Sunday 27 January 2019

22. We have broken new ground

It's been a busy busy week. Monday was spent chilling and working in the garden as we have done so much running round lately. Tuesday we went to Popovo to get some shopping in as we pulled up near to the butchers shop there were 3 abandoned puppies, also a man with a stick shooing them away. Julie jumped out of the van even before I had stopped ran over and grabbed one of the pups the other two ran off a bit and with those "can we eyes" she has said we must have it. So enter our world Daisy the dog. All the time im looking at her massive paws thinking she might be small now !!!
We had always planned on another dog only I hadn't planned on one so soon.
She is small, cute and a dynamo for something so small she can cause havoc. But she will grow out of that and be loved and have a much nicer life than she expected when she woke up that morning.
So it was straight to the vets with her flea dropped and wormed and go back in two weeks for her inoculations.

She looks like butter wouldnt melt in her mouth

Wednesday we had arranged to meet Monica our estate agent she was going to help us sort out our residency cards at the police station in Targovishte. First we had to call at our local municipality offices to collect a document. We needed a document that had both our address and parcel number of our property on as our title deeds only have the parcel number on.
The municipality offices are in nearby Opaka and Monica had spoken to the mayor of our village on Tuesday who had told her they would issue said document in Opaka.
We went into an office with several middle aged ladies and after a while with all the conversation in bulgarian we went to another office where a man was a bit more conversation in bulgarian then back to the first office. I dont speak Bulgarian but im pretty good at body language which confirmed to me there was some problem as Monica was becoming more irate with the ladies in the office.
We came out of that office and Monica explained to me that they wouldn't issue the document and they didn't know who would.
From here we went straight to the top. We went to the Mayor lots more fast bulgarian talking and shaking of heads Monica even phoned a lawyer who told them to issue the document but nobody seemed to know who issued it. After about 90 minutes of in and out of offices we finally got the document that would suffice. This was my first encounter of bulgarian burocracy at its finest.
Then it was off to Targovishte me following Monica. When we first started to look at properties Monica drove us around all day and I had forgot she drives like Lewis Hamilton.
On the way there we were in a line of about 5 cars as we passed some police, which car got pulled you guessed it ME. Monica stopped as well thankfully and after a quick conversation in Bulgarian the policeman told me to put my lights on. My lights were on ? But I just said "Da" and off we went.
At the police station there was lots of form filling done and after paying about 80 levs we were told to come back the following day to collect our temporary residency cards and have our photos taken for our official cards.
On the way home I stopped to pick up some new petchka pipes as we have been slowly being smoked out of our front room when we light the petchka. Full set of flue pipes about 8 quid so not worth sweeping them.
When we got home I decided to put the new pipes on. It turned out to be one of those jobs you wish you hadn't started.
I don't think our chimney had ever been swept the old pipes were in a terrible state and the house chimney was almost blocked.
I should of taken a photo of it but forgot, but here's one showing the old pipes I took off.

A horrible blocked flue

It took me about 3 hours to clean the chimney it was that bad I finally did it with a brush tied to the mop  handle. All in going to say on the subject is that it's a good job we will be decorating.

Thursday was back to the police station and we got issued with our temporary cards and we go back on Monday for our official ones.
Having now got my temporary card I thought on the way back I would try and insure the van. Not to be as my temporary card doesn't have my unique number on BOLLOCKS.

However when i was in the insurance office the lady that works there doesn't speak english so she rang a lady that does and in about 30 seconds she turned up with her husband . He is Scottish and she is bulgarian. She explained to me to go back on Monday after I get my official card and I can sort my insurance. Hurray cost of insurance is 260 levs about £130 per year.
Tuesday I go and get my van onto Bulgarian plates then call back in the insurance office for them to change my policy then that's another job crossed off the list.

After all this running around we finally had 3 days at home this has been spent tackling the jungle of a garden I think i can actually see some progress.
Today has been a lovely sunny day and I have been in the garden all day. And what's more I have actually started to dig what will be our veggie plot.
The first bed is dug and the next thing will be to put a frame round it as we have decided to have raised beds.

The first dig 

Have a good week im off to put roast potatoes on for our Sunday dinner and have a well earned beer


Sunday 20 January 2019

21. We've been busy

We have been here now 3 weeks tomorrow we have been busy everyday and we love it. So far we have no regrets. We have had a fair amount of snow and we have had some gorgeous days, days where its t shirt weather outside brilliant.
What have we been up to. Well I have been in the garden as much as possible tackling the various jungles we have around the place, it will take time to tame it but we will get there bit by bit. What garden waste I can i am burning but a lot of it is still too wet to burn so i am now stockpiling it to dry it out to burn I think i am becoming a bit of a pyromaniac as you can mostly find me at the bottom of the garden poking the fire I have going in half an old oil drum.

