Ouch and sympathy for the graze - the things we do to ourselves!
Now as to those flying insecties :-
Humming Bird Hawk Moth - boy are they fast. Only ever seen one once - they don't often make it to this country, at least not that I have seen.
Swallowtail - gorgeous.
The little yellow fellow is a Clouded Yellow, which arrives here en masse just occasionally. True experts can tell you which have been clouded yellow years.
We are still poor for butterflies this year, and come to think of it, not many dragonflies either.

Seth instructs me that I am right in it being a poor year here for butterflies, but that the dragonflies are fine - he saw half a dozen this morning on his walk with the blonde. They just haven't been showing themselves to me.

Tuesday 19th July

Thanks for the update Jean.....yes I agree and not a drop of alcohol in sight or on site for the last six months and I still fall over things.  I think I change direction too quickly to check where I'm putting my feet and wearing glasses some of the time and not others doesn't really help.  I only need them for reading but sometimes find myself outside with them on...doh.  As for butterflies...we've seemed to have them in batches but the lavender has been the main attraction for most things this year.  Lots of the other flowers are slow...despite watering them they seem to shut down....so we might be lucky tonight...we have clouds.

So as for today...pretty slow at the ranch.  Usual chores, boiled eggs again and just a chunk of cheese for lunch plus half a honeydew melon and yogurt so a pretty healthy day.  The swimming pool option wasn't one...there were some big fluffy clouds up there and I didn't fancy paying for the privilege of lying on somebody else's sunbed when I'd got my own. I spent the morning on the terrace and it was quite pleasant with the clouds obliterating the sun at times and I must have been out there for a couple of hours.  I've been on the internet this afternoon looking at flights to various places...a lot of the cruises this year seem to be 'cruise only' so I thought it worth checking how much the flights would be if you did it all separately.  I managed to find a flight to Fort Lauderdale for about two hundred and forty dollars and the cruise goes from there and over to Barcelona so overall a reasonable costing.  Now to see what the travel company would charge if they had to book the flight.  Back to the sunbed and a new book.....the third in the series....and this could be the last one that I read so I won't slag the author off...yet.

Supper is the chilli from the night before last and it's warmed up and ready to go when I've posted the blog.  It's been a chilled day and I really hope it rains.  I have left the hose pipe on the terrace garden...it really needs a good soak so it's having one.  LN...My supper calls...LN

Wednesday 20th July

Two late visitors last night, Gouldjan with a bottle of yogurt drink and my Avatar with a bowl of home made yogurt....who's a lucky bunny.  Gouldjan stayed round for an hour and a half giving me the update on her life and Avatar for two minutes and she still remains very private...

The upshot of last night is that Gouldjan needs to go to one of the other towns tonight and I'm picking her up at six thirty so I better get it into gear.  I'm not ready yet and should be but decided to add these words of wisdom before I left just in case it turns out to be a late return...maybe one of the local restaurants has our name on it for tonight.

As for today....I settled on the balcony to take shots of the morning and only managed one...the camera card was full so that was a let down.  As it happened the first was the best bit and the sun has been in and out of the clouds all day and still no rain.  I managed to enlarge and frame a photo for Beyser and she was throwing money at me.  I told her no money...I didn't want to return to being a photo studio where I'm inundated with work to be done.  I had the tears and many thanks and we ended up with neighbours eating tikva or pumpkin in her garden.  Well they ate and I watched....they put so much sugar on it that I can't stand it.

The rest of the day I've been stretched out and reading and now I really must rush...I have five minutes to get ready and five meinutes to get to the meeting point.  I'll take the camera for another view of one of the other towns and post later....LN...I'm just putting my skates of...LN

Thursday 21st July

Sorry I'm late tonight....I've just got back from my student's and a night with her family.  If I say I'm leaving before ten I'm told that it's 'early' and I have to report that I've got home safe and sound which I've just done.  We've been talking a lot about the Turkey situation...they have lots of relatives living there in Istanbul and Bursa...not a pleasant time for them....let's just send out a prayer whatever your beliefs...

Lovely night with Gouldjan in the restaurant last night...I haven't been there for a year or so and boy has it changed.  They've got an extension into the garden, the food was plentiful and we did it justice leaving only bread and a portion of a sort of pizza that she was taking home for her mother.  Again it was good to get away from home surroundings and share an evening together and the only disagreement was the bill....I insisted on paying something towards it and she was quite adamant that didn't but I got my way as usual....We both came away feeling good.

Lovely sunrise which didn't last long as it promptly went behind the clouds.  Again it looked like rain but nothing materialised.  Normal garden duties, bonfire, poached eggs for breakfast and washing hung out,  The plants are really feeling the heat, the poor hydrangea needs digging up and the roots investigating...I'm not sure if it's over watered, dry or just not draining away but it won't be tomorrow.  I was out on the sunbed this morning until the flies got the better of me so it was inside with the book and a bit of drowsy time until the mood took me to get ready for this evening at my students.

