Wednesday 21st August

Seven start this morning and I woke up with very puffy lips as if I'd had an allergic reaction to some thing and I could only think it was either orange juice or some cheesy biscuits that I'd nibbled last night.  As I drank my first coffee I had to stop myself from dribbling but thankfully as the day progressed it started to go down.  No juice and no biscuits for me tonight...horrible sensation.  I settled in to Soda Crush and what a run I had...I was playing until nine thirty...and then I ran out of lives...and was so pleased when I did.  I wanted to get on with the day.

Having said that...not a lot happened.  I made a ham and cheese toasty sandwich, more coffee, I picked up the Kindle, settled on the sofa and was there until I'd finished the book.  It was well into the afternoon and I didn't feel at all guilty about it.  One moment of excitement, through the fly screen I saw a squirrel in the yard.  It was a mixture of red and grey and where's the camera when you need it.  It played around the compost container, I went upstairs to get the camera and unfortunately it had gone by the time I'd got down the stairs again.  It's only the second one I've seen here.  

I loaded up the third book in the series but I abstained and decided that I really should be getting on with the blackboard now that I'd worked out how to do it.  I'd used the frame from an outside cold frame that I'd bought two years ago and never assembled  and now I had to find something to fill the middle of it and I set my mind on hardboard and I had a very large sheet on the top floor of the little house but I needed to get it down.  It's a bit booby trapped up there and lots of spaces to fall through and eventually I manoeuvred it and it fell to the bottom.  Cutting it was another problem and much harder than I thought it would be and lots of things came into play like a carving knife from the ditches.  In the end I folded it over and trod on it and it broke in half, over again and I had more or less the size I wanted and the jigsaw did the rest of the work for me.  I'd found some very old blackboard paint that D of S had given me around nine years ago, I peeled off the skin, managed to get enough into a jar with a little turps and gave it it's first coat and it's looking good.  Second coat tomorrow and jobs a guddun.  

Not into supper again ....giving my tummy a rest.  Nothing on the agenda for tomorrow except a little more woodwork and the second coat.  I might even mend the bench that appears to have died outside.  LN....Water tonight ...not risking anything else....LN

Thursday 22nd August

Six start, coffee. Soda Crush and down to the kitchen by eight.  I needed bread so I went down to the van walking down with Avatar after chatting to her daughter in the garden.  The daughter goes back to Turkey this evening and back to work.  Not many ladies down there this morning but no cheesy breads so I came back with a banichka, a cheesy filo flat pastry thingy and an unsliced which still remains intact.  I made more coffee and sat on the sofa with the cheesy thing and watched a little breakfast television.  I'm getting tired of the way that the programme anchors seem to have an opinion on everything.  They become very controversial...it used to be good when you were told the news and that was it and you made up your own opinions without influence...

First job was to water the plants in the conservatory and on the terraces,  I gave the petunias haircuts...some were looking very leggy.  Next job was to put the second coat of blackboard paint to cover the few streaks and put the rest of the hardboard up in the gods where it came from and some of the insulation that I've put to one side ready for winter.  When I'd taken the photo yesterday I realised what a state the little house had got in to.  There was still wood around from when the stairs went in and some from when I had made the blackboard.  There's so much dust kicked up...I need new cement floors throughout but that's not going to happen this year...probably next.  So I was in and out all afternoon and drinking well to settle the dust from the atmosphere that I was working in.  I've got loads of 'stuff' to burn and that's sitting in a garden rubbish sack but it was quite windy this afternoon so that will have to wait for the weekend...I'm helping the Librarian again tomorrow so it could be swimming in the afternoon if we get the work down quickly.  

Supper went in at six this evening but it came out in stages.  The chicken was still frozen when it went it, the vegetables were ready first so I had those and gave the chicken another half hour to make sure it was cooked through.  Both were delicious.  The boiler is on for a bath...I need to soak tonight...plastic shoes in this weather makes the feet sweat and with the dust around...not really worth talking about.  So Kardjali tomorrow at KAT.  LN...It could be quick...we'll see...LN

Friday 23rd August

I was expecting the Librarian for an early start to Kardjali so despite having a bath last night I wanted to wash my hair and take out yesterday's dirt.  I didn't bother with breakfast thinking we'd have it in town.  At ten I was still waiting, bright eyed and bushy tailed so I phoned her home and no response, tried her mobile and again no response which said to me that she was on the road.  I did a load of washing and pegged it out, made toast for a late breakfast and tried the mobile again and she phoned me back.  She was in Kardjali already so I was on stand-down and my swimming day wasn't to be.  She did suggest that I went and met her up there but the mood had passed.

