Thursday 1st October

So where did September go?  I suppose I've been so busy with guests, projects that it seems like it's just flown by.  Seven start this morning and it was just a wonderful start to the day.  I'd closed the curtains last night, the moon was just too bright but the light still came in through the side window and I was awake by six thirty.  I went out on to the balcony and took a few pickies of the mist in the valleys but soon came in again.  It was seven degrees overnight and twenty four in so where would you be...correct.  My guest was already up, I took my camera and coffee outside but again didn't stay there long.

Breakfast of mushrooms and fried egg on toast and again I'm not sure where the morning went.  By the time that I'd washed up it was chugging on for ten, I popped over the road and had a few words with my Avatar and then I started on the wood burner pipes, took them all out, cleaned them, gave the wood burner a spring clean even though it was the wrong season and replaced two of the long ones with others that I had in stock.  There appeared to be a small hole in the weld of one of the original so everything back in place and no smoke even though there was a fire.  I got it going to check out the path through the downstairs shower room but so far so good.  All finished and tidied away by twelve and then I started to do a little work in the garden after I'd washed my summer quilt and got it on the line....all go at my house.  I had a visit from a couple about four years ago when the lady tried to sell me what she called antiques at inflated prices.  She managed to make a bigger hole in the fence covering the old lane and with her husband they were attempting a picnic on the field outside my wall and fortunately the wind sent them running back to their car.  She had the audacity to ask me how old I was and that I didn't mind so much but when they go into the realms of asking how much my pension is I tell that that it's enough for me.  Again I was asked how much in leva and with a cheeky grin I reiterated that it was enough for me.   How rude, and off they went.

I settled on the sofa and did a few Sudoku and yes, I closed my eyes for ten minutes or so then got the tools ready to complete the work on Avatar's fence to ensure that the cows didn't break through while she in in Germany....and off she goes tonight to the airport.  Her daughter came over and said that she had problems with the boarding cards and could I print them out for her so we headed up the landing and eventually she had both of them printed.  I asked Avatar if she still wanted cow-proofing and she did so I gathered the cutters, barbed wire and securing wire and put them in the wheelbarrow and my guest came along to give a helping hand.  Everything finished by seven, I'd put supper of spicy sausage with chili flakes, tomato and beans into the slow cooker so ready to serve.  Washing up done, it's been a very productive day and tomorrow I shan't have Avatar.  I've been invited to stay with them in Germany and all being well in the spring, I shall be going, virus permitting.  Lovely moon again tonight and Mars is shining brightly.  LN....I love my house.....LN

Friday 2nd October

Just before seven start and again the sun was shining and the mist was in the valley.  I'd put my autumn weight quilt on yesterday and was concerned that it might be too warm especially since I'd thrown a rather large log on the fire last night and realised when I went to the bathroom that the radiator was warm.  My central heating is working so I'm testing it out again tonight and have just lit it.  I'm using up the odd shaped logs that wouldn't stack properly and had been dumped in the wheelbarrow....I'll save the serious logs for winter.  I like a fire though, nice feel about the house when it's going.

Down for coffee and my guest had risen from the depths of slumber around the same time and his tea was brewing in the kitchen. We hadn't got much of a plan for today so I thought about a visit to Zlatograd for lunch but it's amazing how sheltered you feel in the house and of the 'why risk it' mentality.  We hadn't a lot to go for, I was going to have a new belt made by my lovely leathercraft man but there's no urgency...another day will do.  Instead I got the washing machine going, gave orders for my guest to strip down his bed and two lines of washing out in quicksticks, made him a mushroom and salami omelette and I settled for mushrooms on toast.  I cleared the kitchen, he pegged out the washing and it wasn't long before we were fetching it in.  Beautiful day, we got up to forty degrees in the stairwell and it was twenty seven degrees outside but out of the wind but as the day wore on, the clouds came over around lunchtime and then were blown away and it turned into a lovely afternoon.  We did have one visit from a woodpecker to my lonesome pine and I managed to get one excellent shot and one other before it flew away.  I wanted to go on the balcony so that there wasn't glass between us but it would have flown away sooner.

An afternoon of reading and checking out dodgy emails and loading an anti-virus program on to my other devices to save the baskets getting through.  What is it with these people why don't they get a life that doesn't inflict pain on others.  Supper is in, chicken with roasted potatoes, onions, butternut squash and red peppers and I want to finish at a reasonable time tonight.  I hate it when I'm serving up around seven or seven thirty and for me I probably wouldn't bother with real food every night but with someone else in the house, it gets to be second nature...my nurturing and caring streak comes to the fore.  

