The Fruits of Our Labours, Part 1

Yes, here it is. A real Russian visa! With the news about the poisoning in Salisbury still making the headlines, I was a bit worried that the Russian authorities would not allow British citizens to go to the Crimea, but hey ho! As well as the hassle of getting the Bulgarian residency cards, the Russian visas cost us 100 euros each, plus two trips into Sofia and the medical insurance (in addition to the medical insurance we already have for Bulgaria). In order to apply for the visas in the first place, Papa (my father-in-law) had to complete (and pay for) a special invitation and then we had to fill in two very long online visa application forms and print them out. When we get to Moscow, we will have a long taxi ride between the two different airports and that will not be cheap either!

On the subject of fruit, a neighbour from across the road heard Zlatka complaining to Irena. It seems that I may have broken the window of her old Lada three years ago, when she gave me a lift into Dragoman. The repair cost 40 euros, she claims. (So why didn’t she tell me about it three years ago?) Zlatka also said that we had to pay for the fence that she put up before we bought the house from Penka. Penka refused to pay for the fence and now she is dead, so there is not much chance that Zlatka will get the money from her, so now she is asking us. Anyway, the neighbour from across the road heard this rather unpleasant discussion and a few hours later he gave me a huge and delicious water melon!

Another source of satisfaction is the large pile of firewood under the garage. I have been busy with the Einhell and no, I did not lose any fingers or other appendages. The bench saw did produce a heck of a lot of sawdust, but it did a very good job a chopping up the wood that has been sitting under the steps for the last fourteen years or so. As it is so wonderfully dry, Irisha has named it “the golden wood”.

Today saw the visit of Dimitri, the man from the security system. He took about an hour to install new batteries and check all of the alarms. The sensor in the garage is set at the lowest level, so that the alarm will not be set off by the spiders.

Ivo, who lives around the corner from us in Kalotina, spent about an hour trying to fix the dishwasher (Bosch, of course!) in our kitchen. Although he tried everything he could think of, alas he could not get the dishwasher to work properly. Rather than get an engineer out here to fix it, I think that I will put the dishwasher in the back of the X Trail (if and when it ever comes back from the Nissan garage) and then I will take it to a Bosch service centre in Sofia. Tomorrow I am planning to take in my desk computer from my study, as it needs various upgrades and does not access Google Maps.

On a slightly less serious note, Lady Mary got absolutely filthy giving water to some pigs and Mr Bates knows what happened to Anna. (Every day we watch another episode of Downton Abbey after lunch.) Another frequent event has been backgammon, with yours truly winning 7 – 0!

      

The latest on the wasps and the bats up in the loft is that the ultrasonic gizmo seems to be doing its stuff. There are still some wasps up there, but the bats appeared to have buzzed （or flapped） off. Well, we feel that we have made some progress, but there is still a lot more that needs to be done. The loft hatch needs to shut properly, so that the wasps will not be able to get in that way.

Plesio Computers in Sofia did a great job with my ACER desktop computer.Now MS Office and Google Maps are working properly, at long last. Carrying the computer around the streets of Sofia was a pain and eventually I left it in the luggage in the central railway station.

The real difficulty, however, is our car, the Nissan X Trail. Having given them 5000 leva, I was rather hoping that they would get on with it. Whenever I try to speak to Daniel, the chap who sold me the car, he is usualIy on the phone to someone else or else he says that he needs to speak to the service department. So I went to the main Nissan garage and spoke to the service department. I pointed out that they have already had the car since June, so will it be ready by the end of July? Maybe. This means that I will most probably bring back the Nissan Note that I am huring at 30 leva a day and hope that my car will be ready when I come back to Bulgaria on 10th August.
Sent from my Huawei Mobile

The latest on the wasps and the bats up in the loft is that the ultrasonic gizmo seems to be doing its stuff. There are still some wasps up there, but the bats appeared to have buzzed （or flapped） off. Well, we feel that we have made some progress, but there is still a lot more that needs to be done. The loft hatch needs to shut properly, so that the wasps will not be able to get in that way.

Plesio Computers in Sofia did a great job with my ACER desktop computer.Now MS Office and Google Maps are working properly, at long last. Carrying the computer around the streets of Sofia was a pain and eventually I left it in the luggage in the central railway station.

