26. Bumps & lumps amongst other things.

Hi
I am a mahoosive 5'8" tall thats 1.73 metres for anyone not from the UK. Now I know am not the tallest person in the world but in the 55 years I've been on this earth I've never really had to worry about banging my head on doorframes. However move to Bulgaria and that all changes. It appears the majority of doorframes especially in our house are around 5'4"  the majority of you will already of worked out that that leaves a shortfall of 4 inches. I used to work with someone who was 6'8" tall and I asked him once how do you remember to duck when you go through a  door his reply was " you soon learn. Well I'm at that stage now.  I'm soon learning after banging my head about 50 times the last time I swear I saw stars. Feck me does it hurt and my head is still tender after 5 days.
Bulgarians are small people I stood in a queue the other day and towered above everyone, something I've never had the chance to do before it was quite nice really.

We have also purchased some chickens for eggs we bought three initially and another 3 a few days later. So far in 10 days we have had 10 eggs. Including buying the chickens and chicken food although they are also getting kitchen scraps they have cost 44 Levs so that's 4 levs 40 stinkies an egg about £2.20.... Bargain it is 20 Stinkies an egg in the shops. Obviously as we get more eggs we will be in profit.

Our first egg

Some of our girls in their coop

I don't know how old they are and were a bit straggly when we got them but they are being well fed and have free roam of one of our gardens and are starting to look a bit better.

In other news and as promised I bought a strimmer. I got everything with it a harness several blades little petrol pot to mix petrol and oil even a hard hat which I now wear around the house for going through doorways.

Me assembling said strimmer with instructions in Bulgarian 

It's made good work of chopping down our veg plot and top field and this also helps us keeps the snakes at bay as apparently they like long grass. It won't be long now till we get invaded by millions of snakes so I'm getting in early so they go next door.

Action shot minus my head, probably for the best.

In the veg garden I have been doing more digging and now have 5 beds dug but at times its hard going. It seems you have to pick your time of day to dig otherwise you get swamped by flies which take great delight in biting my forearms which now look like a map of the rhodope mountains.

Veg bed starting to take shape.

In the background you can see the cherry blossoms that are now out in force all over the village, spring is definately here it's gorgeous. We are having our wood burner on less and less and are able to have breakfast outside. We have had some gorgeous weather today is 25 degrees with clear blue skies.

Onion starting to sprout

Garlic growing 

Tomatoes from seed.

I have planted all sorts. Tomatoes, beetroot, purple broccoli, melons, leeks, peas, radish, broad beans, onions, garlic and strawberries. Not knowing much about gardening we will see how it goes.
We also got some more  fruit trees from Opaka market we bought 3 another cherry tree and two plum trees. The guy who had the stall also gave us three more smaller fruit trees but not being able to understand him I have no idea what they are. Also on Friday we got a nectarine tree all have gone in the ground in the land behind the house.

One day last week I was trying to tidy the front of the house up when I heard a car with what I would describe as boom box grind garage funk jazz shit music blaring out the window. It was efan our neighbour he is a lovely guy aged I would say in his mid sixties " I don't know where he got his shit taste in music from". Efan always stops to say hello and shake my hand, his favourite saying in English when he sees Julie is " COME ON BABY". Always makes me chuckle.
He abandoned his car in the middle of the road thankfully turning off his shit music.
He came into our garden to see what we had been up to. He looked at my grapevines which I think i have killed by trimming them back to nothing when we got here.
Shaking his head I said OK He said Dobre which means good so maybe I haven't killed them. He then gave me a masterclass on pruning some of my fruit trees which I had already pruned and told me my secatuers were crap. Then he was off back in his car up the hill to his house with shit music blaring out his window. I love how the Bulgarians will always help and are so friendly. I'm not used to it being from England but I like it.

Lovely cherry blossom

Today we saw the storks that have arrived in our village which signify the start of spring for Bulgarians. When you see the storks you hang your martinitsa on fruit trees for a productive crop. Martinitsa are red and white bracelets given out by people we even got one given to us with our shopping in Lidl. So we duly hung ours on some of our trees. Here's hoping we get fruit.

Storks have arrived

Martinitsa hung on one of our Apple trees

Well that's all for now
Take care
Mark n Julie

25. Spring might be springing hopefully.

Well we have now been in Bulgaria for two months and we love it. There are 3 things I miss from the UK.

1. Family.
2. Tomlins meat/pork pies (technically that's 2)
3. Bonani indian takeaway in Stockport.

Other than that I can cope fine.
I don't miss anything else. Although I was a bit jealous when my mum and dad video called me last week from the UK and they were sat in the garden and it was 20 C in February ! and we were here and it had been -6 overnight and was dull and miserable here. However I believe normal service has resumed in England now and it's miserable, on the other hand here we are now back to +17 and it's set to get hotter it looks like spring is possibly here.

Our local market is full of seeds and plants and I bought a cherry tree last week so probably by next week we will have about 20-30 lbs of cherries from it thats how it works isn't it ?

Fruit trees for sale 

Seeds for sale everywhere.

We bought a good few packets of seeds which we have some sprouting nicely on our kitchen window. Also we bought some onion sets and garlic which have been planted if it's on the market it must be the time to plant it, thats my theory anyway. Our bulgarian neighbours are out in force in their gardens which are all neat and tidy and perfectly ploughed. Meanwhile back at walnut cottage I stand and stare at our jungles and think to myself "what would Monty Don do in a situation like this ".
We will get there though.

I have also been working on the area immediately outside our front door which we want to have roses, flowers, herbs and a sitting area. We are planning on having half of it paved so we can sit out in the summer. I have been attempting to do some crazy paving where we can put a table. It will be crazy paving too as I've never attempted it before and had to Google which end to open the cement bag.

Craaaaaaàzy paving 

I have also managed to sort out my driving licence and I collect my new Bulgarian licence in a couple of weeks. This for me was a bit of a priority because if the UK leaves Europe on the 29th March without a deal I would not be able to drive here and would have to take a driving test again here and pass a theory exam written in Bulgarian.
But I'm sure Theresa May will sort it all out I have every faith in her ( read sarcasm).

This week I finally got round to sorting out our outhouse and found three x 60 litre barrels of wine that must of been here from the previous owners so it had been there for at least a couple of years. It didn't smell to good and even Julie refused to drink it.

3 barrels of vinegar

Mmmmmmm

In other news I saw this cat in our village last week it looks like his mum has cut his hair for him

Basin cut cat.

So that's our latest update. The garden will take priority over the next few weeks so we should have plenty of plant photos to thrill you. Also next week I shall be buying a strimmer so stand by for an exciting update on that, and next month we have our first visitor my brother is coming over to see us.

.

Take care

Mark & Julie