Kardjali tomorrow and we'll go down to Kardjali lake and have lunch on the floating restaurant if the weather is good or find another in town if it's not.  LN....Fire going and time to relax.....LN

Saturday 3rd October

Short and sweet tonight.  I woke up early with the curtains open and what a lovely view it was.  Mist in the valley and photograph taken from my bed.  Down for coffee and the plan came together, toast for my breakfast and yogurt for my guest, it was good to sit out and just enjoy the morning, nothing much to do except get ready for Kardjali and head for the restaurant.

Into the Nipper by eleven, parked up at the free car-park, the mobile phone shop was closed so I left my guest in the car and headed for the shop down by the market and paid my outstanding bill.  On the way down to the store I noticed that one of the leva shops had a large plastic container like the ones that I've grown patio flowers this year and there was a red one that's a perfect fit for the top of my new red pot on the terrace so I bought it as I walked back to the car after paying my bill.  I dumped the container in the car and we walked down to the cheapy shop and the only thing that I managed to find was a red fleecy scarf with gloves on the end of the scarf and zipped pockets built in so I just had to have it.  The temperature today is up to the high twenties...not a day to be thinking of snow.

Back to the car and up to the restaurant and it's been a long time since I've been there.  We hadn't made a reservation but they managed to find us a table because we were early but as we left the crowds were gathering.  Food was good, they didn't have two of the items that we wanted on the menu but we came away with appetites fulfilled.  Back to Lidl and a few items and home for four thirty and it was another afternoon on the terrace in the sun.  We did walk the garden and I noticed a cricket on one of the plants and I photographed a hole in the ground at the bottom of the garden and we're still wondering what it belongs to.  

No supper for me....nothing on the agenda for tomorrow so far but things can change.  LN....It was good to get out today......LN

Sunday 4th October

Another early start but the mist wasn't hanging in the valley this morning....it was hanging on the hillside and it was one step away from fog but then the sun came out and drove it away.  I sat out on the terrace with my Sudoku book listening to the morning awake and the snoring from my guest bedroom and there wasn't much activity from the said bedroom until nine so it was a late breakfast.  Bacon, egg and fried bread followed by toast and I opened the jar that I'd made last week and it was really very palatable.  Still not sure if it was apricots or peaches that my Avatar gave me but at least I made use of them.  As I mentioned, I have about another five kilo but before I start I need some lemons to make sure that there's enough pectin in it.

One load of washing out and then I set about putting back the soil that came out of the holes when we had the calamities with the plastic pipes.  I gathered a load of leaf mould from under my two big trees by the front wall, put about two barrow loads in the hole and put the old soil back on top of it.  I realised it wasn't enough so I put more compost and the seed compost in there too and it's ready for planting up.  I've decided the fuscia is going in and another little shrub that I don't know the name of to add colour to the bed.  I've also sprinkled some zinnia seeds round and about for next year.  The wall flowers are also heading for the bed, the seeds have just come through so in about a couple of weeks they will be ready for planting out.

Out by the compost bin and I noticed a beetle that was trying any which way to escape.  It must have been much smaller when it went in and in the end we felt sorry for him and he was lifted to safety.  They are so beautiful but I've really not go round to being able to handle them yet.  Tidying up the under patio bed I trimmed back the euonymus and disturbed a praying mantis that decided that life was better on one of the blue flower buckets,  I watered the rest of the pots and disturbed yet another grasshopper but didn't have my camera with me...it will wait for another day.  I turned my attention to the little garden between the garage and the front wall and that's now tidy, the leaves area dumped down the bottom of the garden ready for the great autumn cascades when the first frost arrives.  I felt it would be easier to dump the newbies in the compost bin...much less effort.  Supper is over...I had cheese and onion sandwiches, the salami, pate and the different cheeses came out we finished off the meal at the same time finished off the bananas.  I think there might be a choc ice in the freezer demanding my attention so I'll have to be checking in on it.   LN.....Bath and bed...I'm knacked...twelve thousand steps today....LN

Monday 5th October

Bit of a catch up day.  Good start but didn't sleep to well and after breakfast I decided that a catch-up nap was required.  I think the accumulated tiredness hit me so I caught up on the zzz's  I was soon back to it though.....Mikey B's bench now has new supports and needs a quick sanding down and a lick of paint to bring it back to scratch.  That will probably get done after my guest has left...we're on final countdown....one week to go.