I changed into lightweight trousers and settled down with my book and got really engrossed until there was a knock on the door.  One of my neighbour's daughter was there with her sister from Turkey.  They'd been to the graveyard and tidied up their grandparents' graves and they'd stopped off so that the sister could check out the garden and invariably the house with the full tourist tour.  She loved it...choc guzel....not spelt correctly but you'll get the meaning.  Off she went clutching an envelope filled with seeds from my garden.

I settled back down with the book and had my nap waking up at three.  Back to the book and then had an invitation to Greece tomorrow and checking on my euro I realised I had very few and I found my EHIC card and noticed that it expires next month so tried to renew it online....totally wrong move and ended up making a call to the said department.  No wonder it's in debt. I headed to Djebel at five fifteen, over to the cash point, straight to the money exchange and ended up in the supermarket next door which served the same purpose and now I have cash in my pocket for tomorrow.  I stopped off at my student's mum's shop and my new swim buddy and told him that there will be a lot of English homework when we start his lessons when he goes back to school.  He groaned...but he will do well I know...he's bright.

Home for seven, washing in, watered the old fire-pit bed...the flowers are looking crusty and have just reminded myself to turn off the hose pipe.  Fish finger sandwiches tonight followed by ice-cream.  LN...Eight start tomorrow for an eight-thirty meet.  LN

Saturday 24th August

Not a good night.  It was hot and balmy and the man down the road blasting out the radio morning greeting from Istanbul did so at such a volume that it annoyed me.  From the mosque it's very low key which is OK....this man's perfect rendering grates on the nerves.  The locals don't say anything and at this point I'm biting my tongue.  Any way up...I read for a while and then at six switched off the light, closed my eyes and dog-dozed for an hour and then it was all systems go.  I had to leave the house at eight, be on the road to get to the meeting point.  I was ten minutes leaving and thought I wouldn't make it but arrived outside the house at exactly eight thirty and we were on the road five minutes later.  Crossing the border took all of ten minutes with the passport being viewed by a solitary figure and not handed and recorded as having left BG and entered Greece.  It just made sense.

As we arrived at the market others were leaving with bags full.  We parked up, did the cheapy clothes stalls which didn't compare favourably to my cheapy shops in BG, there was a man happily selling his potatoes, my grape man was stressed and the fish sellers were obviously trying to out do each other with their fish sculptures.  And all enjoyed having the photograph taken.  We went for a coffee, found a cafe for chips and doners and then carried on to the beach.  Beautiful weather and tonight I am duty lobster on the face despite the fact that I spent most of the time in the water and sitting on the edge with the waves splashing over me.  I think I shall have to go back tomorrow to deposit the half a ton of small stones that found their way into my swim suit.  

Back to BG and again sailed through the border even quicker that we entered Greece, stopped and was given a conducted tour of the changes to the property since I was last there and headed home.  I'd bought grapes so I took some over to my Avatar and came back with a bowl of home made yogurt...exchange is no robbery.  Nothing on the agenda for tomorrow so far...it's very tempting to have another day on the beach but I shall abstain.  I have a bonfire to work through.  LN...A very pleasant day in the sea and with thirty nine degrees.....LN

Sunday 25th August

I ate too much too late last night and much too rich and ended up having trouble digesting it.  At four this morning I was reading, brought on mainly by my choice of supper and also by the fact that the balmy night made it very difficult to sleep.  I could have kept trying but not worth the effort.  Book four is going down well and forty six percent under my belt by the time that the athletics featured on TV this afternoon.

I was out of bed by six and it struck me that the sun was late coming up this morning...well it wasn't the sun but as winter draws on so to speak it obviously gets later.  There was a hint of morning and by six thirty I was watering the pot plants on the terrace and then moved the hose out to the garden and did the beds in order.  I moved to the bottom of the garden armed with garden fork and the rubbish that needed burning from the house and the hose was doing its thing while I was doing mine with the matches.  There wasn't any wind so it meant that I could get rid of the rubbish that I'd accumulated from the clean up of the workshop in the little house so I started the five and then collected the rest.  By seven fifteen it was well underway and by eight I cleared the lot.  I also noticed that one of the old mole hills that I'd trodden down has signs of underground activity so I went to the house and brought out a mole bomb, scooped the top from the hillock, found the way that the tunnel was running and lit the fuse and stood clear placing the stone over the hole so that the fumes went underground.  I'm really not nice to moles... but they don't appreciate the work that goes into the garden.  

