Bulgaria with Noodles

Yesterday we came back from Daveri, having stayed there overnight. Whenever we move from Daveri to VT or the other way round, my dear sweet wife always manages to find piles and piles of stuff that she wants to move from one to the other. Anyway, Daveri was blooming freezing when we arrived, but I am glad to say that our central heating worked pretty well. What was not working so well was the electricity. There wasn’t any. Although power cuts do tend to happen quite a lot in the Bulgarian countryside during the winter months, it was a bit of a shock to arrive in Daveri and find that there was no power. Fortunately, the electricity came back on fairly soon and so we were able to get on with all of the jobs associated with preparing for winter. If you are going to be leaving your house empty for some length of time during the winter months, of course you need to drain all of the water pipes. Before you can do that, you must turn off the water. The next day we were just about to leave...

If you are reading this blog post, then I suppose that it means that you must have electricity and, unlike quite a lot of places in the UK, a tree has not crashed down onto your house and you have not been drowned or swept out to sea. The dreadful storm hits us about midday. It was bad. Tina was terrified and part of the roof was ripped off the greenhouse. Two of the trees in the garden are more or less wrecked, so they are going to be chopped up for firewood, and four sections of the old wooden fence are down in the Secret Garden. Two of them are so badly damaged that it was quite difficult to repair them. We had brought the old green plastic garden chair with us when we moved to Bulgaria from the UK, so it was a bit sad to see that it had been broken in the storm.  As for the roof, two ridge tiles were completely blown off and of course they were smashed, as was the special rounded tile at the end of the ridge. The answer to most problems is Vincent and he managed to find a repla...

After I put AJ on the coach to Sofia, I went back to Daveri. It was good to see my wife and our naughty little dog. Then Irena decided that she also wanted some time in Veliko Tarnovo, so we stayed in VT for a few days.  We finally, finally paid the deposit for the loft insulation. I do not like the idea of unwrapping rolls of that horrible stuff called fibreglass, but that was the cheapest option. I am just hoping that I can get the rolls through the loft hatch. Just before we left for VT, I looked in our letterbox and lo and behold! There was a nice card from Peter and a CD of photos. Every year, he always sends me lots of photos that he has taken during his holiday in Bulgaria. He really has taken some good photos. Well, now we are back again in Daveri, having made no less than TWO visits to Kaufland. Tina is very happy to be running around the garden once again.  As for my blog, it has now notched up more than 100,000 "hits". Wow! The big question for me is why I hardly e...

. Yes, he was supposed to be on holiday, but while Peter was with us he fixed the lights in two bathrooms, mowed all three lawns and repaired the hob of the cooker in our apartment in VT.  Now he is back in the UK, having a rest.

Dear Peter, It is always magnificently amazing to receive an email from you, my dear chap! Thank you also for the scanned bank statements. Yes, it is quite clear that Barclays have NOT transferred any money, so I am going to write to them again. This time I will ask them to set up a regular transfer every six months, so that we do not have this problem again. Yes, we are still in Daveri. It has been flipping cold and wet too. When is summer finally going to arrive? Did I mention the home-grown asparagus? It was absolutely delicious, even though it makes your pee extra-stinky. I am sure that there is some special chemical in asparagus that produces this strange and smelly change. The problem is that we really need to have thirty or forty asparagus plants, if we are hoping to scoff the stuff on a fairly regular basis for a month or two. The good news is that asparagus is a perennial, so that means more next year! My guess is that if you were to have had the time and fairly large ...

Yes, they have finally arrived! The twelve sections of metal fence from PRAKTIKER were delivered today*. We had to make a special trip to Daveri, so that we could accept the delivery. Anyway, we cannot really do anything about this new fence until the spring comes along. I do not actually know what I am doing (what a surprise!) and I have never put up a fence before. But hey, there is a first time for everything. The old wooden fence is about twenty years old, so it has a nasty habit of falling down and then breaking into pieces. What worries me is that of course the fence sections are not going to be exactly the same length as the current old wooden fence. So what are we going to do? Cut one section of fencing, so that it will fit the gap? Or maybe we should build a little bit of extra stone wall at one end, in order to fill in the space. Yes, the Ukrainians have re-taken Kherson, but so far the Russians have not joined up the dots and they do not seem to realize that Putin is a t...