I set about cutting back the over hanging branches about the garage and that area looks relatively tidy.  I'm now thinking that a few more shrubs, providing that they are not liked by cows will suit that corner well or maybe a buddlieh and a berberis....that should teach them to leave other peoples plants alone.  I did throw the cut off branches over the fence into the ditch in front of the house and they stripped it bare on their way back to the farm.  A little bit of electrical wiring was taking place in the little house to give me a light in the old shower room where I've stored the latest wood.  As with most things there's always something missing or mislaid so at six we headed into Djebel to catch the hardware shop and bought the bits. popped into the car shop and I've arranged to take the Nipper in tomorrow.  I've noticed a few times that when I come to start it in the mornings, it starts then the engine fades then I have to start it again so that it can swop over to the gas.  Any problems and I want it checked out.

Too lazy to cook tonight so after the hardware shop we made out way to the pizza restaurant and despite the fact that there was a very patient cat, it didn't get fed, nothing left.  Home for eight, car into the garage tomorrow and that's about it.  Nothing else on the agenda.  LN.....A balmy night.....LN

Tuesday 6th October

Bit of a disturbed night last night with the brain box delving into areas that are best left alone and it really didn't help that the temperature was around twenty degrees and I had to sleep with my thermostatic leg out from under the quilt.  It was about three thirty when I decided that Sudoku wasn't the way to go and it was time for a few zzz's.  Morning started at seven and I decided to get washed and dressed and into the garage before the rush started.  I called into the shop first and the garage owner was already collecting parts for one of the repairs and he had two others waiting.  I went down to the garage, parked up, explained the problem, he had a quick look and I suggested that I came back another day and instead, he suggested that I came back after lunch so I was there for three.

I went back and made poached eggs for breakfast, no toast to follow and I was out gardening, clearing the weeds from the pots ready for wintering the pots and contents in the little house.  I put the two paving slabs that I'd dug up a couple of days ago to cover the pipes that had undergone trauma and were now covered with cement.  The log stool is sitting on one of them and the second one is next to the fuscia that's just gone in.  My guest was putting a light in the little house bathroom which holds two tons of wood so that in the dead of winter I can see what's going into the log carrier....it helps.

Back to the garage by three, the owner was straight on the job and decided that a new filter was needed and four new spark plugs.  It was fascinating to see the difference in the normal ones and the ones that are made for gas cars.  So plugs replaced, filter replaced, everything checked over and he checked it by pressing down the accelerator and achieving seven thousand revs and he likened it to a Ferrari.  I think he likes my little car.  I asked for the bill and it checked out at sixty leva roughly just under thirty pounds and parts were forty five so I think I receive a special rate for labour....just saying.

Supper of potato salad, tomato and onion in vinegar and oil, grated carrots, cheese and salami....that was enough and I followed it with some shop bough eclairs that weren't as good as they used to be.  Everything locked up for the night, nothing more to do and as for tomorrow, not a clue.  LN....I'll let you know what I get up to....LN

Wednesday 7th October

Much better night, it wasn't so hot so slept well.  I was awake at six thirty though, made coffee upstairs and went back to bed with it.  Not much noise from my guest but when he raised his head I was playing nurse Florence...his ankle had started playing up last night so I'd applied deep heat and bandaged it in a very professional figure of eight and this morning it was to remove the bandage and listen to the 'oohs' and 'aarrhhs' as he tried to put his weight on it.  There's not much sympathy in this house so he knows not to complain...the definition is normally found in the dictionary.  So washed and dressed, scrambled eggs for breakfast since there wasn't a preference and then I set to on the little house organising it for the workshop to be turned into a winter nursery for the pot plants.  When the temperature is above twenty and we start to think of winter I remember getting caught out with snow around this time about six years ago.  The men were here and we'd decided on a barbecue and eventually the fire was lit and the meat was cooked but we moved inside to eat it.  I remember most the sudden fall of the leaves from the trees in the yard and the clearing up I had to do.  A few days later we were back to normal.

The tidying went on for a few hours, I started the bonfire and got it going so well that I had to babysit it for a while or get the hose pipe connected and be on standby.  It soon died down, bit more clearing  and sorting, starter wood chopped and ready to bring in to the little house and tomorrow it's going to be more of the same.  I haven't taken any pickies...they will come when it's finished.

