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Elsa Peters living a new life in Bulgaria    General Boards    My Diary by Elsa Peters  ›  FEBRUARY 2011
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Elsa Peters
February 19, 2011, 12:39pm Report to Moderator

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Saturday 19th February

My cards from Princess and the frogs arrived yesterday afternoon and I'm so pleased.  It means a lot when you get things delivered.  Princess had stuck a load of little monkeys all over the envelope and yes, she takes after me and is mad as a bucket of frogs and CJ's was very appropriate.  There I was saying yesterday that I looked like a ballerina without the tou-tou and now I have a card to prove it....I am a birthday ballerina.  Love it and the envelope just had NAN on it and it found me!!  (Not really it was inside the envelope from Princess )

Well just returned from my mercy mission.  My Gouljan was stranded in Djebel after her 'work experience' in Ardino and called to say could I pick her up.  'Ten minutes' I said, mentally made a note of the things that I could do in Djebel, like buy a bottle of brandy because it is so cold today, get some credit on my PAYG mobile and refuel Beauty.  I got her safely gathered into the fold, well the car, and then set about my 'jobs' and I was appoached by a lady in the supermarket asking if I had seen Gouljan and that she was wanting to get home.  I explained that she was already in the car, but I didn't know the woman but she obviously connected me with Gouljan.  Back in the car, I then had twenty questions as to how old she was, did she have long hair, was it blonde when I tried to explain when I got back to the car so I threw in as to whether she was a 38DDD or small boobs and Gouljan sort of didn't know how to take it but eventually got the joke....at the end of the day we haven't a clue who she was.

It is cold, it's raining hard, I am, to use Gouljan's phrase, wrapped like a cabbage, layered with so many clothes but that's the way to keep warm.  If it hadn't have been for Gouljan I wouldn't have gone out despite toying with the idea of Kardjali today which again went on the back burner but I'm glad I got dragged out.

So yesterday there was a beautiful little calf standing with her mother by the fence and I got the idea that it was in training for raiding the Anglechanka's garden so I put paid to that.  It might look cute but it could be a 'devil' of the future.  The lunchtime snack was from yesterday but it just had to be included.....cheese in filo pastry....tasty..  and the flowers had to be pictured since I went out to view the estate just to see what was there.  I have never been here in winter before so I am amazed and delighted by what appears....

So just a few pickies for those that have a problem with the text....



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Elsa Peters
February 20, 2011, 2:14pm Report to Moderator

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Sunday 20th February

Cold, sleet, and checked the thermometer and it was just on freezing...a few degrees colder and I reckon I would have been snowed in ....at least until tomorrow...snow ploughs here are quick off the mark, normally depositing the second shifting in my drive after I have more the first...  

I went out and had a bonfire this morning but my hands were frozen through so decided that I might as well fill up the two log baskets while I was out there.  I looked a bit like Nannook of the north and even put on a fleece hat...a bit overkill may be but at least I did keep warm...

My little girl from the village knocked on the door and came bounding in but she was absolutely full of cold so I exchanged her library book, gave her a simple dictionary so that she could teach her little brother a few words and sent her on her way.  I do not want a cold, I do not like colds and she was full of it so....OUT.  I did let her have another book though of Beatrix Potter and she has almost gone through most of my supply here....I must get back to the UK soon just to bring in another load....

So my fire has been in and out like a tom-cat on heat and I have at least got it to do its stuff.  Beauty is ticking away in the kitchen after the fright it gave my and the Beast (central heating) is the one giving me a spot of bother.  It's my own fault.  It needs attending to and I get stuck on this landing on my PC...realise that I'm feeling a little chill and then hasten downstairs and ...yep ...down to a few glowing embers that I immediately expect to burst into life and then...having a mind of its own...so it must be female...I have to coax it back to life.  I play around with it for a while sticking in bits of paper and twists (newspapers rolled and folded) and the eventually deciding that I should have taken it apart in the first place and saved a box of matches....hey...matches are cheap out here and I do have all the time in the world.....  

Tonight's supper is last nights because I cooked too much....the beer is begging to be opened (remember I'm two hours on from you and it is Sunday) and I have found a book that I'm not too sure about but I'll tell you after the next chapter.  Stalin is coming back from the UK so I am dutifully informed so one to look forward to.