Tina has a new feline friend, a naughty little kitten called Mashka. We have not adopted Mashka. She has adopted us. She arrived at our house in Daveri, making a lot of noise and demanding FOOD. And then some more food. At first, we were terrified that Tina would kill this little kitten, but Tina has calmed down a bit and more or less accepted Mashka. Watching Tina licking Mashka's tummy is rather cute. What else is getting closer? During their long chats on WhatsApp, Mamulichka has told Ira that the war is getting closer. As well as the attack on the bridge linking the Crimea to the mainland. there have been several other attacks. The daughter of Irena's godmother, Tatiana, is an old friend of the family and she is worried about her son and grandson being drafted into the Russian army. Warplanes fly low over the datcha almost every day. Yes, it is all getting closer.

A fter reading the next few sentences, you will probably say, “Well, this just shows that not everything in Bulgaria is perfect after all, Simon!” Things have not been quite so perfect recently because we had a power cut on Wednesday that started about nine in the morning and then the electricity did not come on again until after four in the afternoon. Then exactly the same thing happened yesterday and then again today! Fortunately, the weather has been lovely, so we did lots of work in the garden and my dear wife beat me again at badminton. At lunch time, we have been using our little gas cooker. We bought it for camping, but it certainly has come in useful for the last three days. However, my readers in the UK should not worry and they should not feel that they are missing out on these exciting experiences. I am sure that soon they will be having plenty of power cuts in the UK! Anyway, the pound has lost so much value against the dollar that soon people in the UK will not be able to ...

Peter took some great photos of our house when he came to stay with us in July. This is a great photo of the "garden side" of the house, with the terrace and patio.  This is a great shot of the front of the house. The old wagon wheels look rather good, I must say.

The business of taking that naughty little dog for her daily walk becomes rather more serious during the winter, especially when we have minus temperatures during the day. (Any Canadians reading my blog will probably stop reading at this point, in total disgust at yet another Brit's complete wimpishness.) Unlike the Fox Terrier we used to have years ago, Zoika, Tina actually seems to like her special doggie coat. In the winter, the Bulgarian countryside somehow seems much bigger and even more devoid of people.

As her rather late anniversary present, my dear wife now has a jacuzzi. We have two bathrooms in Daveri, the ensuite one next to our bedroom and the large "guest bathroom". Well, the latter one was big enough for a jacuzzi. Yes, we could have settled for an ordinary bathtub, but Irena does have some back problems. It is a rather impressive thing and sits in the corner of the bathroom, where the shower is.  First Iyaylo had to do some serious work to the plumbing and the electricity supply, in order to prepare for the installation. He also had to remove the washbasin and take the foor of its hinges. Then the two chaps from the bath company in Sofia arrived in their truck. After a couple of hours, it was all finished. Tina does not seem to be impressed.

  Yes, it is yet another addition to my expanding collection of Husqvarna kit. I do not know why they call it a "leafblower" because it is really a vacuum cleaner, a prohusmucatchka for the garden. In case you have not guessed, prohusmucatchka is the Bulgarian word for "vacuum cleaner" and it is one of my all-time favourite Bulgarian words. Anyway, it is good to have one of these things when you have a lot of leaves and oh boy do we have some leaves and then some more. 

Yes, it is the return (yet again!) of the Gardening Bore.  The red peppers, tomatoes and pumpkins are all coming along well, although a drop or two of rain would not go amiss. Perhaps the asparagus and the artichokes will do something next year. I have been reading about the fuel shortages in the UK on the BBC website. (Unfortunately, we only get CNN on our TV here in Daveri). It seems to be pretty bad and the government does not appear to be doing much to improve the situation. As for gas prices, yes, they have gone up a lot and probably they will continue to rise. Germany is building (or has already built) a new gas pipeline, in order to get gas from Russia, but I do not think that the UK is part of that. Here in Bulgaria, I think that hardly anyone uses gas for heating. If they are in the countryside, then people either use wood (logs) or wood pellets. In the cities, most people have apartments and they have some sort of electrical heating or maybe an oil-fired boiler.   I ...