Pork tenderloin in the oven and I've topped it off with a barbecue sauce and potato wedges to be served with it. .....again another lazy option.  LN.....Florence has duties to attend to......LN

Thursday 8th October

So I woke up this morning when my guest opened the latch on his bedroom door at just before five and my acute sense of hearing detected it...and it's left me grumpy all day.  There was a wonderful electrical storm over the mountains, I could see it but there was no thunder with it but pretty to watch. I couldn't get back to sleep, tried playing games and doing sudoku but to no avail so eventually I got up at eight.  His door was shut but at nine thirty I was in need of food so I knocked and went in and told him to get his nether regions into gear, breakfast was being served at roughly ten and it was then or never.  I went out and got in the cushions to the outside furniture that had been forgotten yesterday.  There were only a couple of the red ones so I hung them in the conservatory to air but they're still waiting to go into the chest on the terrace.  

I spent the morning catching up on emails and admin stuff that I'd been putting off for a while.  The afternoon I settled in for ancestry and I'm definitely coming down on the side of William as a seven time great grandfather not Thomas.  It's getting quite confusing with around four Johns being born within ten years of each other and they're difficult to sort out.  I'll get there, Rome wasn't built in a day and the last time confusion reigned, I had to confirm my Thomas which I did when I discovered his signature on two different documents....definitely and eye-opener.

As for the rest of the day, it poured down with rain until around six this evening so there's been no outside activity.  The sheep on their way home looked very bedraggled, my garden and yard have pools and the ground's so hard that it's taking a while to soak through.  At least the pots don't have to be watered and I suppose I shall be going round them in the morning emptying the buckets out before they drown to death.  The temperature dropped and at four I was bullied to light the fire.  When you don't have wood burners at home they're a novelty and I felt a bit mean saying that it wasn't cold enough for one so I gave in.  Unfortunately all the radiators are piping hot and the pump is going like crazy so I shall be opening the door to the balcony soon otherwise I shall never sleep. Lovely skies and the start of a rainbow that never materialised into anything worth recording.  We did have one sojourn into the little house and a pallet that I'd made into a useful shelving unit has been attached to the wall so is even more useful now.  I'll use it to store the gardening 'bits'.  

Supper was a giant brie with toast and that was enough, we'd both been munching on peanuts while watching the Chase. Probably Kardjali tomorrow if the weather is good...I need a few things and otherwise it will be a lazy day.  LN....Now to sort the fire....LN

Friday 9th October

Normal start to the day....it had rained over night but I managed to catch the first glimmer of morning over the mountains.  It was chilly on the balcony so I didn't longer long, made a coffee and went back to bed.  I was washed and dressed by seven thirty, we didn't go to Kardjali, boiled eggs for breakfast, the weather cleared up around eleven and I  sat out under the balcony.  Even though it started to rain again it still wasn't cold...only a little damp but when the sun broke through, it was really hot but it wasn't long before the clouds came over again.

I planted a few seeds, trod down a few mole runs but the betting is that they'll be there again tomorrow.  I'm hoping the cats that seem to be roaming around get the scent and dig them up but so far no luck.  My guest took up stance over a spider hole and managed to get a few shots of it but the only program that I run on this machine will allow you to edit them but when you try to save a copy it only saves a copy of the original not the edited one.  Not much point really but I'll have to investigate it properly or add another app to the computer.

I came in at two and gave my feet a good wash.  I'd been wearing my gardening clogs, coiled up two of the garden hoses thinking that they use is over for this year and the water poured out of one of them and landed in my clog so mixed with the dirt inside my toes got pretty grubby.  So winter clogs at the ready, summer clogs washed and draining ready to go away until next summer.  My guest took to his book, I phoned to organise a taxi to take him form Gatwick to home and disappeared up to the computer and carried on with my ancestry.  I'm even more determined to follow the first trail I followed, I've just got to find my William's first wife that produced the bairns.  I think the second wife was too late to give him any.

I lit the fire at around five and made bolognaise sauce for supper putting it on the wood burner to finish off while I did the pasta.  It tuned out well and there's enough left to make a pasta bake tomorrow just more pasta and cover it with white sauce.  I suppose it's a packing day for my guest, we head off to Sofia on Sunday and I must remember to book an hotel.  Nothing so far for tomorrow, no last minute shopping required and what we don't have we can go without.  LN....Interesting skies today..... LN