We have been in to Ruse to open a bank account for Julie only to find we can't open one without a bulgarian phone number. So we has to obtain a bulgarian phone and another trip to Ruse sorted that out. I have never seen such paperwork than at the bank everything was stamped signed stamped again signed in triplicate then stamped the stamp signed for then countersigned and stamped again for good measure i think you get my drift.

We went to Popovo our nearest town about 10 miles away to try and sort our van insurance out to bulgarian insurance but we couldn't insure it as we don't have our residency cards yet. We have some time left on english insurance and we are hopefully getting our residency cards this coming week then we can sort the insurance. However the next hurdle will to be to get the van onto bulgarian plates but we will sort that as it occurs lets get it insured first.

Our new washing machine is up and running although I need to get a rubber mat to go under it the room its in has shiny tiles on the floor and every time it spins it sets off across the floor like Usain Bolt!!!!.

Usain the washer

Wanda the wheelbarrow has seen some action this week and I have got her wheel dirty ferrying garden stuff and logs around here's an action shot of her in operation obviously not to overloaded as im still running her in

Still running in 

We have been out driving in the snow which was fun at times as we had snow that froze then had more snow so we had snow on top of ice. We drove to Opaka a couple of villages along to get some money from the ATM as we don't have one in our village and it was snowing it was OK going but coming back it was snowing heavy. I think when we get proper snow in just not going out.

A snowy drive back.

On the subject of driving we keep coming across a road sign which is a warning sign for an animal. I now know what it is for but if i ever see one that looks like this I will be doing my own washing machine impression and doing one as fast as Usain Bolt . I put this picture on my Facebook and got some strange answers as to what it is from my UK friends answer is at the bottom of the page just to keep you wondering.

Wild cow rabbit mooseapotomus

We are looking forward to starting the garden and are planning and preparing what to grow.  I think i am going to put some raised beds in the vegetable plot to save digging every year things are already starting to grow and there a spring bulbs already coming up. I have been clearing the area immediately outside our cottage door where we hope to have herbs and flowers and a place to sit out other than our concrete courtyard this area also has grapevine which  will provide some shade if I haven't killed them when i trimmed them not having a clue what im doing.

Clearing up in progress



Friday brought a beautiful sunny day and a temperature of about 12 C as we sat outside having a brew I saw a wasp bloody hell a wasp in January followed by another and another and another.  Shit we must have a wasp nest somewhere after frantically searching the area I couldn't find anywhere where it could be. We found out later they weren't wasps but were honey bees and the temperature had brought them out. I wondered why all these wasps were so interested in my multi coloured striped smalls that were on the washing maiden drying in the sun they must of thought the colours were flowers.

Any way thats all for now we're off out shortly as we have been invited out for Sunday lunch at our neighbours.

Take care and the sign is for Wild Boar !!!!!

Mark and Julie



Thursday 10 January 2019

20. Slowly finding our way

We have been here now for just over a week and are slowly finding our way round the area a bit better.
On the whole we have settled in well although we havent unpacked everything yet and still have a few boxes in the barn.
One thing I have mastered is the petchka ( wood burner) as its bloody perishing around-8 Celsius at night. That has been going pretty much full time. Only problem is it sometimes gets too hot and we end up with the petchka on, and the door wide open !! to cool us down.
Bailey has certainly found his spot. I know the basket is too small but its the cats and he has claimed it.

