Sunday 21st August

Silly o'clock and yet again....four am and I'm wide awake so got stuck into my book for an hour or so and then managed to get in about another hour before I got up, made coffee and watched the sheep and the sun come up from the lounge terrace.  I should have known at this point that it was going to be a scorcher.

Breakfast this morning was bacon, eggs, mushrooms and fried bread (well it is Sunday), sitting on my activity centre and then out into the garden.  I found that there were several self set broad beans so they are now neatly replanted in rows, they look healthy enough and we'll see whether they are fruiting in September.  I worked until twelve and then it was just too hot to continue.  A shower was the order of the day and then onto the pc. Daily Mail Sudoko puzzle, trawled around, looked at the curtain material that has been sitting on the second bedroom floor and thought that I could be creative but the inspiration left as soon as it had appeared.  Made my way into my bedroom and slept off the heat of the day.

Woke up at four thirty and finished the Robert Harris 'Ghost' and not really sure what to make of it.  It has a certain resemblance to an ex-prime minister and his wife but it's all in the land of fantasy.....I think.  Out into the garden again and moved about three loads of builder's rubble, burnt the rubbish from the front area and dug out the weeds by the main gate and at seven decided that I had had enough, had earned a beer so am now doing my update, thinking about supper which I think is going to be something out of the rest of the bacon joint that I carved up for my breakfast and enjoying the cool of the evening....LN...it's been a lovely day.

Monday 22nd August

Silly o'clock sleep pattern, got to the middle of White Swan with the pages missing but I managed to pick up the story so it's not so bad.  Body clock still got me up at six ish but I must admit it's a lovely hour of the day.  I hear the Podkova to Plovdiv train and one day I must do the journey and note to self...check out the times, Bulgarian trains are not known to be fast or regular.  Well perhaps I don't mean 'regular' the word I want is 'frequent' unlike the bus services here.  I also hear the six thirty bus taking the people to work in the factories in Djebel...the times my body clock is keeping I could go get a job in Djebel...now there's a thought.

Breakfast was a ham and mushroom omelette that set me up for the day and I worked it off in the garden.  I'm still having to be creative with it...my house was more or less abandoned for fifteen to twenty years and a lot can happen to a garden in that time.  The only thing to survive were the Iris and the grape vines but even the Iris didn't flower.  Shrubs, bushes all overgrown, suckers from the various wild trees are still covering the middle and bottom of the garden but I started from the house down.  Today I've managed to work down the left hand side of the garden and reach the bottom along the hedge line.  The trunk of the walnut tree is now exposed and you can actually walk underneath it.  It also exposes the fence that needs another foot added to it and when my planks arrive courtesy of the sheep farmer and his van that's one of the first jobs to get done....maybe he needs a reminder.

Had my water man round with my water bill at lunchtime...14 leva 40 and when they deliver the bill, you pay the man and get the receipt.  A couple of older guys from Rogoche were in the garden talking to the waterman while I retrieved my purse from upstairs and one of the men said that he had a house for sale in Rogoche and did I know anyone who wanted to buy one.  I worked it out to be the new yellow house that I drive past when I go into Djebel and yes it's impressive if you like that sort of house, stands out but it's not in a pretty village but it is nearer to the main road.  It does have really good balcony balustrades and I found out that he had got them in Turkey not here so back to the drawing board....he's a doctor in Turkey apparently spending time here but wants to sell up and move back completely.  I'll get a photo but no idea of the asking price....  

Caught up on some of the sleep that I missed this afternoon (but it was 32 degrees today) and have completed another couple of hours tidying up and burning the dead stuff that I removed from the bottom of the garden and remnants of another polythene mine buried long ago.  Again don't feel like cooking but I did manage lunch before my siesta so I'm sure I won't fade away...

New book on the go....this one is about strawberry pickers in Kent and is dedicated to the cockle pickers of Morecambe Bay.  Quite a funny read so far...nine o'clock here....time to think about a shower since I've got very dirty feet from working in the garden in Lidl's rubber gardening clogs...great for gardening, lousy in keeping your feet healthy so most of the other times, no shoes....shower calling....and so is that beer that will be poured after my shower...LN....

Tuesday 23rd August

You'll be pleased to hear that there are more photos tonight and less text....now that should make you happy...

