Monday 18th July

Slept the slept of the just last night.  There was an horrific storm and by the sounds of it, it was hailing as well.  This morning everything smells fresh and is fresh so I decided to go out and do a bit of digging.  Gardening is one of those things that I watched my dad do as a child, he grew most things that we needed, but I only watched.  At the first sighting of an earthworm that was me, tools down and out with the bat and ball.  My new sport here and this morning I have beaten the record, is seeing the longest root of bindweed or couch grass I can did up and today's effort is HUGE.  The ground has absorbed the rain and so after a few good pulls on my trusty English gardening fork and a little easing here and there...out it came.

As promised yesterday, here are the pictures of my new outside sink that was a bowl converted by the expert Bekir.  You can make your own mind up if it's original or antique... and also the picture of handmade sink support and bucket hideaway otherwise known as a 'perching bench'.  Above it, and I just had to take the picture of the spider, is the reason why you shake out your outside shoes before you put them on

Monday continued

Well the afternoon panned out as expected.  The heat resulted in not much activity but I had to hold a cremation for some foolhardy sparrow that thought he could fly right through my window...wrong.  Now normally they lie there for a bit and get their wind back and take to the skies.  Unfortunately not this one, so I set its little spirit free on the bonfire.  Yes I know it's too hot for a bonfire but you have to get rid of your rubbish somewhere...

I forgot to mention that this morning I made baked beans out of beans that had been in the slow cooker overnight, a little salt, honey and tomato paste and how delicious was that...beans on toast and I know what went into the beans unlike when I open Mr Heinz...and supper tonight was the rest of the beans with smoked gammon and I know what went into that.

So to bed sleepy head...Poland calls....must finish that book....  LN....

Tuesday 19th July

Poland is no more...the book that is, not the country.  It will now go winging its way to Danuta so that she might pick up on her ancestry.  It came to a conclusion this afternoon...too hot to do anything else as I lay on the bed in the cool (?) of the afternoon.

This morning was gardening poodling and unfortunately my acquaintance OH has opened up for me some interesting websites and I'm wondering what the outcome will be of the latest hacking scandals...will the government survive?  Well better the devil but there is so much 'baying at the moon', changing of Pampers in the upper tiers that we shall see what the fallout will be.  I had forgotten about British politics and police, and realised a long time ago when my fifteen year old son and his mate were assaulted by a group of lads in town, that he was only a statistic. 'So put the lad on then', and I did.  'So you don't want to report it then?' My boy 'Er...well no"...at which point I grabbed the phone and said that we bloody well did and what was the next move? 'Oh we'll be round' and nobody came.  

Picked some tomatoes for lunch and had them with potato salad and hard boiled eggs followed by some Turkish chocolate bars from my lovely neighbour's grand daughter who is over for a holiday.  By the number of people visiting it appears that Turkey shuts down apart from Tourism which is advertising some very good deals.  A whole gulet can be hired for approximately 3000 pounds for one week for up to sixteen people.  I only wish that I had sixteen friends

So this afternoon I watched an Horizon episode on the Bible codes....some very intense people and I really felt sorry for the professor when they were carrying out the final experiments....can you imagine a life's work and somebody tries to run some more tests and ambushes your results...wouldn't you be miffed?  I started to watch Sweeney Todd but then realised that it was a bit blood thirsty and it was a long time from lunch so I went to water the garden instead...Time for a beer...it's 6.30 ish here so I'm going to say LN...and hope for a more results oriented day tomorrow...I refuse to look at OH's website....

Oh dear, I hope my ramblings haven't alarmed you. The over riding reason I am heading to Bulgaria is to escape the interwoven society Britain has become, where the simple individual citizen is merely a cog in a massive Corporate/State machine devouring everything in its path.