Kardjali tomorrow with Mrs D of S for a bit of a shopping trip and it's boots blacked by nine.  Early start and early return before the heat really stack up.  LN....I'm off to bed with my last ten percent...LN

Friday 22nd July

Lovely morning this morning and I watched the sunrise from the bedroom balcony......not a cloud in sight and that certainly makes a change/  There was a heat haze hanging over the mountains and the calls of the different birds were rattling round the garden,  I'd moved outside to the terrace when I realised that the golden oriole's call was pretty close and it had moved to the mulberry which is half way down the unwalled garden and then it was joined by three of it's mates.  I was so lucky to see them....they are so shy and normally you only catch a flash of yellow and it's off again....hence the flash of yellow on the second shot of the bird.  They didn't hang around long but their calls could be heard on the hillside.

Garden watered and I had to be ready for nine for a trip into Kardjali.  Mrs D of S was driving over, she was leaving her car here and then over the back road in mine.  We both had lists but I don't think either of us stuck them especially when we hit Lidl.  In and out of the first shop with only a few purchases and it was time for breakfast and it was two really fresh rolls with the sausage baked in the middle with the local yogurt drink to wash it down.  A little more shopping and we headed for my favourite stationary shop so that I could get some one hundred and sixty gram printer paper that I use to make cards...it's got more body.  Another stop off for water and fruit juices...it was really hot today, Lidl and then home.  A quick unload, a few more items transferred over to her car and off she went and we both had the intention of getting our heads down this afternoon.  The heats come back with a vengeance.  

It was five when I woke up and I headed for the kitchen.  I'd bought a filet steak from Lidl that was reduced and that was supper along with mushrooms and onions cooked in the same pan and chippies...oh...and a fried egg.  Delicious and I'd finished supper by six thirty so time to catch up on FB and emails and you know that moment when you post something that you feel is a humorous comment and one comes back that hits you in the middle of the forehead and you wonder where that came from.  I deleted my comment, deleted the retort and sent a private message but I think the damage has been done.  Maybe the sense of humour diminishes with the rise in temperature....another one off my Christmas list...it's getting better all the time...   On a brighter note I've just had a phone call from my painter who has gone to Sofia to work for a month or so,  His only complaint...everything is expensive there and that's a local for you.

Ready to start a new book...the fourth in the series and I suppose they are easy reading.  Nothing on for tomorrow but I hear that the swimming pool in Djebel is working so I might just take a look.  I've got one in the diary for next week....a swimming date with Mrs D of S on a day yet to be determined....and it's time for a relax.....LN...Nowt so funny as folk so they say....LN

Saturday 23rd July

Beautiful morning and not a cloud in the sky and it's been that way all day.  Upside...temperature has been hot, hot, hot...plants have suffered yet again despite having a morning drowning.  I resorted to digging two hydrangeas up and they're sitting in a bucket looking much better and tomorrow I need to get the pick axe out and dig a bigger, deeper hole in a shadier spot and get some grass cuttings in the bottom and compost to feed them up a bit.  The roots were dry despite having watered them twice each day.  

As for me...breakfast was bacon, mushrooms and fried egg and after all said and done...it is 'le weekend'.  Washing out and it was a toss up between sun lounging or swimming and the sun lounging won.  I thought that pools would be busy being Saturday so it will be better during the week.  Out with the strimmer and got rid of the long straggly plants...it wasn't worth getting the mower out.  As it was I got fairly pebble dashed as the dust was kicked up and stuck to my perspiration.  I needed a shower when I came in to get rid of it.

This afternoon has been spent watching the Anniversary Games athletics from the Olympic Stadium and it really was the last efforts to excel before Rio.  Mo was absolutely superb in the five thousand meter and shows real dedication as he decimates the field.  We did managed to get another one in second place which bodes.  

So I checked out the lane for hedgerow fruits and noticed that there are lots of sloes this year and despite the drought there are blackberries but I'm not sure how full they'll be.  I'll be picking the sloes a little later....I'm not sure my lot have cottoned on to sloe gin and vodka but as it stands at the moment it will only be for guests.  The mood to imbibe still hasn't kicked in.  No supper...I had a cheese and onion sandwich while I was watching the athletics and it's still sitting midway but there is a bar of chocolate with my name on it in the fridge...that should do me for later.

