Gardening Bore, Part 2


Yesterday we had quite a shock. The previous owner of our house in Daveri, being the charming fellow that he is, had complained to the electricity company that we had not changed the name of the account (and yes, that was a bit careless of us). Anyway, two workmen from the electricity company turned up at our house in Daveri to DISCONNECT the electricity. They had already opened the main supply box, in order to turn it all off! Fortunately, Irena managed to persuade them not to disconnect our supply, on condition that we got the name of the account changed. I rushed off to Gorna Orachovitsa, a town next to Veliko Tarnovo, in order to change the name on the account. I had with me the Notarius Act (a bit like a Title Deed in the UK), in order to prove that it really is our house. Unfortunately, the women in the electricity office said that the Notarius Act has my name on it AND Irena's name, so she had to be there as well. This meant driving back to Daveri, collecting Irena and then going to the office again. After lots of boring forms, all written in Bulgarian, we eventually managed to get it all sorted out.


The central heating system is behaving itself once more. The previous owner did leave behind some really dry firewood, so that is what we have been using. I am also moving all of the firewood that we have that is fairly new and "green" to the terrace at the back of the house, in order to dry it out in the sun. I have managed to get my hands on one pallet, as I do not want it sitting on the ground, and I am planning to get a few more from somewhere or other. I have also been very busy with my splendid new sledgehammer and my rather good Husqvarna splitting wedge. (I am still hoping for a Husqvarna sponsorship deal, after all of the free publicity I have been giving them.) According to the YouTube videos that I have seen, you have to split the larger pieces of wood if you want them to dry out properly. This is very tiring, back-breaking work.

I have finally replaced the last of the fence posts. This has been a slow, exasperating and tiring job. First, I had to unscrew the horizontal pieces from the vertical fence posts. Then I could remove the top part of the fence posts, but that still left the bottom bit (the part that goes inside the stone wall). Some of the bottom bit was rotten and so it could be scraped or dug out. However, there was usually a big piece that was NOT rotten and it blooming well did not want to come out!

On a more positive note, the artichoke seeds that I planted weeks ago in the greenhouse have finally decided to do something. Hooray! And the old wooden wheels that I repaired look rather splendid.

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