Thursday 1st July

I got a lift into Djebel this morning, Beauty is up and running again and I have men working so it can't all be bad...  The weather seems calmer this morning but we'll wait and see...it normally starts off fine but then the clouds roll over, it goes thundery and then it clears up again.  Writing my shopping list for Kardjali tomorrow...I'll just make sure that the car's OK before I take it that far today....oh ye of little faith.

Back from Djebel, loads of work done to the car....and emptied the place of the stuff that stops insects eating your wood.  I've come back with 20 litres for the loft space and the ceiling is going up at a fantastic pace.  I'll get a few pickies and post later....now for some more gardening....

Thursday continued

Three attempts at posting pictures and updates.  My connection is flakey this end...congestion on the line so I'll post them tomorow morning...LN off for my beauty sleep and by golly do I need it....   And then it posted it twice....time for bed said Zeberdee....

Friday 2nd July

Morning...let's get those pictures on now that the rest of Bulgaria sleeps..well yes they are posted (below) and now I can update a little of the events of yesterday.

The car is back to being what it was before....in fact better.  Now I said that I couldn't understand where the water had gone...I said 'water pump' and nobody listened.  Well as it happens I was right!!!!  Divine inspiration or what.  Apparently....it only leaked when the car was running and not when it wasn't.  This was only discovered when they had fixed everything else but hey....it's done and Beauty returns to the fold.  As for the Beast...the part is on its way from the UK and so are the gaskets.  Result...but they just have to get here.

Went into Djebel last night to my little restaurant to collect my Avon goodies....my lady appeared from her garden and gave me tomatoes and some mixed fruit cordial that she had made herself...delicious.  She then went into the kitchen, place filo pastry in a big greased shallow dish, mashed potatoes again from her garden with onion, feta (ish) cheese and sage, topped it with filo and laced it with butter and cooked it on a hotplate, turned it and cooked it until the filo was browned. So easy to do and another one to add to the stable. Great for veggies or as a side dish to anything else.  Got back late as I said and remembered that I should always leave an outside light on if there is any chance that I'll be late or get the street light fixed or as I've said before...get a torch to leave in the car....

So today  I can have that chilli sausage casserole that I was going to have last night before I was 'fed' by my lovely lady.  

Now off to pick up my men....lash, lash.....

Friday continued

Went to my neighbour, my lady in the picture to ask how she was....I came back with onions, garlic, green beans, carrots and potatoes.  Washed and put away in my sliding veg drawer for tomorrow.  My sausage casserole looms from yesterday so I shall experiment tomorrow.

What a busy day....I got my car MOT'ed at the gigantic cost of 30Leva....was told that I had to pay car tax in Djebel but at that office I wasn't on the computer so mentioned who I had bought it from and apparently the previous owner is still liable for the tax so if he doesn't pay he gets fined.  Need to sort it though...Thought we had once but the man didn't turn up to go to the solicitor for the sign over...This is Bulgaria...

Ordered and am having tiles delivered for upstairs.  I decided that they are so easy to keep clean and easy to lay so it was a no brainer. I’ve got 3 cubic metres of sand coming tomorrow so my men will be busy just a skimming of cement and then tiles.  The wood is all covered in the anti-insect munch- stuff and is ready to go over the landing and upstairs hallway.  Goodness it did seem high up and there was a joke that it would be a long sleep if Bekir fell.  I did say that that was impossible...when the house was finished that would be OK but until then not a snowball in hell's chance.  I came back with presents for the two guys...for Sally another 10litres of anti-munching stuff...for Bekir 30 metres of electric cable conduit but the best of all was two litres of Turkish beer which they sat in the garden and drank just before it started to thunder and the cloud burst occurred.  We had torrential rain and now a beautiful calm evening.

I’ve just had a casualty.  A blue/coal tit must have got in through one of the sideways bricks upstairs and has just slammed into the windows on the upper landing.  I thought he was outside but no…at my feet.  Managed to pick him up and put him outside.  He rested on the bucket by the outside water tap but then as I went out to take a photograph…he legged it to my special tree so I suspect that everything works but that he was just stunned.

Men gone, sausage casserole from last night looks OK….Arianna beer looks inviting…LN catch you tomorrow….

Saturday 3rd July

Today is dull, too wet for the tobacco that they grow round here so everyone is virtually unemployed at the moment apart from my two industrious souls working up above.  They've now platformed the stairwell and are working on ladders planing beams and adding the 'stops the insects from munching' stuff with a paintbrush.  By the end of the day I shall have a fully ceilinged landing and then they start on the floors.  The sand comes today and so does the toilet and the tiles for the upstairs.  The bath comes later....all visitors will have a shower or nothing and if it's nothing...they won't be visitors for long

Today is a day of 'well I could's' so I'll sit down and plan what might happen....