LN.....no photographs worth taking today....you'll have to live with the script.....  
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Joanna
February 20, 2011, 7:05pm Report to Moderator
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Finally joining in Elsa. So do you know the trick of splashing water onto a fire to send steam up the chimney to put out a chimney fire, and I mean splashing it on not soaking the whole thing? Had to use that trick to calm a fire beginning to get out of hand one day and learnt it from my hubby because he set the chimney on fire when he tried to helpfully light the fire for his Mum and was surprised by a fireman knocking on the door who promptly dealt with the fire  . Our fire was out of control due to slinging a very old half a coconut shell on it - how was I to know that the shell still had a lot of oil in it  , I do now!
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Elsa Peters
February 21, 2011, 6:25am Report to Moderator

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Monday 21st February

Thank you for that Joanna....what a useful thing to know and I'll remember to throw out all the old coconuts... .

Believe me, it won't happen again....as I've said, it's not been put on the monthly 'To Do' list and it literally does only take about ten minutes.  It wasn't so much 'in the chimney' as 'in the pipes' from the woodburner to the wall entrance to the chimney ...three pipes, a radiator and a bend....taught me a lesson though.

As for the weather today....-5, dull, not raining, but it's the sort of cold that goes straight through you summoning those winter drawers on.  Think it's time that I breakfasted, showered and dressed....need a few more clothes on to face the day....   Catch you later....
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Elsa Peters
February 21, 2011, 7:08pm Report to Moderator

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Monday continued

What a mare of a day with fires...one day up the chimney and the next lingering in the fire box and zilch.  I think it's because the wind has changed direction and it does make a difference.  It must be something to do with the 'hat' that my builders put on it.

Today has been a non motivated day....I've done goodness how many sudokos, played with my DS, read part of a book that I just can't get into and would dearly love to be playing outside but it's too cold, too damp and just not nice out there.  I think our spring has been and gone.

Supper tonight was fish fingers of all things and I really don't know why I bothered.  The coatings are ready for the cats tomorrow and we'll see if they find them more appetising than I did.  Thanks Lidl. I'd complain but I don't think that anyone speaks English there and my Bulgarian isn't up to sounding off....just yet.... but I'm practicing.  Gouljan is just too sweet to teach me the words that I would find really useful and the lessons are on hold because she's feeling quite knacked after two weeks of the new job.  Unfortunately we live on a bus route but they are not as we know them...the bus is at 6.45 and she starts at 8.00, finishes at 4.30 but the bus is either 5.00 or 7.00 depending on the local factory and if they are working overtime or not.  Makes it a very long day for her and so eventually I think she will have to move to Djebel...it would make more sense.

Anyway.....I'm thinking of showering and getting into my jimjams, the thought of a brandy and hot water has entering my head and one will be finding its way into my hand any minute when I've boiled the kettle.  I can hear my zebra calling.....LN

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Elsa Peters
February 22, 2011, 9:08am Report to Moderator

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Tuesday 22nd February

Firstly Happy Birthday to Martin, he is having lunch with Princess and baby frog today.... and secondly....we are white over again, four inches of the white stuff overnight and it is still coming down.  Now that fire that I was cursing last night was still in this morning after I put on a reasonable size log last night and four lumps of what they pass off as coal.  Two seconds and it was away and sending the hot round the radiators but now it is the turn of the little one to play up.  The ash can has to be completely removed and the fire you can sometimes salvage but today....no.  So I had this bright idea to run between the two with a shovel of stuff from the other and start it off that way....did it want to go?  Only one way....out.  So I went back and got another load and yes, I think we have lift off and about time too.  I have never been obsessed with fires before except when we lived in a very old house when the children were small before we put in the central heating.  There was an old Aga in the kitchen that did nothing but heat the kitchen, a solid fuel burner in the play room, open fires in the lounge and dining room and all I seemed to do all day, apart from feeding the children, was run between all of them and then back to the wood yard in my Riley 1.5 for more wood.   Memory lane....

Now let's go and attend to my two....

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Elsa Peters
February 22, 2011, 7:36pm Report to Moderator

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Tuesday continued

Well the snow started to thaw but the temperature has dropped this eveing so it looks like we've got it for another day.  So I threw out the fishfinger coatings but left the kitchen paper round them so that they wouldn't disappear into the snow and a black and white cat ate the lot including the paper...it must have been hungry and I felt so sorry for the poor little thing that I lobbed out the skin from my spicey sausage and that went as well.  I have the feeling that it's sleeping in my old house...great stuf...keeps down the vermin.

