Marmalade, Part 1

Tina in Kalotina, contemplating the workings of the boiler
I started writing this in the kitchen of our house in Kalotina. Every so often, there is a little “tinkle tinkle” sound. No, it is not that naughty little doggie, Tina, peeing again. No, it is the sound of the wood pellets falling down into the central heating boiler’s combustion chamber. Very clever, really. I wonder how it knows when to feed in some more pellets. The boiler also makes a golden glow, an orange light that bathes the room. It is like having your own pet dragon in your kitchen. The bad news, of course, is that the whole damn house is so blooming cold that it is going to take ages for the central heating system to warm up every room. Well, that is the main drawback of a pellet boiler, of course. 

The boiler uses wood pellets (and lots of them!)
The boiler itself takes ages to get going properly and then it takes even longer before the house starts to warm up. But when is the house going to warm up? The heating has been on for four hours now and we are still freezing!

While we are on the subject of things taking a long time, I am pleased to be able to report that part of the new road from Kalotina to Sofia is now open. When the whole thing is finished, it is going to be an amazing new motorway. And that is not all! The Bulgarian government are also busy constructing another new motorway from Sofia to the Black Sea coast and that new road will go very close to Veliko Tarnovo, so it should knock off at least an hour’s driving time, as well as saving us a lot of petrol.

Okay, that was the good news. The bad news is that the kitchen is still freezing and every so often I have to get up and stand right in front of the boiler, in order to warm up a bit! Yes, the cooked breakfast was decidedly yummy, but then the roasted red peppers were some of the ones we prepared with my old friend Stefan. I just cannot believe that he is really gone, that we will never see him again. How long does it take before you finally get over someone's death? Perhaps you never do because part of you is dead too.

 Anyway, the house was cold and maybe we should have gone away somewhere warm for the winter. Mombasa in Kenya, perhaps, or another holiday in the Philippines. Maybe next year.

Lunch on Christmas Day was in The Happy Grill in Sofia. Yes, a rather obvious place to go for a restaurant meal.

Well, we are now back in Sofia again and I am writing this from our apartment in Ulitsa Kozyak. Our house was FREEZING and the central heating was taking ages to make any difference to the overall temperature. The bags of wood pellets are not expensive (about 8 or 9 leva), but we were getting through two of them each day. 


Jam today? No, marmalade tomorrow.


 We did, however, succeed in making more than forty jars of delicious home-made marmalade, so our trip was not entirely a waste of time. My wife's splendid Bosch mincer did a wonderful job. I am wondering whether this mincer could also be used for making cider. Our house in Kalotina is right next to an abandoned orchard.


My blog continues to flourish and I am cruising towards 50,000 “hits” early next year.

The fruit of our labour (or our labour with fruit!) 



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