The real difficulty, however, is our car, the Nissan X Trail. Having given them 5000 leva, I was rather hoping that they would get on with it. Whenever I try to speak to Daniel, the chap who sold me the car, he is usualIy on the phone to someone else or else he says that he needs to speak to the service department. So I went to the main Nissan garage and spoke to the service department. I pointed out that they have already had the car since June, so will it be ready by the end of July? Maybe. This means that I will most probably bring back the Nissan Note that I am huring at 30 leva a day and hope that my car will be ready when I come back to Bulgaria on 10th August.
Sent from my Huawei Mobile

The latest on the wasps and the bats up in the loft is that the ultrasonic gizmo seems to be doing its stuff. There are still some wasps up there, but the bats appeared to have buzzed （or flapped） off. Well, we feel that we have made some progress, but there is still a lot more that needs to be done. The loft hatch needs to shut properly, so that the wasps will not be able to get in that way.

Plesio Computers in Sofia did a great job with my ACER desktop computer.Now MS Office and Google Maps are working properly, at long last. Carrying the computer around the streets of Sofia was a pain and eventually I left it in the luggage in the central railway station.

The real difficulty, however, is our car, the Nissan X Trail. Having given them 5000 leva, I was rather hoping that they would get on with it. Whenever I try to speak to Daniel, the chap who sold me the car, he is usualIy on the phone to someone else or else he says that he needs to speak to the service department. So I went to the main Nissan garage and spoke to the service department. I pointed out that they have already had the car since June, so will it be ready by the end of July? Maybe. This means that I will most probably bring back the Nissan Note that I am huring at 30 leva a day and hope that my car will be ready when I come back to Bulgaria on 10th August.
Sent from my Huawei Mobile

The latest on the wasps and the bats up in the loft is that the ultrasonic gizmo seems to be doing its stuff. There are still some wasps up there, but the bats appeared to have buzzed （or flapped） off. Well, we feel that we have made some progress, but there is still a lot more that needs to be done. The loft hatch needs to shut properly, so that the wasps will not be able to get in that way.

Plesio Computers in Sofia did a great job with my ACER desktop computer.Now MS Office and Google Maps are working properly, at long last. Carrying the computer around the streets of Sofia was a pain and eventually I left it in the luggage in the central railway station.

The real difficulty, however, is our car, the Nissan X Trail. Having given them 5000 leva, I was rather hoping that they would get on with it. Whenever I try to speak to Daniel, the chap who sold me the car, he is usualIy on the phone to someone else or else he says that he needs to speak to the service department. So I went to the main Nissan garage and spoke to the service department. I pointed out that they have already had the car since June, so will it be ready by the end of July? Maybe. This means that I will most probably bring back the Nissan Note that I am huring at 30 leva a day and hope that my car will be ready when I come back to Bulgaria on 10th August.
Sent from my Huawei Mobile

The latest on the wasps and the bats up in the loft is that the ultrasonic gizmo seems to be doing its stuff. There are still some wasps up there, but the bats appeared to have buzzed （or flapped） off. Well, we feel that we have made some progress, but there is still a lot more that needs to be done. The loft hatch needs to shut properly, so that the wasps will not be able to get in that way.

Plesio Computers in Sofia did a great job with my ACER desktop computer.Now MS Office and Google Maps are working properly, at long last. Carrying the computer around the streets of Sofia was a pain and eventually I left it in the luggage in the central railway station.

The real difficulty, however, is our car, the Nissan X Trail. Having given them 5000 leva, I was rather hoping that they would get on with it. Whenever I try to speak to Daniel, the chap who sold me the car, he is usualIy on the phone to someone else or else he says that he needs to speak to the service department. So I went to the main Nissan garage and spoke to the service department. I pointed out that they have already had the car since June, so will it be ready by the end of July? Maybe. This means that I will most probably bring back the Nissan Note that I am huring at 30 leva a day and hope that my car will be ready when I come back to Bulgaria on 10th August.
Sent from my Huawei Mobile

The latest on the wasps and the bats up in the loft is that the ultrasonic gizmo seems to be doing its stuff. There are still some wasps up there, but the bats appeared to have buzzed （or flapped） off. Well, we feel that we have made some progress, but there is still a lot more that needs to be done. The loft hatch needs to shut properly, so that the wasps will not be able to get in that way.

