Monday 16th August

Am I keen or what...now I have spotted the little beauties I was out there at 6.30 this morning with hose pipe in hand giving them their first drink of the day....and my first tomato is ripe for the taking and so will be taken tonight.  This is one of the few that the cows didn't get along with my sweetcorn.  

It's a beautiful day again with a breeze that whips through the door in the bedroom across the landing making sitting here a pleasure and nowhere near the 35 degrees outside.  The same in the lounge downstairs....big windows but very little direct sun so it keeps the temperature down inside the house and the tiled floors are cooling to walk on....I suppose in winter I'll be moaning and groaning and looking around for carpets to lay on them and have already found the shop in Kardjali.  Sheep woollen woven carpets in browns and cream, approx 5 Euro meter square which I think is good value.  I'll start saving for winter....but difficult to think about winter when it's this hot.

Off to Djebel...market day and want bread and a few other things....catch you later....

Monday continued

Best laid plans...yet again...gone askew.  I decided that I should really finish decorating the bedroom with a visitor next week it kind of makes sense.  So it is done and I thought since I have a bucket of this stuff that they use here, a sort of lime wash, only half used that I would tackle the kitchen.  Done, second coat to be applied tomorrow and just the lounge and my bedroom now, oh and the rest of the stair well, but that can wait....Sally my builder does a much better job than me and doesn't seem to spread it so far but hey, it's done and all the floors are washed over so it's all back to normal.  Only thing left to do is to repolish the window sill in the kitchen, that I only polished yesterday, but wasn't intending to do the kitchen for a while.....five minute job and it looks so much better.

So that shopping that I was going in for this morning is now on this evening's agenda.  I am now about to have a shower and head into town and have decided that someone else can do the cooking....LN... .  I'm going to visit my restaurant lady......

Tuesday 17th August

So did I go to the restaurant...did I hell as like...I decided to have a bonfire, heard the girls in the garden playing something and I thought it was football so went to investigate and they were cleverly playing volleyball over the high garden gate.  The upshot was that I was invited to join in, we got mother out to make it equal, father came to give us some coaching and tell us how to hit the ball properly.  Now I used to play volleyball a good thirty years ago before they started playing it on the beach in bikinis and turned it into a spectator sport and had very sore wrists on occasions especially when it was girls versus boys (well...men v women, my children were at the five and six age group) and alcohol was involved...throwing ourselves everywhere to get the ball over the net.   Played for about half an hour, came back and my bonfire was just finishing off, started to read one of Dom's book called the Fatherland and it's a 'what if Hitler had have won' theory/novel and at nine thirty I decided I was hungry so headed for the kitchen and knocked up ham and chippies and then to bed.  Restaurant tonight me thinks.

And so today....need to put another coat on the kitchen but firstly need to go and buy material.  Need some wood so will take the beast and then see how the rest of the day pans out.  Firstly I am going to pick my one and only tomato and have it for breakfast....of course I'll take a pickie of it first....my first thing to eat from my own garden....result.

Wednesday 18th August

So there I was last night completely enthralled by the book Fatherland when sudden across the floor shot one of the centipedes that scare the life out of me...they are long, millions of legs, great big horns, very, very fast,  apparently bite and it shot under the sofa.  I jumped up and got the spray (there was no catching this beauty) and sprayed in the direction of the threat, who just shot up over the cushions of the sofa, up the wall and into the hall.  I followed on my two feet sprayed him again, he shot back where he had come from, over the lounge floor and was lost to view.  I decided that the lounge wasn't for me anymore, took my book and headed for bed and woke at silly o'clock thinking of that beasty.  Finished my book, brilliant read and went into the lounge and he wasn't moving at all well this morning so out came the broom and he is now out where he came from. I must check the gap on the flyscreen, that's the only way that he could have got in and remove the bricks and generally cover the area with vinegar, chilli and tumeric powder as a deterrent.  Good for keeping ants at bay too.

Watered my garden, my butternut squash is still producing flowers and new fruit and my tomato is still on the vine getting bigger all the time.  I have been informed that they are beef tomatoes so probably need a little longer to sweeten up.  Let's set forth on the day....

Wednesday continued

And I was just about to go out when Dom arrived.  His laptop was beyond economical repair and so I offered my netbook as a reserve just so that he could do his website.  We hummed and we arred, we look at the butternut squash which was no where near when he came he last time (but we didn't know what it was then), we discussed the tomatoes and then he said that he wanted to get some of the dishes that I bought in the shop on the way to the airport.  He was bored, I was only going to Dzebel to get a few bits so why not.  Off in the Beast, Kardjali, Haskevo, and on to out pottery shop where I had first spotted the rocking chair so there was another string to my bow.  We tried to find a restaurant on the way up to no avail, but when we reached the shop there were a couple of Germans buying up so I checked stock of the items we wanted and they were all there so we asked for and were given a bottle of water while the Germans finished the sale.  We were recognised from out last visit and I said that we were not on our way to the airport like last time and we had come up specially.

I decided that the rocking chair was uncomfortable and settiled for four rattan chairs with high backs but in need of seat cushions when I got them home, Dom got his dishes and I got another four dishes with lids and a three litre casserole dish....the lady and her husband  were grateful....so was I...good prices, good deals...good people...there is nothing nicer to reward the deserving.