By ten the sun was really up so I went indoors, made more coffee and buttered the bread that I'd bought last night and covered it with strawberry jam.  That was my breakfast.  Back to the sofa and book and by eleven I'd entered the parallel universe waking up at twelve thirty and deciding that ice-cream would fill the little gap and that tun is no more.  I'd got a little sweaty in my morning exercise and by now the temperature was up to the lower thirties so I went for a shower, washed my hair to get rid of the salt coating from yesterday and donning a lightweight pair of baggy trousers and a very flimsy top and with doors open and fly screens in place...I had a very pleasant afternoon with my book until the athletics started at three UK time.  So an afternoon of TV interspersed with making a tuna, onion, potato and beetroot salad with mayo and I made far too much but ate it all.  At least it was early and it should be digested before I rest my weary head tonight.

Nothing much to do tomorrow but I'm sure I'll find something....I might even head into Kardjali and find a swimming pool for tomorrow...my legs are actually getting to be the same tone as the arms and face instead of looking like a worker's tan due to wearing long trousers in the garden.  Only two pickies...one of the evening sky and the other of the maniac that brings his cows in using his revving his trials bike.  LN....Checking eBay for a stinger....LN

Monday 26th August

So Bank Holiday in England so I thought I'd have the day off too...and I did.  I had a good start to the day, watered the garden by seven, first load of washing in, stripped my bed, sorted out a new swim suit since both of my others were in the wash and fully intended to use it....wrong.  Second load of washing in and when I went to get a sheet out of the chest I notice that it needed a little TLC so spent the next half an hour giving it what it needed.  All washing pegged out and in to the kitchen for poached eggs on toast and it was still only nine thirty.

The rest of the day was me pegged out on the sofa.  I felt very tired as if I'd done a full day already so decided to take it really easy.  I finished my book and have got far into the next...I shall have to be buying some more at this rate or delve into the library and re-read some that I whizzed through in the past.  Lunch time came and went and as the day wore on it got hotter and hotter and eventually I decided that I wasn't going to the pool.  The eyelids eventually went southwards and I was woken by the thunder so I roused from the sofa, got the washing in from the line, sorted it out and put it away.  I made the bed up and sprayed the sheets with fly spray to get rid of the little bugs that I've been told are called chiggers or the official name of Berry Bugs..... tiny pests that live in grass and I obviously pick them up when mowing the grass or simply doing stuff like pegging out the washing.  They are just so itchy.

So seeing Ms D of S tomorrow in Djebel...it will be good to catch up and I might even head up to the pool if the weather is good.  There's not a lot to do in the garden.  LN....Grapes for supper....I need nothing more.....LN

Tuesday 27th August

So after yesterday sleeping most of the day I thought I'd have a very sleepless night but I obviously needed it.  I didn't even hear the man in the next village with his recorded mosque message unless somebody told him that the job should be left to the mosque.  I did hear it coming from the local mosque when daylight was breaking...just as it should be.  I took to reading my book from six thirty onwards and finished the fifth in the series.  I was different from the last ones, not sure I really enjoyed it but I had to get to the end to tell you that.

I had mushrooms left over my meal the other night so I fried them off in butter and had them on toast for breakfast and I sat i the sun looking out to the garden.  I watched a Pied Fly Catcher resting on the washing line and popping over to the lonesome pine and picking off insects.  It was there for about twenty minutes so obviously there were good pickings.  I washed up and tidied the kitchen, walked the garden and realised that the flowers in the marigold bed at the bottom were looking a little crispy so I attached all the hoses and managed to get water down there.  I left it on for a while and waited for confirmation that I would be meeting up with Ms D of S and the little one in Djebel but she was having a very slow start to the day.  We arranged that she would turn up for lunch and I put in my shipping order for bread...my shopping would wait until tomorrow.  I filled in the time clearing off the little house terrace and using the electric mower to cut back the grass in the yard and left everything out with the intention of doing 'stuff' this afternoon but it was too hot as it turned out.

They arrived around twelve and she'd tuned up with pizza for lunch.  We settled the little one down with pizza and I have a few more pictures for my fridge and they left at about one thirty.  It's been very hot today and nowhere was comfortable to just 'sit'.  There was one portion of pizza that was left, I'd mentioned it to Ms S but she advised me to give it to the cats and that seemed such a waste, I settled on the sofa with the pizza and started the sixth book in the series and as for the seventh, it's not due for release for another month or so so he better get on with it.  I had my afternoon nap waking up at four thirty and desperately in need of a shower....it has turned into real dry heat this afternoon, the clouds came over but have since dissipated and we have a clear sky tonight.