Plesio Computers in Sofia did a great job with my ACER desktop computer.Now MS Office and Google Maps are working properly, at long last. Carrying the computer around the streets of Sofia was a pain and eventually I left it in the luggage in the central railway station.

The real difficulty, however, is our car, the Nissan X Trail. Having given them 5000 leva, I was rather hoping that they would get on with it. Whenever I try to speak to Daniel, the chap who sold me the car, he is usualIy on the phone to someone else or else he says that he needs to speak to the service department. So I went to the main Nissan garage and spoke to the service department. I pointed out that they have already had the car since June, so will it be ready by the end of July? Maybe. This means that I will most probably bring back the Nissan Note that I am huring at 30 leva a day and hope that my car will be ready when I come back to Bulgaria on 10th August.
Sent from my Huawei Mobile

The latest on the wasps and the bats up in the loft is that the ultrasonic gizmo seems to be doing its stuff. There are still some wasps up there, but the bats appeared to have buzzed （or flapped） off. Well, we feel that we have made some progress, but there is still a lot more that needs to be done. The loft hatch needs to shut properly, so that the wasps will not be able to get in that way.

Plesio Computers in Sofia did a great job with my ACER desktop computer.Now MS Office and Google Maps are working properly, at long last. Carrying the computer around the streets of Sofia was a pain and eventually I left it in the luggage in the central railway station.

The real difficulty, however, is our car, the Nissan X Trail. Having given them 5000 leva, I was rather hoping that they would get on with it. Whenever I try to speak to Daniel, the chap who sold me the car, he is usualIy on the phone to someone else or else he says that he needs to speak to the service department. So I went to the main Nissan garage and spoke to the service department. I pointed out that they have already had the car since June, so will it be ready by the end of July? Maybe. This means that I will most probably bring back the Nissan Note that I am huring at 30 leva a day and hope that my car will be ready when I come back to Bulgaria on 10th August.
Sent from my Huawei Mobile

The latest on the wasps and the bats up in the loft is that the ultrasonic gizmo seems to be doing its stuff. There are still some wasps up there, but the bats appeared to have buzzed （or flapped） off. Well, we feel that we have made some progress, but there is still a lot more that needs to be done. The loft hatch needs to shut properly, so that the wasps will not be able to get in that way.

Plesio Computers in Sofia did a great job with my ACER desktop computer.Now MS Office and Google Maps are working properly, at long last. Carrying the computer around the streets of Sofia was a pain and eventually I left it in the luggage in the central railway station.

The real difficulty, however, is our car, the Nissan X Trail. Having given them 5000 leva, I was rather hoping that they would get on with it. Whenever I try to speak to Daniel, the chap who sold me the car, he is usualIy on the phone to someone else or else he says that he needs to speak to the service department. So I went to the main Nissan garage and spoke to the service department. I pointed out that they have already had the car since June, so will it be ready by the end of July? Maybe. This means that I will most probably bring back the Nissan Note that I am huring at 30 leva a day and hope that my car will be ready when I come back to Bulgaria on 10th August.
Sent from my Huawei Mobile

The latest on the wasps and the bats up in the loft is that the ultrasonic gizmo seems to be doing its stuff. There are still some wasps up there, but the bats appeared to have buzzed （or flapped） off. Well, we feel that we have made some progress, but there is still a lot more that needs to be done. The loft hatch needs to shut properly, so that the wasps will not be able to get in that way.

Plesio Computers in Sofia did a great job with my ACER desktop computer.Now MS Office and Google Maps are working properly, at long last. Carrying the computer around the streets of Sofia was a pain and eventually I left it in the luggage in the central railway station.

