Sunday 8th September

OK Jackie, your name is on the list...in fact your name is the only one on the list....

Silly night last night..woke up this morning at silly o'clock, read for a couple of hours and was wide awake when I should have been fast asleep.  Dogs were yapping but don't think that it was down to them but at the alarm call of six when the hojja started, again they all joined in the chorus.  Don't you just love 'em.

Beautiful sky this morning with fluffy pink clouds and I posted on FB.  Not very often I do that but seemed right this morning.  Off to visit my student but this morning I was supposed to teach her sister how to swim so I tried on my swimwear...reckoned it looked OK and messaged my student to say 'on' or 'off'.  Sister decided that there was a nip in the air so it was off but as the day wore on it got progressively hotter but it was too late then.  My swimsuit was at home and I was in Djebel.  Todays lesson was on silly English phrases that have several meanings and her homework is to make sentences, as many as she can manage using the word 'point'.  That should keep her going and we went through the phrases that she has to use at work and she came back with an interesting concept that the woman who is over the department says that she would be better using such and such a word and not the one she chooses.  I've asked her to document the phrases that she uses and we'll run a comparison....I think we might come out on top...

Parents were making 'lutenitsa' today.  Roasting peppers, squidging tomatoes, shelling garlic and boiling it all up to make a mush that they bottle.  We tried it out and it was OK and we went through the logistics of preparing it yourself or buying it from the supermarket and I think I came out on top....It is so labour intensive but I suppose you don't get the same satisfaction from popping a jar in your supermarket trolley.  We ate melon outside on the terrace but I don't do flies very well and there seemed to be quite a few around.  My fork stopped after they increased.  This family is so lovely and it's good to see the man of the house stirring the pan as the lutenitsa cooks.

So home at four thirty...my chicken is cooking and it will probably be that and a huge chunk of bread for supper since they fed me as is their want.  The beer is on the go...and what a beautiful night it is.  Calm, peaceful and I've nothing to do except kill a few 'Angry Birds' and train my brain with my DS....LN...it's not a bad life.... Forgot to mention my student is in Greece so no lesson tomorrow and my dentist has cancelled because he is off to the beach...the day is all mine...LN

Monday 9th September

Silly o'clock start and this time it was down to the dogs....read for a while and eventually got back off at about five and didn't hear the mosque or the dogs at the normal start off time.  Washing out by nine thirty, sorted out my shoes and decided that several summer things were beyond their sell by date so will find their way to the container tomorrow.  I did rescue a pair that I bought in China and they now have a new lease of life.  Several jars and bottles will be off to the container as well since we don't have recycling here yet in all its glory.  There are one or two in Kardjali but you really have to look for them...I've not ear marked them yet.  Tidied out the third upstairs bedroom, got rid of a lot of cardboard and polythene that has some how found its way in there and boxes from the toaster and the handbasin.  I'm looking at winter clothes that are in bags and thinking that it won't be long.....September is the prep month for our winter.

Planted out the jasmine and some of the cuttings that I've managed to half inch from Kardjali.  As long as I water them they should have enough time to build up roots for the winter and where they've been planted I can keep an eye on them.  Got four lavender to go in but I think they are better where they are for the time being and the plants that I brought back from Greece are potted up and my fingers are crossed.  They seem to grow everywhere over there and virtually on the beach so they might stand a chance in my garden.  Worked it out today...we have been approximately ten weeks without rain...no wonder everything looks so dry.

Good news...I got a phone call from Bekir today....they're starting work tomorrow so I suppose I better get a red, amber, green checklist in place with the things I want doing and the order I want them done.  Haven't really given it much thought so far this year...but I'm sure I can fill their time profitably.  Dentist for a scrape and polish tomorrow and then on to Kardjali to buy the loft ladder I've spotted and a shelving unit to go by my desk on the upstairs landing.  It's got two drawers so it should make it look a little tidier.

Almost eight my time.  Can't say that I'm thinking about much food but there are the remains of the chicken from last night lingering in the fridge.  Might just have to knock up a few chippies to go with it.  Early start tomorrow...I have to get fuel, I don't think I have enough to get there and back and then make it into Djebel so I'll head there first.  LN...I really have to get my head round that list... ...LN

Monday continued

Let's see if I can manage to get the rest of the pickies to load...M-Tel...rubbish....and worse since I complained about the service.  I wonder if they have a special button for people like me....

Tuesday 10th September

They are back...what more can I say.  I got the petrol before I picked them up and out they came from the restaurant where I meet them with their little bags containing food for the day and new work clothes.  Now I swear I've got more work clothes in my rabotilnitza..(work room) than they have on the local bazaar but I've offered to wash them but they still insist on new.  So we looked round the place and nothing has intrinsically moved or changed since they were here last except that I swear Sally has taken off a kilogram and now weighs less than a bag of cement and Bekir has had his hair cut.  We talked about things to be done and the list was made on the back of a cigarette packet and it's basically....metal under the tiles on the roof between the little house and the workshop incase we have twenty foot of snow, the drainage channel at the back of the workshop and the front wall which has now to be extended to the end of the building going down the lane.  It's my land so I'm going to fence it before some other beauty lays claim to it.