So I went to get something out of the freezer this afternoon for supper and I realised that I would have nothing thawed out so hence the spicey sausage from the disco magazine.  2 x 2 ltrs of beer, two spicey sausage and a loaf of bread....eight leva..just under £4.00.  I bump up the order when he arrives...it's cheaper in town but he does such a good service that I think he deserves my custom.  Anyway, take two onions and chop, skin and slice the sausage, fry off in olive oil, add honey, chili flakes and tomato paste, add a little water and transfer into the slow cooker until hunger strikes.  Serve with rice, pasta and if you can't be arsed to wait for any of the above...chunky bread which was how it came tonight.............delicious.

Looks like I'm snowed in again tomorrow.  It has stopped now but it's forecast for the rest of the week.  A few pickies for the hard of hearing .....forgot to mention that my cooker as two calor gas rings and two electric....great for when there is a power cut.......not seen them in UK but just seems like a good idea to me....LN...my virtuous couch calls...I hope I sleep as well as I did last night....7.10 when my eyes saw the light of day or rather the light of the snow...LN...



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Elsa Peters
February 23, 2011, 11:13am Report to Moderator

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Wednesday 23rd

Well the snow is melting but it's just on zero.  Very pretty though but more snow is promised for tomorrow so at some point, if my mobile shop doesn't have any onions, then I better make my way into Djebel.  It's a vegetable that I can't see to be without these days....they go into everything.  The onion sets are for sale in the supermarkets her but it seems a little early to me.  The ground is still like rock...I suppose they ordered them when we had that Indian summer that lasted all of a week and then winter returned with a vengeance.  I was down to my Bulgarian vest at one point working outside and trousers of course before I get closed down my the 'proper' police and now I back to being a cabbage with so many layers that I look like the proverbial Michelin (wo)man.

So what have I done today?  Very little.  I used to feel guilty about doing nothing but then I realised that I have no one to answer to except myself.  I have my mental list of things that I want to do, nothing that I really need to do, so what's the hurry.  Most things require that I work outside.  I need to make another chest and there's that armchair that is top of the list....but the wood needs to be planed and I have no intention of getting all that mess inside.  Yes I have a bedroom I could isolate but hey, it still gets trodden everywhere especially when there's a knock on the door...

So let me get back to doing nothing....unless I find 'something' to do first...
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linda g
February 23, 2011, 3:39pm Report to Moderator
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Hi Elsa, Love the diary. Photos are great. My Mum said to say hello, and asked.....What the bloody hell is she doing there?????? Of course I explained as much as I know.... and she just smiled and said " She always seemed to be the adventurous one, I said , "Must take after her cousin"....hehehe
Anyway keep warm, take care. Thinking of you in the snow. We are melting here, NZ have had a an earthquake in Christchurch..very sad.. and with fire and floods here, could be moving to Bulgaria soon.....Linda.
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Elsa Peters
February 23, 2011, 6:47pm Report to Moderator

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Wednesday continued

Hey Linda, thanks for the comments and pleased you are enjoying the diary.....as you said....not sure who started travelling first....think it was your mum but I wasn't long on her heels....although....and I have the photograph somewhere to prove it ...there was something of an age gap when I wore that lovely bridesmaids dress when your mum and dad got hitched.

As for you moving here..........I better get the other upstairs bedrooms finished then...just tell me when you get on the plane...   That should give me a couple of days...as for 'what the bloody hell is she doing there', I sometimes ask myself the same question and to date haven't really come up with any bright ideas apart from it just feels right.

So how did the rest of the day go?  Princess sent me a photo from home of my dad so I printed it off and it's already framed.  Strange thing is I have been thinking about him quite a lot lately so she must have got my signals....I found a new site for downloading free books to my laptop and that should sort me now that the 'library' is taking a short break in the UK.  There are a few children’s books that I want.  The children from the village need reading practice and they have gone through my little library so I need a few so they can read to me while they're here.  My bit for the village.  Supper tonight turned out great.  Belly pork fried off with onion (I had one left) and mushrooms.  I added some hot pepper sauce and soy sauce and then into the slow cooker for a few hours.  Added a handful of rice with about one hour to go and hey, sort of risotto.  That's it....laptop to bed...me to bed...soon be morning. LN
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