The real difficulty, however, is our car, the Nissan X Trail. Having given them 5000 leva, I was rather hoping that they would get on with it. Whenever I try to speak to Daniel, the chap who sold me the car, he is usualIy on the phone to someone else or else he says that he needs to speak to the service department. So I went to the main Nissan garage and spoke to the service department. I pointed out that they have already had the car since June, so will it be ready by the end of July? Maybe. This means that I will most probably bring back the Nissan Note that I am huring at 30 leva a day and hope that my car will be ready when I come back to Bulgaria on 10th August.
Sent from my Huawei Mobile

The latest on the wasps and the bats up in the loft is that the ultrasonic gizmo seems to be doing its stuff. There are still some wasps up there, but the bats appeared to have buzzed （or flapped） off. Well, we feel that we have made some progress, but there is still a lot more that needs to be done. The loft hatch needs to shut properly, so that the wasps will not be able to get in that way.

Plesio Computers in Sofia did a great job with my ACER desktop computer.Now MS Office and Google Maps are working properly, at long last. Carrying the computer around the streets of Sofia was a pain and eventually I left it in the luggage in the central railway station.

The real difficulty, however, is our car, the Nissan X Trail. Having given them 5000 leva, I was rather hoping that they would get on with it. Whenever I try to speak to Daniel, the chap who sold me the car, he is usualIy on the phone to someone else or else he says that he needs to speak to the service department. So I went to the main Nissan garage and spoke to the service department. I pointed out that they have already had the car since June, so will it be ready by the end of July? Maybe. This means that I will most probably bring back the Nissan Note that I am huring at 30 leva a day and hope that my car will be ready when I come back to Bulgaria on 10th August.
Sent from my Huawei MobileThe latest on the wasps and the bats up in the loft is that the ultrasonic gizmo seems to be doing its stuff. There are still some wasps up there, but the bats appeared to have buzzed （or flapped） off. Well, we feel that we have made some progress, but there is still a lot more that needs to be done. The loft hatch needs to shut properly, so that the wasps will not be able to get in that way.

Plesio Computers in Sofia did a great job with my ACER desktop computer.Now MS Office and Google Maps are working properly, at long last. Carrying the computer around the streets of Sofia was a pain and eventually I left it in the luggage in the central railway station.

The real difficulty, however, is our car, the Nissan X Trail. Having given them 5000 leva, I was rather hoping that they would get on with it. Whenever I try to speak to Daniel, the chap who sold me the car, he is usualIy on the phone to someone else or else he says that he needs to speak to the service department. So I went to the main Nissan garage and spoke to the service department. I pointed out that they have already had the car since June, so will it be ready by the end of July? Maybe. This means that I will most probably bring back the Nissan Note that I am huring at 30 leva a day and hope that my car will be ready when I come back to Bulgaria on 10th August.
Sent from my Huawei MobileThe latest on the wasps and the bats up in the loft is that the ultrasonic gizmo seems to be doing its stuff. There are still some wasps up there, but the bats appeared to have buzzed (or flapped) off. Well, we feel that we have made some progress, but there is still a lot more that needs to be done. The loft hatch needs to be shut properly, so that the wasps will not be able to get in that way.

Plesio Computers in Sofia did a great job with my ACER desktop computer. Now MS Office and Google Maps are working properly, at long last. Most parts of the EUROTALK computer programs for learning Bulgarian seem to be working. Carrying the computer around the streets of Sofia was a pain and eventually I left it in the luggage in the central railway station.

The real difficulty, however, is our car, the Nissan X Trail. Having given them 5000 leva for the repairs, I was rather hoping that they would get on with it. Whenever I try to speak to Daniel, the chap who sold me the car, he is usually on the phone to someone else or else he says that he needs to speak to the service department. So I went to the main Nissan garage and spoke to the lady in the service department. I pointed out that they have already had the car since June, so will it be ready by the end of July? Maybe. This means that I will most probably bring back the Nissan Note that I am hiring at 30 leva a day and so I hope that my car will be ready when I come back to Bulgaria on 10th August. Well, the service lady was not very encouraging: another two weeks at the least, as ordering Nissan parts from the centre in Amsterdam is a slow process.

Last but by no means least, our friend Ivo from Veliko Tarnovo has got back to us about the central heating. 5,000 euros is a bit more than we had planned on spending, but as usual Ivo has been very thorough and professional.

Some of the "golden wood", waiting for winter