So made them coffee and set off for my appointment with the butcher of Djebel for a clean and polish.  I sat waiting for the ten o'clock bell to toll and my neighbour had got it wrong...my time wasn't until twelve so into Kardjali to buy the loft ladder and the chest from Lidl which is now sitting partly assembled in the hallway but I think I need a drink to complete it and that won't happen until I get the men home and dry.  Talking of which....I think it won't be too long...it's been a warm one again today and they've been up on, as it turned out, a hot tin roof and now the tiles are getting replaced.  I am so demanding... ...LN

Wednesday 11th September

Just had to capture this morning from my bed....early but worth waking up for.  And on another note...Happy Birthday to Angela, my dear friend that has threatened me with another visit...it can't come soon enough and the men were already asking how you are.  You made quite an impression on them.  Big hugs and have a good day....and now to get dressed and get those pesky men to start work...all go here...

Wednesday continued

Lovely morning...the men finished the roof and moved outside to start attacking the wall working in the shade with a gentle 'gypsy' wind blowing from Greece.  Friends arrived and we chewed over the fat and had coffee and off they went heading to Kardjali, find a local hotel and then make their way to Greece for a few days now that the border crossing is open.

As for me...I went out and helped the men with the front wall, took my new cabinet outside to get the measure of it and knock in a few more dowels and noticed that the clouds were gathering in the west and it seemed to be getting darker.  There was a rumble of thunder but suddenly it started.  There was a mad dash to get the stuff that I was working on inside, the wind howled, I rushed to get my big patio pots under the canopy, the rain came and it was like a tornado.  My patio umbrella swung round and headed with the wind and I thought I was going to lose it.  Had to run indoors and close the doors and windows that were banging and by this time the thunder had got extraordinarily loud and the lightening was banging into the hillside.  We lost the electricity, my UPS was buzzing away and looked out into my little garden from the ground floor bedroom and I had lost one tree from the side of the garden and one from the hedge which had also pulled down my wooden construction.....I'm gutted but at least my special tree withstood it all and only lost its fir cones.  So Sally and I walked the garden at just after five and I suggested that I take them home...it looked like it was in for the night but now it is a beautiful calm evening.  Coming home there was a complete rainbow so I rushed home thinking that it would have its pot of gold in my garden...no luck.  The roads were covered in all of the debris from the last ten weeks and at least the rain has cleaned things up....apart from where my men are digging out...it's a bugger of a job with lots of tree roots....they might have a better day tomorrow....LN...on the bright side...I have two more lots of wood that I didn't have yesterday for winter...LN

Really last on Wednesday

Thought you might like these...very dramatic after an exciting day....LN

Great photos!

Thursday 12th September

Thanks for the complements...you can't take bad ones here.. .

Someone had stolen the Greek mountains and every other one this morning....the mists had enveloped everything.  I was awake at just before five this morning since I woke up with the light on at three.  Switched them off but the sleep quota was used up so hence the early start.  Played Angry Birds until I hit a level that I couldn't complete but my flat battery saved my pride and went on to the DS where I smashed one of my records....well life's like that...you win some and you know the rest.

Out to pick up my men and back here for eight thirty and my have they struggled with the heat and trying to stop laughing at my attempt to complete the pile of bits that I lovingly refer to as a 'cabinet'.  I was doing OK until I realised that I had put in the centre support upside down, had used to much glue and hadn't thumped home the dowels sufficiently.  Going forward...I'll know for next time but I don't think there'll be one.   Bastard thing came with insufficient downs and holes in the wrong places without I'm dreadfully mistaken and there's every chance.

So Bekir got his head down and was awakened by me bashing seven bells out of a lump of stone and I think he thought it was a fire engine.  Sally was laughing but Bekir's response was that he thought we should go into Djebel and get a decent or half decent pick to finish the job...and we did and they're still finishing the job...there are just so many roots from two huge trees to be got rid of before they can lay the foundations for my new wall.  And oh how they love me...not...   Did manage to get pictures of them for next year's calendar...not much to show except that they have their little rubber shoes off...not keep calm girls.

Took them home and nearly had a catastrophe....I'd followed a forty foot long wagon for about two kilometers and when it was safe to do so...I indicated and started to pull out and some silly buffoon from about three cars behind decided to go for it.  I spotted him in my mirror and braked as he drew opposite my window with a stream of abuse....he picked up speed and carried out and I stayed where I was until the next opportunity arose.  His number plates were from Smolyan....I think he was from the planet zog but I did offer to buy the boys a brandy when I dropped them off.  No need...they were clutching bottles of German beer that I had given to them from Lidl.

Home....fish fingers and chips with mayo and tomato sauce and I probably won't sleep tonight so I better get on the mastica to knock me out.  LN...I'm on a mission...LN