So tomorrow is more of the same.  I have two really difficult on line Daily Mail Sudoku and I've had to resort to paper and they're evil.  That should keep me out of mischief for tonight.  LN...They could take some time....LN

Sunday 24th July

So it was a bit of a lazy morning but it was a late night.  Despite no sleep in the day I seemed not to have an ounce of sleep in me when it came to the bewitching hour.  I'd turned Filmon off fairly early resorting to my Sudoku and I forgot all about watching the live Mrs Brown's Boys and only thought about it this morning.  Ah well....next time.

So six fifteen start and the sun had beaten me yet again.  It was such a beautiful cloudless day that I stripped the bed, put the single feather quilt in the washing machine and it was out on the line by seven.  The bedding went in next and there was a fair breeze blowing but as with feathers, you need that as they seem to clump together and I wonder how ducks manage.  Garden watered, the hydrangeas that I dug up yesterday are now back in the ground but with grass cuttings dug into the soil and hopefully this should retain more water and give bulk to it.  The choisya has had the same treatment, that was looking a little sick this morning.   I also took the nasturtiums from the container and they're now planted out and should do better with more depth to the roots.  I moved breeze blocks from the workshop to the terrace, swept it and cleared it and using a couple of four by twos as I like to call them, made a perching bench on the workshop terrace and all that by ten thirty.  I was hungry but didn't know what I wanted so put the computer on, caught the tail end of Andrew Marr and ended up watching a program where a fat lady was saying that she was mortally wounded when being told that fat wasn't healthy and she should do something to prolong her chances of not becoming diabetic.  She was very irate and said that she had nothing wrong with her....so be it...in denial.  Computer off since there was nothing worth watching and it amazes me that it's mostly antiques, cooking and gardening programmes....OK if you like that sort of thing....anaesthetic for the television cooks and gardeners but I'd rather have the real thing.....

Early lunch - late breakfast called and I found a veal escalope in the freezer so it was that slapped between two slices of toast and slathered with mayo and tomato sauce.  I did have a side dish of beetroot for the salad combination.  Settled in with a few games on the Kindle, it was too hot to be out there gardening and it was siesta time waking up at four this afternoon.  Washing in and bed made up ready for tonight.  I've just had a shower and washed my hair and I was out in my dressing gown on the sunbed to dry off and chill only coming in to dry my hair and get into something cooler.  No supper for me....might be crisps later.  Off to water the garden then on to my next book....I'm sticking with her for a while...too lazy to search for another series yet awhile.  LN...the garden calls...LN

No I can't identify the buttermoth on the outside of the glass!

Monday 25th July

Butter moth Jean....have we just made a new category?  I found a new one today...medium sized black and white but by the time that I'd got the camera it had gone and haven't seen one since.  Thank you for your input...haha...

Beautiful morning again and the sun was up before me again.  I wasn't late, six fifteen but the day had started.  It was coffee, terrace, watering and the work I did yesterday on the ailing plants seems to have worked.  The choisya is standing up for itself as are both hydrangeas.  I know it's early days and they are still in intensive care but they won't be moving into the side wards anytime soon...

I was down to the bread van for the morning gathering and to pick up my bread and cheesy bun for breakfast.  On the way back with my Avatar there was a bit of a discussion going on between Avatar and Besir, the lady that I did the last photograph for.  Now this was all in Turkish but I read body language well and I guessed that she wanted another photograph doing and Avatar had refused to ask me.  Beyser went to her house and I continued with Avatar and I'd read her well and it was confirmed and Avatar said there was no one she was going to ask me to do it for her.  I went home and I settled down on the terrace under the umbrella with my cheesy bread and more coffee and was tackling the bastard sudoku that's bugged me since Friday and I heard the latch on the gate.  Beyser came into the garden with some tomatoes and eggs in a bowl and promptly went into her purse, came out with money and a photograph.  I took the photograph, told her to put her money away, transferred the goodies into one of my own bowls and virtually sent her on her way.  Half an hour later I'd done it and delivered it to her and now I need some more frames...I'm getting pretty low.

So my task for today was to unpick the quilting on a cot bumper that I'd bought in my cheapy shop.  The material is Pooh Bear, double sided but the pictures don't line up on both sides so I'm having to take it apart before I tackle the next phase of the project which is to make it into a soft book for a child.  Job's a guddun.  It was very soothing sitting in the shade beavering away on something so mundane and the next stage is to get it washed to see if the original machine hole will close up again before I get creative...fingers crossed.  I did stop for lunch and made a very substantial tuna mayo sandwich on the fresh bread that I'd got this morning and I don't thing there's room for anything else until tomorrow.  

Early posting tonight....I might be in Kardjali with my student tomorrow...it depends if their guests are in or out or I might just happen to find a pool I need a break from hot sweaty days.  Water for the garden and shower for me and that bastard sudoku is about to get started...yet again...LN..I just hate being beaten...LN