Saturday 1st October

And I'll say 'white rabbits' as per usual at the start of the new month...now it really is beginning to feel like autumn.  There is grey cloud hanging that will probably drift away but it's good when that friendly sun gets up to greet me each morning.  It's early though...seven twenty here so it has the rest of the day to sort itself out and so do I....

Saturday continued

My lovely Avatar has just been round to show me her new....teeth....bless her but she hadn't got many left and was persuaded by the family to go and get them fixed.....not a cheap option on a pension but anyway, done and dusted so to speak.  She had this habit of putting her hand over her mouth when she laughed....she was very self-concious and as the man on the London station says...mind the gaps.  Well I didn't and she did and now she doesn't have any and is wired and I reminded her that the hand could stay down now...  

Meandered for the first hour just checking out 'stuff' and then decided to empty the burning pit, wheel barrowed it down to the bottom of the garden and discovered that I had walnuts falling from the tree.  I bit of an overkill I my part thinking that I would fill the wheel barrow and now that they are peeled, they might just happen to fill a couple of Christmas nets for Asda.....but I have some of my very own.  Pleasant morning peeling them, sat out in the sometimes sun, sometimes shade and the BBC are up to form when they say one thing and mean another.  In for lunch and decided on the next task to keep me out of mischief and discovered the wood pile.

The wood pile is no more...it is no longer blocking the yard but there are now three more heaps ready cut for the wood burner.  I started off with the handsaw and a heavy right clog but though bugger this for a game of soldiers and brought out the big guns...the reciprocating saw and workmate bench.  I did frighten a couple of my old ladies who were helping Semile's cows along the road with a couple of bricks when I started up the saw with out giving them notice of intent.  I think they thought that I had a weapon of mass destruction and was helping them with their cow displacement.

Wood finished, rubbish collected and burnt, beer open, seven-ten and thinking of cooking supper so it's LN.....goodnight from me and an early night I think.  A much better day than going into Kardjali....I spent no money ...but now I'm knacked....

Sunday 2nd October

Party day in my village...the ones that want to start early are already making their way along the road...some of us will wait until the streets are aired or chores done.  The weather is going to be lovely for it.

Yesterday morning I delved into the freezer and came out with what I thought was minced veal or minced lamb.  It was a present from one of my people but the more I looked at this grey form, the more I thought...do I really want to do anything with it and when it was thawed out....I was even more convinced that I should have binned it.  Well I didn't...ever hopeful that a couple of onions would do the trick since I hate waste....I boiled it up last night, put it in the fridge overnight for the fat to solidify, skimmed it off, fried off more onions, added a stock cube and then came to my senses....why...it was always going to be destined for the bonfire and now it is.  It's the feeding ground for cats and stray dogs so it will go to some use but no way could I have tackled it.

Now the bad news is that one of my own melons split slightly in the growing process and I checked it out this morning and decided that it needed opening up at least to make sure that nothing had invaded the gap that had appeared to have healed over quite nicely.  Nothing had so that was my breakfast....the first melon that I have grown so next year it is on my list of 'definates' for the garden along onions, garlic, tomatoes, a few chilli peppers and loads of zinnias that take no effort at all and very little watering.

Shower, hair wash....I'm off to a fete worse than death....

Sunday continued

One thirty my Avatar's daughter arrived in the car for what would have been a ten minute hike up the road and we're off to the fair.  Not so many people here so I am told this year...there is a three day fair in Djebel on Friday through to Sunday next week so the locals are saving themselves for that.

Pretty much same as last year.  The same dance troop are performing in the old school yard with the same singers, same lute player but with the addition of a little drummer girl, same dancers but new smaller ones have been recruited and are learning the ropes.  The one touch of modernity and consumerism....the Lidl's carrier back sported by one of the ladies by the tour bus.  The fair and attractions are small, the market stall holders I recognise from Djebel and I am acknowledged, asked how I am, I shake hands with other neighbours and then I am smelling the spit-roast chicken which is beating the lambs roasting over an open pit, hands down for aroma.  