Well, I am very sorry that, once again, you could not join us for breakfast this morning. As usual, we did our scoffing on the terrace. The view was wonderful and that naughty little dog was up to her usual mischief.  We have had a dreadful time with Irena’s Russian tourist visa. It has been a complete and utter pain, as well as taking flipping ages and ages. I mean, it is bad enough that she has to even apply for a visa to visit her own blooming country. Have you ever heard of anything so totally crazy? As well as the actual visa, you also need medical insurance. The application form takes a long time to fill in, as there are so many pointless and repetitive questions. In addition to the visa application form, there is also something silly called “a Russian tourist voucher”. We had to go to Veliko Tarnovo, in order to go to some tourist agencies. The only problem was that these agencies did not know anything about this stupid voucher thing, so I had to buy one online. The next hur...

You thought that you were not going to get any more "Gardening Bore" posts, didn't you?*  You were mistaken, alas. Sorry about that. Well, the seeds for herbs that Irena planted in her herb garden at the end of the garden and next to the wall are coming along very well. The irises by the end wall are also looking rather splendid. We inherited the irises from the house's previous owner and Irena replanted them in their new location. The painting of the old wooden fence with engine oil takes ages and ages. The good news is that it is not as smelly as the rather expensive wood preservative that I bought before I learned the error of my ways. But is it going to do any good? The old wooden fence is horribly brittle, rather reminiscent of the Tudor timbers of The Mary Rose , and maybe the engine oil will help to preserve it.  *Do you like asterisks?

When you start to use a log burner, aka wood-fired central heating, one of the first things that you notice is that you need to use a lot of logs. And then some more. Then what? Yes, well, you keep putting them into the stove and they get burned, turned into ash, and then you need to put in some more. Of course, this was not really what you signed on for, but hey, let's just order some more logs. Although buying properly seasoned logs is not too much of a problem in the summer, it is not so easy in the winter. I do not know why I look so happy in this photo. They just dumped ten cubic metres of firewood on the grass outside our house, as the lorry would not fit under the roof of our large front gate. Next I had to put it into the wheelbarrow and carry all of this wood into the woodshed.  And in case you did not know, let me tell you that splitting the larger pieces with a sledgehammer and a wedge is a very time-consuming and exhausting business. After we made the video of yours tru...

Tina is a naughty little doggie. She has a lot of energy and she is more than a bit disobedient. Irena and I took her for a walk this morning. For once, the sun was shining and we did not mind the cold too much. As usual, the Bulgarian countryside was beautiful, empty and huge. We simply must get a couple of sledges and all of the skiing gear. It is crazy to be in the countryside, with lots of snow-covered hills all around us for at least a month or so each year, and yet we have absolutely no winter sports equipment at all.

If you have been faithfully reading my blog, then by now you should be an expert on centralne tepline . (That is Bulgarian for "central heating", just in case you have forgotten.)  In Daveri, keeping our home toasty-warm is quite a time-consuming business. I usually go downstairs at about 4 or 5am and give the fire a good raking, so that lots of the ash goes onto the tray underneath the metal grate. Next to the fireplace we have an impressive-looking collection of tools to use. They look like instruments of torture from the Middle Ages.  Then I put some more wood onto the fire and, if I am lucky, there is soon a good blaze going once more. Then I go down again and put on some more wood at about six, when a naughty little doggie asks for her breakfast and she needs to go outside, to do her business at the bottom of the garden. Then I get another snooze until 8am or thereabouts when, if I am lucky, my dear wife brings my morning mug of tea up to the bedroom.  After breakfas...