Saturday continued

As it was I spent a lot of time upstairs with the men just watching it take shape. It looks bl**dy brilliant.  They are such craftsmen

My tiles are delivered, the sand failed to turn up so off I go tomorrow to find out why .  It's on the agenda for Monday morning, screeding the bedroom and landing and then tiling on Tuesday.  I shall have that bedroom finished for you Mikey B and D....and I also had the upstairs toilet delivered today so that if there is a need for the little room in the night then there is no need to descend to the lower eschilons.  There is water and we might even have the washbasin connected to the cold mains at least.  D of S did suggest that they could have had a bucket but I said it wasn't my style so why should it be theirs

The men were late going....I've just got back from dropping them off but there isn't a moon out so maybe they are early.   My agenda for tomorrow is to tidy up the rubbish from upstairs, have a big bonfire to get rid of most of it, make the sofa downstairs (still not managed it MOS if you are looking) and to make another.  The mattress will be ordered on Monday (or a bed delivered depending on the price) to go into the room by about Wednesday.

Now for a few pickies....

Sunday 4th July

Is this Independence Day?  I have a feeling it is and boy do I feel it.  Washing done, emails complete, supper in the slow cooker (made up to three portions just in case D of S and A decided to come over, otherwise freeze it)
and now going upstairs to get rid of that rubbish.  I slept really well on my Turkish mattress, not so much 'memory foam' but it just doesn't come back up so feels like a nest.   

To horse.....update you later...

Monday 5th July

I never did get back to update yesterday but it all went very quickly.  D of S and A did come over but quite early in the morning and we decided that tonight was good for a barbeque to add to the chilli in the slow cooker so I then had work cut out to finish the upstairs clearing but throwing the debris out of the upstairs door .  Now a clever idea would have been to close the downstairs lounge to garden door first so despite the fly screens keeping the big stuff out, the cement dust blew gently into the lounge covering everything in a fine layer of dust.  Doh....

So cleared the upstairs and the landing, took the foam mattress from my bed and lugged it upstairs, laid polythene on the bedroom floor to keep the dust from the mattress and made a bed upstairs.  It looked very cosy but is only 4ft wide so suggested that if they liked to stretch out that they could put their camping mattress by the side and after all, it was only for one night.  Came down the ladder and cleaned all through downstairs in quicksticks, had a shower, made potato salad and garlic bread and I was doing my first entertaining in my house...nice feeling.

They brought a winebox, D cooked the pork with peppers on the barbeque and what a good night we had sitting outside until midnight under a lovely starry sky.  Upshot was, a with her little legs decided that she couldn't manage the ladder so slept on the sofa downstairs, I was in my little bed but with the old window shutters under the mattress so that it didn't fall through the slats and D in the new room.  I must admit though....when I was making up the bed I did lie down on it and admire the view....after all it's going to be my pride and joy.

Now back from Kardjali, got the mattress and it's being delivered tomorrow.  Bekir and myself have just designed the bed and that's my next job planing down a couple of the big timbers for the bed base.  All fun here isn't it......I'll need him to saw the timber since it's pretty huge but I have also come back with a bow saw from my favourite tool shop.  Hadn't got one...now I have....to work

Tuesday 6th July

So last night I made a To Do list and I've given everything a RAG (red, amber, green) status.  Currently everything is sitting at red, some more redder than others but I suppose I really should get moving.  I have achieved loads this morning but nothing that I have done was on the list.  So do I need to revise it or wait for the revision and then revise the revised giving everything a bright red status.

My mattress arrived last night but it remains in my bedroom downstairs until the tiles are down upstairs.  It would only be in the way and that pile of wood is still sitting in the lounge, though not so big as it was, so that must be taken upstairs out of the way but not by me might I add.  Men's work.....let's look at the list and I did manage to print it out and it's in a prominent place....out with the chain saw....

Tuesday continued

Well what I thought was a fairly tidy house has been transformed into a very untidy house in such a short space of time.  I cleaned windows this morning which was the wrong thing to do since Sally has been round clearing up the old cement and putting on more where others forgot or so it seems.  This is called finishing but I don't think that I saw a snagging list....

Any way....I can put an amber status on two of the projects and I am just about to nail a kitchen bench together.  I prefer to do it when they aren't around, I feel more professional when they have gone home.  I get the feeling that they frown on nails except for anything they do.

I've got my first freesias out of the garden and they smell divine apart from the fact that they almost went floorbound as my Made in China ladder collapsed while Bekir was attempting to stand on it.  He offered to fix it, I admonished him and told him it well get replaced tomorrow that's if we can find one that was made in Bulgaria or Turkey.  That's it for tonight....I'm out with the nails.....LN....