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Elsa Peters
February 1, 2012, 5:17am Report to Moderator

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Wednesday 1st February

White rabbits but if there were any I wouldn't see them this morning hopping over the hillside...well it is the first of the month and why should I change the habit of a lifetime when saying it.  

This month is one of birthdays for my family.  Princess on the 3rd who refuses to go beyond twenty nine, my son's on the 13th and my own on the seventeenth.  My mothers would have been on the 4th and my grandmothers on the 15th so we were all water carriers for better or worse.  I like to think for better.  Cards are in the post and hopefully should get there this year or in time for next....it does seem quicker coming this way.

Forgot to mention that I came back with a box of Belgium chocolates from Lidl yesterday and I now have half a box left...note to self...start rationing them.  Jobs for today...sort my desk out and get some stuff laminated now that I have got one.  It would be a shame not to use it.  Coffee calls....and then to get on.   Minus seventeen overnight and it might even climb up to minus ten today so I am informed....I'll let you know later.



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Elsa Peters
February 1, 2012, 4:36pm Report to Moderator

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Wednesday continued

The desk remain untidied, the laminator is still in its box and if you ask me what I've done today I would say, not a lot.  I did walk the estate with several layers on, got small and large wood in and filled the coal buckets, fed the birds that seemed to be physically shivering and why not...it didn't get above minus five all day today and has rapidly dropped to minus twelve now.  I had a bonfire of kitchen rubbish and settled down to read my book, cooked chicken and rice soup and had it for a late lunch so tonight can't really say that I'm in the mood for much to eat.  There's tuna mayo in the fridge already made up so if the mood takes me later, I'll have it with buttered toast.  

Few pickies of today....not many people about today...it's just too cold.




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Princess
February 2, 2012, 11:42am Report to Moderator
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Hi Mummy, I'm doing a snow dance as we speak...... It's forecast to be heavy snow this weekend so I'll hopefully be snowed in and have to survive on wine and birthday cake!....... Its a hard life!

Hope you are well and keeping warm? Love you to the moon and back, Princess xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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Elsa Peters
February 2, 2012, 2:12pm Report to Moderator

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Thursday 2nd February

Quoted from Princess
Hi Mummy, I'm doing a snow dance as we speak...... It's forecast to be heavy snow this weekend so I'll hopefully be snowed in and have to survive on wine and birthday cake!....... Its a hard life!

Hope you are well and keeping warm? Love you to the moon and back, Princess xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


My darling, I'm joining you in your snow dance and here's hoping that school gets closed and you can have a few days off....you deserve it.  Steady on the birthday cake....the less you eat the more wine you can have.  Think of the calories...now honestly....which would you prefer....   And also moon and back...xxxx


As I suspected, we are now covered with the white stuff again and despite my gallant attempts at keeping the terraces clear, it stopped, I scooped, all clear...then it started again.  Minus lots overnight again and settled out at about minus five at the moment.

I have had the most adorable little dog hanging around today.. it was sniffing round the bonfire to see if there was anything that might be eaten and when it saw me it went bobbing down the garden with long ears bouncing up and down.  I reckon it is part ....well I don't know...... Basset sounds about right.  I'd put the remains of the tuna mayo out since it was a couple of days old and I'm pretty fussy about things like that and decided that I would lob out a couple of slices of bread.  Now that little beauty finished the tuna in quicksticks but I've decided that it couldn't be that hungry since it made no attempt on the bread at all, unless it has coeliac or one of those ailments and is pretty strict about its diet.  Any way the upshot...I was thinking that it looked a little lonely and was imagining getting a rope round it's neck and claiming it for my own....on closer inspection...it is a female...sorry...only one female in this abode...don't like competition and her hair was a beautiful shade of brown...why should she get all the attention....   At least the birds are finishing off the bread...I've got little foot prints all over the place.

Lesson called off today....the road outside is like a skating rink but covered with a layer of powdered snow.  When I came back on Tuesday it felt not too safe.  There are one or two hills on the way back with very compacted snow and you go through the forest where the sun never shines.  I've sent him some homework...he has to write a paragraph on his family and the likes and dislikes of his grandparents....I'm a hard task master.