I'm not naive, I realise the power of the Bulgarian state but it seems if you choose to leave the Bulgarian state alone, it will mostly leave you alone (feel free to correct me) and older values of family, self reliance and independence hold more sway. Corruption may be rife in the upper echelons but it's no different in the UK, with the Government helping itself to as much as it can extract from its citizens as physically possible. In short, life in the UK has become a complex endless struggle to remain an independent individual. The arrival of census "non compliance" officers at my door, demanding my details and threatening me with fines if I didn't conform was enough (I told them to get off my property or I would release the dog - haven't seen them since).

I'm hoping a few traditional values of society still exist in rural Bulgaria - this little forum certainly seems to show them. Community, solidarity, neighbourly actions and a lack of rabid consumerism and vanity, perhaps I just hark back to an era where people enjoyed their lives and raising their families instead of raising their statuses to match an artificially produced norm of "the citizen" created by Politicians desperate to prove "their system" works better than simple evolution and simply being left alone to live your life as you see fit, as long as you do others no harm. No chance of that in the UK, I'm afraid. Where once we reveled in individuals, eccentrics and non conformists, we now vilify their selfishness for not joining in the great "project" as the population greedily devours all in its path.

Give me a good internet connection, a couple of thousand square metres of land, a solid house with neighbours who watch out for all and know that life isn't a race to own what will eventually end up owning you and I'll be like a dog with two tails.

Can't wait.

Edit: Blimey, just read that post. Makes seem like a nutter. Apologies. All I actually want is 6 chickens and some peace and quiet

Wednesday 20th July

In response to 'alarm me' OH...takes a bit more than that.  With six chickens you won't get much peace and quiet especially in the mornings..I'll let you use my imaginary drawing board that I keep going back to...

So what have I done today?  The best laid plans...I was going into Kardjali to get Beauty MOT'd but it was just so hot even from early on that I had a morning on the pc and decided to watch a film.  Now I'd heard of Happy Feet but never seen it and so I put it on and enjoyed every minute...simple just like me and a bit of a misfit. again just like me and wants to sort out problems, again...well not now but in my working life....  Left me with a nice feeling.

Out with a vengeance this afternoon...I strung up my onions, pumped up the tyres on my bike, got my beret out and I shall be round the village selling them tomorrow....not really...I jest....but I did string up my onions and my neighbours now believe me when I tell them that I have whatever they offer me....from their gardens.

Fifteen meters of fencing replaced this afternoon.  Drew blood three times..once on the arm, on the hand and on the leg...I'll just get the Sudocream out and give them a basting.  My hammer head needs fixing...no not my hammer head...the head on my hammer needs a new wedge to hold it in place.   It's the first job on the list for tomorrow morning before it gets thrown over the hillside.  

Supper is still in the freezer so I think it's egg and chippies and where's that bottle of red hiding....???  I'm on the hunt...LN...I have work to do....

Thursday 21st

Cramp, bloody cramp had me hopping around the bedroom at 4.30 this morning.  Don't you just hate it when that happens.   Apart from that it was a hot sticky night so with a little sleep deprivation I'll face the coming day.  Beautiful skies this morning...that's one benefit of 'up with the lark' and not 'up for a lark'...cramp does that for you....so onwards and upwards...I've run out of six inch nails so I have to go into Djebel...I couldn't even contemplate attempting more of the fence without them

Thursday continued

Despite the warnings, it turned out to be a super day...nice amount of breeze, nice amount of sun and that takes me back to school when the teacher said that there were lots of words in the dictionary and nice wasn't a 'nice one' to use...I've been searching ever since.

So most of the upper garden fence is complete...and if you really knew the length of my garden you would think that I had achieved 'mnogo'.  I have a hairy fence...not quite mohair in the strict sense of the word but as I was applying the wood preservative with a very cheapy brush,...yes you've guessed it...I was left with about 10 bristles and the varnish had dissolved the  glue holding in the nylon fibres...sometimes called bristles.  Now these brushes were what we call 'Cheena roboti'...so 'you get's what you's pays for'...