Slept really well despite having a long siesta yesterday but six ten and I was up and at it.  Down for coffee, surveyed the garden with camera in hand and watched the sun come up.  It is one of the special times out here...it's so calm and beautiful.  I love my house in that most rooms catch the morning sun, downstairs and upstairs, and I love the way that the windows reflect the morning.

Breakfast was my tomatoes fried on toast and then I was drawn to the cherry tree and the debris that surrounded it.  There were numerous suckers underneath and the remains of the wood chopping at the beginning of the season.  Also where the men had removed the old roof of it was just a mess...so....started to clear it this morning and finished it tonight.  I managed to get two barrow loads of old wood that I delivered to my Avatar...she deserves it...and she'll make use of it where I would only set fire to it on my bonfire.  I think I shall have to think of something for my other neighbour since she saw me deliver the wood...   Hotfoot was outside without her bandages this evening so I went to have a word....well it was more than one but not a lot since she doesn't speak Bulgarian and my Turkish is really limited.  Her feet look much better...

So bonfire going.  I threw the vine and cherry pruning that I chopped off over the fence for the sheep...but the old hay I thought it best to burn.  

Enough...no food for me...shower and bed....I've had a hard day but feel satisfied with my achievements...LN...

Wednesday 24th August

I can come in...the man who sings out his evening song at the mosque had serenaded me (well not only me, it's the evening call to prayer) and I know that I can put my tools away, pour that drink and pray that I don't have too much.

Today has been all about my bonfire.  I've kept it going all day but the breeze has sent the smoke over the hillside so I've not been annoying too many of my neighbours.  So this morning I was trimming my tomatoes at about eight and my neighbour who takes his cow down to his field every day, visits it at lunchtime and walks it home each evening was coming back from his morning outing.  He asked what I was doing, I told him and since from where he was standing assumed that I had no tomatoes on my plants, insisted that I walk home with him.  I grabbed my bowl thinking that at least I wasn't going to come home loaded, but he filled the bowl with salad and beef tomatoes and then his wife insisted that I take a carrier and he just carried on.  Perhaps the word carrier in Bulgaria....I tell him enough but it just doesn't work, he just carries on.  

So anyway, I walked home and I must add at this point that I was still in my pyjamas not that they look like the 'normal' ones (you could wear them on the beach) and stopped off at Hotfoots who was in conversation with my Avatar.  Got home eventually, cooked one of his beef tomatoes and had it on toast...delicious but I must find something to do with the others before they go off.

Worked until it was too hot to do any more, no siesta today, played Freecell, online Sudoko, looked for a cruise to see if there was anything interesting and eventually went out at four and started again.  I now have a new garden by the outside toilet and I've come up with a brainwave to reinstall the outside loo but use a water container instead of a permanent supply.  In fact I could actually gather rainwater to fill it.  So tomorrow I am going to look for a stand up loo and a cistern to have the stuff ready for when the men arrive, it they ever do.
I've started to move a another pile of builder's rubble and secured the other window in the wreck.  Underneath the sheet of metal, I found a tortoise...he wasn't moving much so I'll check him out in the morning to see if he is still there.  Dug up a few tree suckers and put a cherry tree in a bucket of water and it's destined for the bottom hedge.

Cheese on toast for lunch so I'm not that ravenous this evening...it's 8.30 here or thereabouts so where's that wine bottle...I feel I've achieved a lot today.  LN

A cruise when you could visit so many forumites at a fraction of the cost  

Thursday 25th August

Quoted from Joanna

A cruise when you could visit so many forumites at a fraction of the cost  

I know Joanna...heck of a choice but the one that I was looking at starts in Istanbul and visits the Holy Land. I want to stand at the Wailing Wall and have a good cry for where some of the human race are trying to drag the rest of us.  Upright citizens that pay taxes, uphold the laws of the land, seem to be on the decline.......and to be honest, the surrogate father, namely the welfare state, is going to have to keep forking out.  

Now talking of religion...that little man who called me in from the garden last night also called me from my bed this morning accompanied by a howling dog in the next village ensuring his master was doing what a good Muslim should at silly o'clock.  Added to that was the insistent bleep of my mobile to get it to an electricity supply and in my sleepy state I couldn't be bothered to go look for it..