Just about to take down my big curtain and make a few improvements.  Well there are two curtains...but there is to be...just one to save the wind whistling through the gap.  The house is so well sealed that the fire has got to draw it in from somewhere and the upper landing seems to be the place...if it didn't I suppose the house would suck itself in and collapse...now there's a thought.

Supper tonight....curry chicken with rice...it's already made and just need heating.....and tomorrow I promise I will divulge the six books that I read and could have condensed into one....watch this space....early update today...I'm going for a curtain call..... ;) ;)



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Elsa Peters
February 3, 2012, 9:24am Report to Moderator

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Friday 3rd February

Silly o'clock this morning...four thirty and full of beans so I kept the fires going and started to read my Pelican Brief and decided that I am rapidly coming to the end of it so it's not being picked up until this afternoon.  A good morning to the birds, the snowflakes, the minus ten degrees, two good fires and to my lovely daughter who is twenty nine years old (our secret) today.  Happy Birthday Princess....big hugs...big kisses (no tongues (our joke) and lots of love.  Unfortunately it looks like she might be snowed in tomorrow so we have one more thing in common...no hope or Bob Hope of me getting out today.  

There is ice under that snow on the main road and I did see Gouljan in the cab of the milk collection wagon that manages to get through every day.  The cows don't give up providing and since it is some of my neighbours only income, it has to be collected.  Fortunately it's not deep enough for the snow plough so I shan't have snow dumped from where I have cleared it so that should there be a real need to get out, I would risk it but I really don't like driving in snow and I've got nothing to go out for.

Finished my curtain last night and what an improvement.  As well as joining them both to make one big one, I put an extra hem on the bottom to make three inches to lie on the floor to give it more weight...bliss, it works.  I've now got the urge to make the lounge curtains and the ones for the second bedroom.  Chances are I might have visitors earlier than expected and the bedroom over the kitchen is warmer than either mine upstairs or the third bedroom.  The other thing I could get done is a blind for the bathroom, well what will be a bathroom when bath and washbasin are installed...but we do have the toilet so I suppose that's a start.  It comes in pretty useful when I'm working away on the computer, forget about going and realise...must go now....I know we've all been there....no...not my toilet...just the urge to suddenly go.

Chris Evans is my company for this morning.....now to get on....



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Elsa Peters
February 3, 2012, 3:36pm Report to Moderator

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Friday continued

Just to report that my beautiful Princess has received the flowers that I sent her.  I had a bit of a panic on because I sent them to her school and the delivery was anytime between nine and six and she leaves at four but she has just text me to say that they are beautiful.  Good stuff.

Well the best laid plans...the furthest I got to making a blind was to get a piece of wood in from the wreck and clean it up but to be honest today, the fourish start has fair buggered me up....I really couldn't settle to anything.  Did make rather a good chicken and sweetcorn soup though for a late lunch with crusty bread...it was almost like the one that you get from Chinese restaurants.  It's just been cold and dismal today and the temperature is now dropping.  Not sure what has been forecast....might just happen to find one of the screen photos I took and post it.  It lies...my thermometer says minus five and so does the Beast....

Freasias are coming on in leaps and bounds.  I am so pleased.  These beauties were outside all summer and I thought that I had lost them....nothing popped a little head up until it was getting into autumn but now they are so beautiful and the fragrance is very heady.....I just love them.

Five thirty here....going back to my book...only got about forty pages to go...what I want to know is...who dunnit....

LN....that's me done for the night....



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Elsa Peters
February 4, 2012, 1:43pm Report to Moderator

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Saturday 4th February

Happy Birthday mum...I raised a glass to you at two this afternoon and I'm sure you appreciate it...

Really cold this morning...I couldn't get the house warm and I don't know why...The fire was going all night but maybe I just woke up 'cold'....  Decided I needed a cooked breakfast to start the day...so it was two poached eggs on toast so now I'm down to two eggs so rationing is called for.