'Who's for lunch' was the cry and Avatar's daughter in law, her mother, brother, and two sisters in law with one small nephew who insisted on trying to punch everyone, without a hint of discipline in the air, sat down to a couple of chicken, a loaf of bread and fruit juices.  The remaining chicken was wrapped in silver foil and taken home for my Avatar and the chicken bones put in a separate bag for Socks, Avatar's dog.  Cost of lunch for six adults plus takeaway enough for two more and drinks.....nine pounds approximately...now that can't be bad.

Lunch over we went back round the stalls, I bought just over two kilos of grapes for three leva and a candy floss for one leva fifty but since she didn't have change she handed over a smaller one to make up the other fifty stotinki.  The bouncy castle was not being bounced upon, the children's dodgem cars ride had not even been put together and sat lifeless but the football game was in full use.   Unfortunately, we were too early for the wrestling taking part behind the school where the betting was happening fast and furiously.  The cmet (mayor) shook my hand, apologised that he couldn't stop to chat but said that he was working...he was running the betting.

So home...candy floss was the first to be downed and I sat out in the sun reading and eating a bunch of grapes until my eye lids were heading southwards and I knew that I was in for an afternoon nap.  It must have been all the excitement.  Three hours later, not in the least bit hungry after a biggish for me lunch.  LN...it's almost time for bed....

Monday 3rd October

Another day of swings and roundabouts and bartering.  I looked at my garden and decided that I was off with my wheelbarrow to raid my Avatar's 'crava' poo store to deposit on the vegetable patch.  My soil is old and hasn't had any nutrients for years, lay uncultivated so it was time to do something about it.  So with wheelbarrow and spade off I headed, loaded up my wheelbarrow and deposited the first load and I noticed that my Avatar was walking towards her house from the other direction pushing her wheelbarrow ....so I waited and noticed that she was collecting stone from down the road but pushing the wheelbarrow uphill so I asked her why she didn't have the stone that I'd stored behind the bus shelter.  I reckoned that a barrow load of sh*t and a barrow load of stone was about the same value so now we are bartering.  Even better than that, on the up to my house we both had barrows full of the good stuff for my garden and on the downhill run we both had stone.  Result.  Half an hour later I had several loads of the stuff on my garden where I had removed the stuff that was growing and it can sit there and let winter do its stuff.  Next year I should have bigger and better onions and garlic and the soil should hold the moisture better.  She also gave me seven eggs...carted home in the wheelbarrow so I was avoiding the bumps, I didn't fancy omelette for lunch.

So what else did I do?  Three kilograms of tomatoes are processed into tomato chutney and isn't that a lengthy process.  Hot water skinned the beauties before I chopped them and even that takes time but the two hours sweating over a pan of pulpy tomatoes and a recipe book that advises to stop when you have reached the desired consistency.  Now I've never made it before and what use is a book that tells you that when you're a novice and it's going to take three months to 'mature' so I won't know if it's right for a while...oh the anticipation.

The man chopping my neighbour's wood has downed tools because the minimum wage was ignored and my little brain started working and now he is coming to work for me for an 'acceptable' daily rate.  Instead of my Avatar and I running up the road with muck and down the road with stone....he can clear out my wreck and deposit the stone and old tiles around her well.  Jobs a guddun....she has work done and so do I like two birds with a stone instead of two birds with wheelbarrows.  She's just gone off to set the plan in action and I came home with a plate of filo pastry stuffed with potatoes and leeks.....another result.

And yet another ....Bekir has just phoned and wants to know if I want them to work.....do I want them to work?  Of course.  I have a house and a barn that both need roofs before the winter so he's coming over tomorrow to work out priorities.  Life's good....LN

Just to cheer you up - it is bloody raining here!

Quoted from KingDom

Just to cheer you up - it is bloody raining here!

I'm cheered, you old Libertarian blogger you...as I said, you have been labelled by the man.

It started off dull this morning but turned into a beautiful day as you can see from the shots of my 's h one whatsit' photos.....let's hope you find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and tell Dorothy to keep clicking her heels....Missing you both already....LN

Tuesday 4th October

Watched a really good Walt Disney film last night and ended up with a tear in my eye and a Kleenex lingering in my little sodden mit.  I inherited a set of films, from a guy who used to be out here and I'm slowly working my way through them especially when it gets to be about nine in the evening and it's just to early to go to bed if you don't want a five o'clock start.  Now it's getting dark early, the evening can seem a little long.....I suppose I should be knitting my bed socks or a new jumper for the winter.

