Survival Essentials – No. 1 A Sense of Humour

by Jane5 Comments
Well Bulgaria is definitely teaching us how to drink, but also how to smile...I don't think I've smiled so much since moving here and not all of it has been alcohol induced I promise! Every day we are working until our backs hurt, our arms ache and our brains are ceased, but stop just before our sense of humour breaks down... as believe me you need one of those to survive out here ... not because of the Bulgarians (although they have their moments) - I'll give you an example. We spent the whole of Saturday concreting part of our barn so that we could relocate the dog pen, thus ensuring they had sufficient shade from the sun and shelter from the rain at all times of the day. This floor measures approximately 4m x 5m so took us all day to do and apart from filling in the leveling bar gaps on Sunday we took a day off... Monday we...
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All Systems Go…

by Jane2 Comments
As most of you are aware we now have electricity to add to the list of facilities we are now the proud owners of...well a list of two, water and electric, we are still working on the drainage side of things...but very nearly there! In my last installment we had ordered two able workmen to come and help dig the hole that we had started, well able they might have been but turn up they certainly didn't so we continued to dig ourselves with more than a little help from our trusty wall-builder, Ashim. Hampered by nights of torrential rain, which meant the mud got really heavy and extremely slippery, followed by afternoons of heavy, close, hot and sweaty in preparation for the next thunderstorm we have eventually made it... a massive hole to sink the septic tank into, a trench to it from the shower room, a trench from it to the drainfield and an even bigger hole to act as...
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Well, well, well…

by Jane4 Comments
Well not exactly a well, but we do now have water! It has been a long time to sort out but a real blessing and such a delight to just be able to turn on the tap, even if it is just outside for the moment...it certainly beats carrying water from the spring on a daily basis!! And that's not the only thing - our septic tank has arrived (Bertha), we have hand dug the hole for it to go in, well if I'm honest we half dug the hole for it to go in. Then in typical English woman style decided it was too piggin' hot to be digging holes and drafted in some help from the locals...this should arrive Monday. This hole is not the only one we have to dig either (as if 2 x 2 x 2.1 is not bad enough) we have another that is 4 x 4 x 0.8 and a channel from the bathroom...
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Every Day’s a School Day

by JaneNo Comments
It has been a week of learning and achieving this week, which has been quite satisfying. Kia has learnt that teaching the puppy how to play fight is leaving her with very little advantage over the little bugger and it won't be long before she has to show him who's boss properly. The pen has finally gone up in a temporary position, which they seem quite happy about... for now! Hooch has finally learnt that if when asked for his paw he stands on the injured one and gives you the good one that you will be unlikely to believe him when he gives you sad eyes and holds it limply in the air for a sympathy vote... we think he is finally mended and took his final two stitches out this morning. Dan has learnt that not all pipes lead to Rome and that digging for hours in the rain to trace a pipe down the back of our barn to the...
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A Day Off

by Jane5 Comments
As we had not moved very far from the house since we got here, we thought it was about time to explore this beautiful country, so while Paul cracked on with our new roof, his wife (Jan) and our mutual friend Chris took Dan and I to Emen Gorge.     Literally 5 mins in a car up the road is an Eco-trail, we parked up next to the reservoir and walked into the woods. It was a fabulous day weather-wise and we enjoyed the shade of the trees as we ascended towards the waterfall. With all the rain we have had lately it was gushing with force over the ridge, churning up the water below and deafening its visitors, but it was still great for Kia to cool off in despite being a little too rough for swimming on this occasion...a great excuse to come back again another time!   More climbing and crossing of little wooden bridges, fabulous views across and down into the gorge,...
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Oh BeeHave!

by Jane2 Comments
  This has probably bee...n one of the hardest weeks of my life, I was seriously considering going back to work for a rest!! Firstly the Friday night 'thank you' to Paul & Jan went a little out of the window as we all got invited to a Russian celebration in the village and collectively gave it the big thumbs up and promptly spent the evening in some lovely company, eating some fabulous food cooked up by Helena and drinking vast quantities of high quality vodka provided by Tim. Not so hard you may think, but the next day things started to go down hill a little, not only was I nursing a very slight hangover but on one of my normal trips to the spring to collect water (no we haven't sorted that out yet) I got attacked by two bees...one got caught in my hair the other in my jacket - and due to me inadvertently killing one of them, they...
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Too much excitement for one week

by Jane4 Comments
Well there's no doubting that when things happen here they certainly happen. Firstly we engage an electrician to rewire the house and having looked at what we wanted arranged to come back a couple of days later to start the work...brilliant, only trouble was one room was completely clad from floor to ceiling in pine including all the beams...to wire that room would be a nightmare so we got stuck in to remove it all, finding hundreds and hundreds of empty walnut shells behind all the wood - left by the previously resident mice! On the plus side we now have plenty of wood to fuel our new and improved cooker... The room was 99% cleared when they arrived and cracked on with the work - three days later it was all complete - all we need now is some power from the street to the house and we'll be rocking. Whilst the guys were on site doing the electrics we got on with...
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Despite Everything….

by Jane2 Comments
A very good friend of mine was talking of running a book on where we would break down on our way to Bulgaria...he really should have got it up and running as the choices were pretty much endless. We left Derby at 9.30am on 7th April and by 10.30am near Kettering we were stationery in the inside lane of the M1 with no ignition in a 5 tonne automatic beast of a motorhome and it was 2.30pm before we were rescued thanks to the speedy responses of the AA. Despite some severe reservations about how far we would make it once the camper was repaired we finally made it onto the ferry at Dover at 2am on the 8th April, which works out at about 18 miles an hour...it was going to be a long drive!! It was Belgium before we had to get the tool kit out again and tighten up the alternator belt...then pulling in for the night in Germany...
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Fond Farewells

by Jane2 Comments
This is my final week in the UK and this has been an emotional roller coaster. First giving up my corporate job that I have been in for nearly seven years, I'm probably not going to miss the early morning starts or the pressure to deliver, but I will certainly miss my colleagues, some of which have become life-long friends and many of which will just look on curiously to watch what we do...or at least I hope they do! Then of course there's my family and my friends and as I grew up in the Lake District we set off up North firstly stopping off at Fran's, who lives in a beautiful spot on the estuary with a backdrop of the fells. We worked out that we have been friends for 45 years, which made us both feel so youthful (not) and spent a lovely couple of hours (not long enough) catching up, reminiscing and looking to the future before...
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Its a Mini Adventure

by Jane2 Comments
You plan and plan and it all seems very...well...under control! You know what you're doing, when you're doing it, you have it organised down to the last detail - especially when, like me, planning is what you do for a living. We were planning on buying a truck and doing two journey's from the UK to BG with various stuff (or crap as most people see it), then out of the blue we got a call "can you fill half my truck" this week so I don't make the journey half empty...well it would be rude not to in our position, so a radical re-plan was in order. So we packed like we'd never packed before, filled my mini with as many boxes as we could (all three of them) and stacked the rest around it in the garage in preparation for the truck's arrival, which of course was in the dark on the only day this winter that it has actually snowed.   Undeterred...
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