Doormat dog
Since we have been here we have started the garden we began tidying up as the weeds are holding their own at present and now the garden looks as good as everyone else's.  However the only reason for that is because we have had snow and the garden now looks lovely until it melts .
We have been to popovo our nearest town about 10 miles away . We went on Friday as there is a market friday and we had a look around. We have been stocking up on food in case we get snowed in but according to the weather the worst is over for at least another week. Although the locals say what we have had is nothing compared to what may come.
Our local shop/bar is run by a lovely couple she is called Nuti but i have no idea what her husband is called. It's a game of pointing at things when we go shopping I know a few words and can count to 10 in bulgarian so as long as i dont want a dozen of something were getting by. I did however ask for potatoes the other day and Nuti asked me if I wanted 1. What use is 1 potato so i said in my best bulgarian shesht (6) and promptly got 6 kilos, I didn't have the heart to tell her I only wanted 6 spuds never mind.
Saturday was my birthday and we met up with the other British people who live in our village at nutis bar and had a good night spending all of £2.60 On drinks all night.
Today we have been into Ruse our nearest city which is about an hours drive away. The weather today has been grey and dull and damp. It was a horrible drive in and was quite foggy at one point. We went to my bank to collect my debit card and try to open an account for Julie but we couldn't do that as we don't have a bulgarian phone number. Monica our estate agent opened mine for me in April using her number. So we had to settle for putting my account in my name as Monica had power of attorney for my account and we will have to sort out a bulgarian phone to open one in Julie's name at a later date.
We have also now got the internet at a shocking £10 a month mind you we did get the biggest package.
But best of all I have treated myself to a wheelbarrow, we went to praktiker which is a bit like B &Q in the UK.
I used my best pigeon bulgarian ( read pointed at with my finger) at the wheelbarrow and the guy went off to the storeroom to get me a wheelbarrow he came back with each individual part no box just the parts. Pictures will follow next time when i have attempted assembly im presuming the wheel goes on the bottom .
We also went to technopolis and bought a washing machine which I really enjoyed lugging up the steps to our house by myself while Julie stood by with words of wisdom, I had a few words of my own I can tell you. I will take an exciting photo of it for you when i unpack it.
I will leave you with some obligatory snow pictures.

Bailey in the snow


Our street



Snowy beehives


Till next time take care
Mark and Julie


Thursday 3 January 2019

19. We made it

Well we are finally here we left england on the 28th December and arrived at our house at 6 am 1st January 2019. After a journey that nearly killed us.
First day we travelled from Warrington to Folkstone and got the eurotunnel to Calais.

Our view on the chunnel

35 minutes on the chunnel and we were deposited in French France. A quick blast on the motorway and we were in Belgium.
We headed on to our first stop at the Belgium/ German border where we were glad to stop have a rest and sleep for 13 hours !!!!
Day two saw us head on through Germany and it Austria where we found our 2nd stop in the mountains in a superb house after another good night's sleep and breakfast we set off for Hungary and then to Romania. In leaving Austria I had driven 1050 miles.
Hungary was dull wet and boring most of our journey was on motorways so not a great deal to see.
As it was new years eve there was not much traffic however we soon found that there was nowhere open to get food other than the odd petrol station.
We then made our worse decision. We foolishly decided that as we could get no meals and would get no breakfast anywhere the next day we should just drive straight to Bulgaria. After all it would only take another 4-5 hours. How wrong we were.

Eating on the hoof somewhere between Hungary and romania4

We got lost trying to find Romania as my sat nav didnt recognise a new road we ended up on eventually we found the border and had our passports checked for the first time.
I reset the sat nav and we ended up on the A1 a great New road heading towards Bucharest brilliant (not) as very soon the road just ended but my sat nav was still telling me to go on A1 we got lost.we stopped at a garage for a brew and an argument and headed on with several resets of the sat nav we finally got back on the A1 only to be chucked off again a short while later. We then ended up driving through the Romanian mountains up and down winding roads at about 25mph with the sat nav telling me there was only 97 miles to go on these roads, great.
Midnight wad spent driving through snow and Romanian villages were every occupant was out letting fireworks off in the road, it was like driving through a war zone. 
Eventually about 80 miles from Bucharest and several hours of driving I found the A1 again brilliant back to 70 mph we would be there in no time. Nope thick freezing fog soon saw to that that lasted all the way to our house. We found the Danube bridge at rousse and after a more lengthy check of our passports and vehicle documents and beng relived of 30 levs to cross we were allowed in. We had arrived in bulgaria.
We were tired starving hungry and irritable.
Once over the bridge we needed a vignette for Bulgaria for our van but nowhere was open I managed to find a garage with the most unhelpful bulgarian I have ever met working there .
I asked for a vignette he just said  no and would help any further by this time and the way I was feeling he was lucky I didn't chin him. However not being like that a few choice words muttered to myself sufficed.
We carried on eventually finding a garage in rousse and got a vignette of a very pleasant and helpful lady.
We set off to our house still in thick fog I was dog tired and all of a sudden I nearly crashed into a kerb that jumped out in front of us, to this day I don't know how I missed it. Eventually we arrived at our house some 20 hours from leaving austria and just a tiny 880 miles driven. NOT RECOMMENDED.

Anyway were here and there's lots to do 

Bailey exploring his new home

Till next time take care
Mark and Julie