So what have I done today...I managed to do yesterday's Daily Mail Sudoko that had eluded me and today's was four star and it took a couple of attempts before I could say...done and dusted.  Got some wood in and broke up some little stuff for the little one.  Sally used to use his axe to do it...I use a size six boot and it has the same effect...he calls his Bulgarian rabbote...I call mine English.  Played around on the roof of the wreck moving some of the melting snow...yes it is melting but this morning it was like a skating rink on the terraces.  I'm assuming that there was a slight thaw overnight, some of the stuff melted and then it froze again.  I was very careful emptying the ash cans...accidents happen in a second.  Moved some of the snow from the polythene and especially where it had melted and was retained by the polythene...there were dangerous lumps of the stuff.  So got a nail and made some holes in the polythene.  The last thing I want to do is walkout to my wood store and get clumped on the head.  Got up to my summer bedroom terrace and removed the snow only to be left with an inch thick layer of ice that hopefully recedes.  There is a drip drip about today that might be OK if there is a drip drip about tonight.  If it freezes, it's going to be really fun tomorrow.  The cars are having a field day outside now...I think I might be at the upstairs bathroom window tomorrow waiting for the fall out.

Mum's glass was taken outside on the terrace on my one remaining outside chair....that sun briefly broke through but it's now shrouded in fog that seems to have come and gone all day.  I reckon the temperature is going to drop....time to stoke up the furnaces, batten down the hatches and await what comes.

Supper is already in the slow cooker.  The remains of yesterday's chicken and sweetcorn soup with potatoes, peas and a spicy sausage added for good measure.  I think that might just about suffice for tonight.  There is blue cheese and crackers for afters if I still feel hungry.  Tomorrow I might just have to nip in to Djebel and get another lot of polythene.....I reckon there might be roof repairs in order....LN




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Elsa Peters
February 6, 2012, 6:08am Report to Moderator

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Monday February 6th

Well you might be wondering what happened to Sunday the 5th......I can tell you it is one of the most horrible days I have spent out here.  Rain, rained, thunder, thundered and lightning, lightened all day so no chance of getting on the internet at all.  

The rumbles started at about nine thirty yesterday morning and they were only rumbles.  So being connected via a dongle and a mast over the hill it's best that you don't make the connection until you see a window of opportunity.  The electricity was on at this point so I decided since it was Sunday that a cooked breakfast of bacon, eggs and fried bread was in order and there was enough gammon left for supper.

During the day it got progressively worse and the storm seemed to be trapped between the mountains.  When I say, bangs, they were huge and the ground and the house were shaking.  So then the electricity went off after one particular loud thud so I was rooting around for candles and tea lights.  Got my candelabra from Star mush out and into a stainless steel tray to avoid accidents.  I got my windup lamps fully charged and decided that reading was the thing to take my mind off the chaos that was outside.  Looking at one of the last photos, it did forecast 4.3mm of rain for Sunday but at no point was I going out there to measure it just to keep tabs on it or to let them know that they were right.

So power restored, but since it was up and down like a bride's nightie I decided that I couldn't have such a huge fire going in the big wood burner in case there was not enough juice in the UPS to burn it out so got the little one going and if push came to shove. I could move into the kitchen for the evening especially if as predicted the temperature went down into the minus again.  

I have never known a thunderstorm last for nigh on eighteen hours....silly stuff.  Didn't find a lull at all yesterday, there was no window of opportunity to make a connection and the thunder and flashes were going strong at 3.00 this morning.  There was yet another power cut and the UPS kicking in with its warning let me know.....so the upshot is....this morning it's dark, damp and dismal, lakes all over the hillside and garden but so far, so good, no thunder but it is only eight o'clock so we have the whole day ahead of us.....    



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createdbyme4you
February 6, 2012, 8:32am Report to Moderator

Hi from London but longing to be in Bulgaria
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Hi Elsa Good to hear your ok !!!!! you where missed on Sunday  
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February 6, 2012, 9:17am Report to Moderator
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Was worried about you Elsa.  Glad to see you, and hopefully all your friends there, are safe and well after a traumatic day.    
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