my reply was that I would rather go without a drink than sleep in a tent...so at home I proceed, before the final whistle, with the Martini Rosso and then to slumber.

His girlie arrives on Saturday and I believe they are going ski-ing but I'm not sure if there is snow in Samodiva at this time of the year .

I made a couple of phone calls home...all is fine on the western front...so after a miserable day here so much so that I put on a fleece jumper and watched the rain that washed away all  my new plants....LN   it's time to renew my energies for tomorrow....

Thursday 24th June

So today was just a little trip in Djebel to get a few more nails and to sort out the wood that has sat in the concrete yard in Djebel since the very  kind man brought it down from Kardjali on his lorry.  It has now gone down to carpenter to have it cut ready to do door surrounds for the upstairs.  Now we have had problems getting 10cm tongue and groove to do the bedroom ceilings and we kept getting promised...Thursday...so today being Thursday we were ever hopeful but no so I happened to mention it to the carpenter and no sooner the word than the blow and now have enough to build a grandstand in my lounge for the world cup and that's exactly what it looks like as you will see from the before and after shots.

Today has been a procession.  While the men are not here, I only get the ladies of the village.  When the men are here...they get the men.  There have been more men up that ladder today seemingly forgetting that it is also my home.  The new wood caused a lot of interest and everybody keeps telling me that everything is super and that I have a lot of money...closely followed by an 'I wish'.  So now there are five up there.

Today's task if they choose to accept it is....finish wiring the one bedroom, sand down the beams, try and find a woodstain for the beams and tomorrow ceiling go in in the bedroom and the landing....well that's the plan but as we know they change from minute to minute, let alone day to day....

Let's post a few pictures...oh and get well soon Princess...not in the best of health at the moment xxx to the moon and back.