Apart from that I have had a very good day.  I've done more of the fence. I've had three teenage visitors today that wanted to speak English.... they had arrived on their bikes from Djebel and one was the grandson of my avatar who came out and questioned the boy as to whether he had inconvenienced the Anglechanka....One of them I know, her mother is the lady from the Water board...but the third one just needed the bolt if you get my drift....Unfortunately they are watching too many American movies and his favourite word is 'Sh*t'...I did try and explain that it's something he shouldn't be using...new generation.

So I sat and talked with them a while..they love the house and then I sent them packing saying that I had a fence to finish....

Heard a rustle that says to me 'tortoise' and sure enough there were four of them.  I reckon it must be the mating season and I don't know if she was up for it or not but the outcome was that there were three of them at the final and the two males battling it out.  They seemed to take it in turns and then realise that they had a fight on their hands to woo the intended...where's that imaginary drawing board when you need one...

Cleared the wood from my mess pit...that's all burnt now...had a session fighting couch grass and it won...tidied up my tools and came in at 8.45 as all good worker should..just need now to think of food, the drink is already in the glass...Ouzo with lots of water.

LN...my glass is empty, tools are all packed away...

Friday 22nd July

Up with the lark to a beautiful morning...goodness does this get boring but there was an event today that change everything.  

Dom arrived this morning at eight thirty and we went into Djebel where we thought we would just get a coffee after his ten minute cavort round the shops.  So we walked to the post office and Dom's intention was to buy up the man's stock (they don't keep many stamps in there) but the man almost beamed when he realised that he could service Dom's needs.  On the way though...we were chatting merrily when suddenly I tripped over a raise something, not even a kerb, like Bulgarian workmanship, and over I went.  All Dom said was that I should pick my feet up when walking...that man is all heart.  So two locals rushed to my aid...I sat on the pavement and said that I was fine and smiled and thanked them.  My Pound-stretcher glasses stood up to the treatment fairly well as they skittered across the pavement and apparently I just flew and you know that you can do nothing about it...your feet just don't keep up and the momentum forces you downward....he said it looked good and fortunately he had no camera and despite the fact that it appeared to be in slow motion, I think he would have had to have a pretty fast camera to have got an action shot and there was no way I was doing a retake...  so at the post office he did his business and the standing joke was the old people's saying....'I've had a fall'.  The result of the impact....I fell on my wallet fortunately not my mobile phone, I have a scraped elbow and knee and his comment to that was....I bet that stings...too bl**dy right it does.

Back to the house, Emula came round and I negotiated a trailer of sheep sh*t since my garden is rubbish.  There is no body to it at all since it has been neglected for twenty years or so so in September...it arrives and then next year, he won't be able to laugh at the size of my onions.  My fence drew the comment 'rustic'...but there again, as long as it keeps the cows out that's OK by me...

So now I ache all over....I went flat out and my right leg hurts, my left leg I think I twisted my knee slightly, my upper ribs are always a favourite in that they always get it, my right elbow and right knee sting but I do have a good book to get into thanks to Amazon customer service despatching a second copy of Mao's Great Famine.  A little more factual that White Swan but in the same vein.  I'm told that it makes Stalin and Hitler come out in a better light so I'm looking forward to getting stuck into it and I don't think I shall be knocking many nails in the fence tomorrow...I just hurt...

I would say that I was going to lick my wounds...but I can't reach my elbow or knee so I'll retire...hurt and I can't even relax in a hot bath with Radox since my bath is sitting in the third bedroom with not a hint of a water inlet in sight....get those men back NOW....

LN...I'll limp and manage to cook something, somehow....I might just manage to pour a beer...yes I might just do that...I'm stiffening up beautifully....aaaarrrhhhhh

Just doing some catching up and I agree that to live somewhere where life is more simple is great but then I have the choice and many of my neighbours don't have the same choices I have here in Latvia.

Hope you don't stiffen up too much, take care!

You make me sound sadistic!  Schadenfreude maybe. How was your 'Buddhism'

D of S