It's seven so I'm off to walk the garden, check on my tortoise that I uncovered last night and splash the hose around

Thursday continued

I'm back from my morning stroll.....tortoise had left his...and I know he is a he....because I spotted him on the soil pile and saw a rustle of grass just behind him and now there are two.....and what followed was an incredibly noisy session with him shunting the new one round the soil pile.  I think he's new to the game and not on target but you had to give him twelve out of ten for effort.  

Thursday continued,continued

Thank goodness the hodger decided enough was enough and yes it definitely was tonight.  I had scrabbled, hoed, pyrotechnied  the debris, and yes tonight, I felt I deserve that glass of red but instead put it in 'supper' which is just about to finish.  The remains of the gammon, with honey, tomato paste, onions, garlic and served with pasta and it's the pasta I'm waiting for.  Why is it some is quickly softened and others take forever?....

Yes my play area had been extended...it's one of those moments, like an epiphany,  when you look round and realise that there is bloody loads of it to do but one step at a time and it all seems to be happening.  I think I have a very active mole or loads of them...I haven't seen an earthworm all day and I've been digging.  They either don't exist in my garden or the moles are very active,

Just now, a lovely cool breeze has entered the bedroom, shot across the upper landing and it's still circulating.  Oh how I love Bulgaria....such contrasts but there again...I'm not Bulgarian.  News from the grapevine is that Semile's cows have wrecked a couple of gardens so he is not flavour of the month...the good new is that it's not mine but there again there is little of the vegetables to wreck, only flowers that I guard with a passion.  

Sorry supper is ready...LN...I'm in to the gud life....

Oh well Elsa, if the wailing wall doesn't work out there is the rural countryside of Latvia.  , probably not a whole lot different to where you are, apart from greener and cooler now.

Friday 26th August

Thanks for the offer Joanna.  I'll stay with the heat for the present time....

And Bank Holiday weekend in England.  I plumbed into the Radio 2 website this afternoon and listened to 'Sally Traffic' and I'm so pleased that I'm here.....Apparently the M25 was completely gridlocked and oh yes, I do remember the days of trying to fight my way home on a Friday night from Hatfield to Rottingdean.  Many an hour was wasted.

I learnt today that my grandson was at my ex's and he did a deep dive into a shallow pool....hospitalised overnight for a head injury and his father did the same last year I seem to recall.  He's fine now according to him and they're off to France for a holiday...let's hope the pool is deeper egh...Princess.... and don't forget...always moon and back again.  That's not secret code....there is a super children's book 'Guess how much I love you'.  If you haven't read it, read it.  It's about motherhood supremacy and one up 'woman ship'.  

There was a rumpus in the village mid-morning and Avatar's grandson was helping four cows on their way using a dog and several large stones.  I think they're the beauties that wrecked gardens yesterday and I think they've done damage today.  I didn't go to check....I'll wait for the mountain to come to Mohammed and yes, that is the grandson's name.

So what have I done today?  Three kilograms of tomatoes converted into cham or jutney.....small jars for my neighbours and one thumping great big one for me.  (I reckon it will be good for basting the chicken before it hits the barbecue.)  Contents....well obviously tomatoes, my red peppers, my garlic, ginger, chilli pepper and in error I added paprika.  Well it was red and I picked up the wrong jar.  It doesn't seem to be setting so I'll see what it's like in the morning and maybe I'll reboil with more sugar and the juice of a couple of lemons.  Let's give it the night before the final diagnosis.

I also made four portions of bolognese sauce and tonight I've demolished two portions and frozen two...so I was hungry...just like the Hungry Caterpillar which is another good children's book.  Kitchen is all cleaned up...cham or jutney is a messy business at the best of times...even my dish from supper is washed and put away....life in the slow lane....

Dr House calls this evening I think....a little bit of my strawberry pickers...and the remains of the red that I had to open to make the Bolognese sauce....it's just not the same without it.  Heading for Kardjali tomorrow.  My shopping list includes ginger, red wine, long handled shears (if Lidl hasn't sold out), visiting my favourite dress agency to see if there is something at up to five leva that I just can't live without and material for the bathroom blind.  Blind leading, I might add, but I shall go armed with a portion of floor tile.  I now have reservations about the blue that I bought for the second bedroom....I think it has to be brown to go with the material that I have and the blue can wait for the last bedroom.  

Enough....I have a red that is about to breathe its last, other sites to visit and people to insult and then relax with my book.  It would be in a warm bath but the bath is still sitting in the third bedroom so maybe it's time to get the garden hose out.  LN....