Came back the other way through Mineral Bani and stopped for a  Donner Kerbab but there was not enough drink around to make it authentic....who has a kerbab when they are sober...so we returned to Dzebel, went to the shop and increased my supply of insect stuff since I had used most of it last night on the intruder...

Chairs in situ, bonfire to get rid of the rubbish, beer finished, bed looms....what a beautiful day...firstly I have been driving in my usual fashion without scaring passengers and it as given me a lot more confidene...England I cope with and can drive from home to Glasgow/ Edinburgh...no problem this is Bulgaria coupled with the state for growing old and sometimes you begin to doubt the capability.....Everything restored, situation normal, I am back to being me....and the sad news is that the two cash points in Dzebel are not working and so I owe Dom 200 BGN.  If I pass go do I collect or if I throw the wrong number do I go to jail.....problems, problems, problems...

I got a phone call from Pepe tonight, she is back in Bulgaria from Stockholm....I shall arrange for her to visit but first must check how much work she hast to do on tobacco....it's the silly season....LN.....I've got a beer getting warm.....

Thursday 19th August

First stop cash point....I hate owing money and second to the shop in Djebel complete with chair to find out how much foam pads would cost to be made up....cushions are too fat so I want about two inch thick foam with removal covers for washing them every now and again.  Garden watered but I woke up at 6.30 and felt really rested.  It wasn't so hot last night and never heard the mosque or the sheep on their first run of the day or the dog over in the valley.  I think I spotted an owl this morning or some sort of hunting birdand reckon tt might be a resident of my 'derelict' in the garden that won't be derelict for much longer.  

Before the winter it will have a roof and windows and the inside will be sorted out next spring....I used to think that everything was complicated until I saw my three builders on the one that I am in now....I just get the images in my head on to some sort of design....ask them if they can....yes or no and normally a yes....and off they go.   Brilliant guys.  So to horse or rather to Beast with chair.....

Thursday continued

I've paid my dues I can now go out in daylight...coupled with that I came home from Doms with a string of onions, some broad beans to be planted in November when the locals laugh and shake their heads, (they don't grow broad beans here), a melon that should be a cantaloup but has failed the test and I am assured that I will not be back for more.

From Djebel I have four cushions for my chairs, mince but no lasagne....they don't do it...cornflour, milk, beer and tonic water and from my pound shop, a clock, two picture frames for the grandchildren, pens and pencils...the woman just loves me in there....I buy such trash sometimes but I only spent the equivalent of £4 and came out with loads of goodies....   It's a bit like visiting the pound shop in England except that you get twice the value...1 leva is equal to 44p approx.

Got another good book on the go by the author of the Fatherland....this time he is a scribe to Cicero in Rome.  Only on Chapter 2 so not really into it yet.  Spoke to Zac, the wife of my Beast guru and they have just come back from six days away in Velingrad...looks like I might be going there.  An apartment at 50 BGN per night for 3 persons, full board with mineral spa and health treatments...roll on my guests....I need company to do those things....

Friday close of play

I've just had the most beautiful everning.  I picked my first tomatoes ever and decided that one of them should go to my lady who seems to provide me with most things, so I toddled off with tomato in hand but she wasn't there and had gone visiting her sister but just along the road.  Bearing in mind that the flaming cows got most of them.  I sat down with the family and the neighbours, we munched sunfower seeds ad eventually she returned clutching....a bag of tomatoes.  So I explained the scenario as best I could. there was Turkish flying around of which I understand little but then the Iman from the mosque inDzebel started up and it was quite a profound moment....it is dark with a little moon and this sound comes in and was beautiful.  I sat for a while, realised it was getting to the time that my coach turns into a pumpkin so headed for home.  What was my parting gift....a bag of tomatoes...this is Bulgaria......

Tomorrow I am off with Dom to get a computer and I am buying a freezer....as I said, the little box at the top of the fridge serves no purpose at all.....LN

Friday 20th August

Now firstly I have to apolgise for having lost a day and secondly what a wonderful surprise when I gained it.  The last text message was from Dom last night saying that he would be late arriving and it would be more like 10.00 this morning.  So I went for the lazy morning, book reading until 8.30, down for a shower and looked through the bathroom window and there was his blue car nestled against my two and me walking around with a blue towel and pink shower cap...in he came, I said you shouldn't be here yet to which he replied that there had been a change of plan so he made himself a coffee.  I mentioned that the mosque had been going well to which he replied that it was Friday.  No I said, it's Saturday, no, it's Friday and eventually he convinced me that he was right and now I have an extra day....I have amended the blog accordingly and sorry for any confusion.

So what did I do with this extra day...I bought a freezer and Dom a PC, we've just had a ready cooked chicken with bread and tomatoes, honeydew melon, nectarines (both purchased in the market) and a glass of beer.  I'm waiting for my freezer condenser to settle down again before I plug it in and tomorrow I am going to get some decent mince from the butcher (I'll have that chunk now can you please mince it for me) and lamb from the field not the supermarket.  So much cheaper and so much better.  Instead of wasting a half a loaf every few days, the bread will also find its way into the freezer, I just hate waste.  Next job is to see my kitchen maestor and see if he has any of my worktop stuff left to get it into a unit to match the kitchen....I have the space, so why not.

Such a lovely afternoon, I'm going out on the sunbed with my book since there is a beautiful breeze blowing.  Catch you later....