Tomorrow I'm swimming if the weather is good...I've put it off and need the exercise and have to go to Kardjali...like Mother Hubbard the cupboard is bare.  Thursday will be my gardening day.  LN...Book six is calling me....LN

Wednesday 28th August

Went to bed at eleven and read my book until twelve deciding to leave some for the morrow.  Woke up at six thirty, down for a coffee, back to my book, down for toast and strawberry jam at eight and back to bed.....and finished the book at nine thirty.  Lazy days and the rest of it was going the same way.  I'd water the pots last night so thought they'd be OK for the rest of the day and they probably were but they're crying out for it now.  I didn't have to go for bread since I'd had a deliver from Mrs D of S yesterday so I got washed and dressed and didn't even bother washing up the breakfast things...I was heading out.  After getting washed I thought I'd heard a car pull up so I went into the guest room and no car but Avatar was doing the grass and had the lawnmower on it's side and was looking at it.  I decided to go over the road to see if she needed any help and she'd already set sail on the next row.  It wasn't the mower, it was her..I think she was taking a breather.

In to the Nipper for ten thirty, drove down the back lane and fortunately the only vehicle I met was at the start of the route.  The traffic was pretty slow going once I got to Kardjali, there was more going the other way down to Greece.  Parked up under the trees and there weren't many people at the pool.  I paid my money and had a choice of beds but there was some movement.  I felt like a sunflower following the sun.  Swimming, swimming and more swimming interspersed with time on the sunbed, tinge of duty lobster but a feeling of well-being.  I was overheard when I was checking in but a young boy who asked me if I spoke English after I'd said thank you to the barman.  I replied that I was English and he volunteered that he was a ten year old American who was spending the summer with his grandmother.  I asked him if he spoke Bulgarian and he retorted with 'I have to. how else can I talk to her'.  I left it at that.  At around three thirty he asked me what time I was leaving and I said I hadn't a clue.  He said that his grandmother had asked if I would take them down to Kardjali and could I let them know when i was leaving.  I made a move at four mainly because a small child had been armed with a giant water pistol and was not keeping in in the confine of the pool and his father thought it was funny.  I made the comment that I thought it was a swimming pool...lead balloon.  Any way, grandmother and grandson were ready and off we set but she was trying to direct me to where she lived and I was having none of it so I suggested the hospital and they have a taxi rank there...sorted.

Kaufland and Lidl and back via the lane and I am so careful when i turn off the Greece racetrack and on to my little track.  I start to indicate with a hundred yards to go and keep touching the brakes so that the one following knows I'm about to do something with precision and this time it went smoothly.  No other vehicles on the lane and I arrived home at six thirty.  Shopping unpacked, no room for one of the new ice-creams in the freezer so I had to leave out a quarter full container and that is no more.  No supper required...I forgot to mention that I stopped off for a hot dog at Kaufland store so I've no need to cook anything tonight.  Tomorrow is a gardening day so it's going to be an early start.  LN...socks and long trousers at the ready.....LN

Thursday 29th August[b][/b]

Six start, out in the garden early, watered the pots and then set about watering the garden.  I had very crispy flowers and drooping shrubs.  The last few days have been torturous for the little beauties and for me mowing the grass.  I made myself a ham baguette for breakfast and a couple of glasses of coffee.  I tried to watch the morning news to find out what this new step by Boris is and the little tablet kept freezing but I was loathe to put the main computer on...such a time waster.

I took the grapes over for my Avatar last night and left them on the table reckoning that she was in bed so I went over to check that she'd found them.  Beyser was in the garden and Haciber so it was party time.  Beyser informed me that she needed a new battery for her wall clock next time that I was shopping and she was going on about visiting the hospital in Djebel but I didn't get the rest of it....and didn't want to get involved in driving her it...she has family.  Haciber disappeared to answer her telephone and we heard it ringing from her house and Beyser went to make coffee for the ladies.  I stayed with Avatar and she admitted that there was a problem with her mower, I reckon it needs a new blade so I turned it over and took the serial number and I'll try and find one in Kardjali next time I'm there.  We went over to Beyser's garden and Zelinger was there and apparently she had the doctor out last week...very poorly with very high blood pressure but she's a little better now but not A1.  I mentioned the clock, I went inside with Beyser, realised I had one at home sp went and fetched one, fitted it, changed the time and back on the wall it went.....done and dusted.

Home and at ten thirty I started the mower up and did the big lawn and the side lawn and came in at twelve.  It was getting really warm out there and I'd had enough.  On to the sofa, downed several glasses of water and then went out again until three, back to the sofa, played a few games of Soda Crush and then time for my afternoon nap.  Out to the garden at five thirty after putting the chicken in the oven with jacket potatoes and the rest of the grass finished.  Meanwhile, I was moving the hosepipe round the garden and that's another job done.

Chicken served up at seven thirty, leg portion and jacket potato over to Avatar, she was out so I went in the house and left it on the table for her, came back and served up mine moving up to the computer table on the landing but absolutely nothing on Transponder TV tonight.....I shall have an early night and have to find a book.  Tomorrow I'm off to my student's home with my laminator to get things done for the wedding....it's all systems 'go'.  LN....twenty three thousand plus steps today...result....LN