So took my supper plate back and was told that the man that had been earmarked for the job of cleaning out my other house and filling up the surrounds of Avatar's well didn't want the work.  I heard the clunk of an axe and thought that the new minimum wage had been agreed with my next door neighbour but alas no....she was out chopping the wood herself so bad backs tomorrow all round then.   Late breakfast of poached eggs on toast, the eggs that were in the wheel barrow yesterday and are they delicious.....heavenly.

So I got the wheel barrow out again and my Avatar and myself had races up and down the village until we were both hoping that the other would give up so I did it first and was she pleased....    Went into the old house and started to remove the rubbish and finding concrete on the floor was a godsend...it makes it so much easier to clear from a flat surface.  Hit a snag though.  There is only about a three inch gap between the metal door frame and the handles of the wheel barrow and despite my work gloves.....at the third attempt, and again....mind the gap...I now have a swollen fight hand that is gradually turning a gentle shade of blue....and the air around the door frame was of a similar hue.  Fortunately I had to come in realising that I hadn't really prepared for my pupil's lesson so attacked it with a vengeance, quick shower and into the car at one forty to make it for two to Djebel.  Lesson over...did a little shopping, back to the house, did a little more on the old house but this time leaving the wheel barrow outside the door and spading it from the house to the barrow.  That door frame wasn't going to get me again, well not today anyway.

Just after six thirty, kitchen calls, drinky calls and I might sit out on the terrace and enjoy the evening before the sun finally goes down....LN....end of another beautiful day....

Wednesday 5th October

Seven o'clock this morning...really good night's sleep.  Mist over the river which suddenly enveloped everything but the sun was there to burn it off.  It was a chill morning.  Definitely autumn is in the air but it has been a beautiful day.  Not to hot to push a wheel barrow round the garden (this time not up and down the road) while I was clearing out the, what is to be the summer lounge in the wreck.  It has a beautiful fireplace and I wanted to see it uncovered and tonight it is.  Took some doing though since my wheelbarrow is having to stay outside.  I'm not going to risk any more bashes and bruises to the hand as I take it out of the wreck.  It's colouring up beautifully.

I've had two visitors today.  My hotfoot neighbour came round and I think there is a bit of one up man ship going around.  I seem to have spent more time with my Avatar and news certainly gets round pretty quickly so I have been invited to 'pop in'.  My other visitor was Avatar who told me off for working so hard in the garden and now in the house.  'It's hard work', she said and she told me that I should rest and have a day off.  I said that it was OK since I was teaching my student tomorrow so I wouldn't be digging and dumping at the house.  

What else did I do.  My potting bench is now turned into a sitting bench since I never used it for potting anyway.  It's now at the base of the terrace wall and if I need to just sit and watch the flowers grow or contemplate my navel I have somewhere else to do it.  Sawed off the legs...got a few more nails in it to hold it together and jobsaguddun....and while I was contemplating the garden I realised that the fence that I put up has not had a coat of wood stain / preservative on it but it has now.  Looks much better dark brown instead of pine yellow, shows off the green plants better.

Enough...my supper should be ready...it went into the slow cooker at lunchtime with the remains of last night's pasta...local spicy sausage with tomatoes, chilli and honey.  Not original but adequate.  Drinkies tonight...I bought a bottle of ouzo with a free water so I am drinking the free water....with a touch of ouzo...and it would be rude not to....LN....I'm off to sample the delights of the slow cooker...

Thursday 6th October

Went to bed early last night and boy do I regret it....fell asleep reading and woke up with the light on at midnight, switched it off but at 5.30 I was wide awake so read for a while, went down and made a coffee and decided to get emails and things done before the morning was up and about.  Looked up from my pc on the landing and grabbed the camera...wall to wall red light which has now turned into that lovely pink and blue hue before the sun makes that dramatic appearance which it's just about to do.  Time....seven thirty and it looks like being another beautiful day.

I might even manage to get a few hours clearing the wreck before my today's lesson despite what I told my Avatar last night...