Monday 4 February 2019

23. Time flies

Time flies cant believe a week has passed. I honestly don't know where the days go. I'm starting to wonder how I ever had time to go to work although I am not missing it one bit.
This week started with us going to collect our residency cards from the police station in Targovishte.  They base the length of time on your residency card on the length of, time on your E111 health card from the UK. As I had just changed mine before we came over I got 4 years and Julie only got 3 so she better watch out. If your planning on moving to Bulgaria its a good idea to get a new one before you come.
From here I went straight to Popovo and got my van insured with a day to spare as my English insurance would only give me one month in Europe as it is a van, a car usually gets 90 days.
Tuesday at 9 am i met Tanya my interpreter in Popovo and we drove to Targovishte again this time to the KAT office where they do all things relating to driving and vehicles etc. I have heard all sorts of stories about KAT and registering vehicles onto Bulgarian plates but as it turned out it was quite painless especially with someone who knows what to do and is bulgarian.
I was concerned about my headlights as they are UK ones with stickers on Tanya assured me they don't even bother with them. She said they just check the engine and chassis number match the V5 and check the brakes, handbrake and vehicle emissions then give you a 12 month MOT (Preglet).
I had to pay 350 BGN eco tax (no I don't know what it is either) the man checked my chassis and engine number off to get it stamped by an inspector then get bulgarian log book issued they changed my number plates and that was it. I think i blinked cos I didn't see them do an MOT check and we were off back to Popovo all within 2 hours.
So Vladdy the Caddy is now Bulgarian.

It doesn't have a black squiggle on in real life
The rest of the week we have mostly spent at home it has been nice not running round everywhere.  Everyday I have been working non stop in the garden and everyday it looks the same either im doing something wrong or its a big job hopefully its the latter.
I have built a raised bed for the first plot that i dug. Although it's not that raised as i couldn't explain to the lady in the builders merchants how deep I wanted my wood so i just settled for what i got.

Not so raised bed
I have filled this with strawberry plants there was a bed near our cottage that is really overgrown but there were strawberries in it so i have transplanted them to my dug bed. Time will tell if they produce fruit this year but we hope so.

Bed full of strawberries
I have also started to dig another bed and when i get the wood for it I will try to convince the lady in the builders merchants to let me have some deeper wood, I will pay for it honestly I will.

Next bed in preperation
They look like graves when i dig them !!!
How long did I say Julie got on her residency card ?

Talking of wood I think i have a chopping obsession I am slowly working  my way through our woodpile and am forever chopping logs and kindling. But all the wood we have is inherited and a lot of it has paint on which is not good to be burnt in a wood burner as its toxic, so i have slowly been burning this in the garden. Julie always knows where to find me poking my fire.

One of inherited woodpile with a shit load of painted wood in it.
We have another woodpile that is out in the open some of it has got saturated so i have been transferring the wet stuff to an old chicken house we have to dry out. The rest we have covered with a plastic sheet we found lying in the garden hopefully all this will be usable next year when it dries.

Outdoor woodpile


Beginning to stack damp wood
After we had snow a few weeks back the weather has improved massively this week I have been in the garden in T shirts. Today was 21 degrees Celsius it has been gorgeous and I started the day sat outside with a nice glass of orange juice.

Getting my vitamin C and D in one hit.
I have also planted some seeds, I have planted black tomatoes, yellow bell cherry tomatoes, bulgarian tomatoes, chilli and coloured chillies and put these in my potting shed with a plastic bag over the pots to act as mini greenhouses. However the weather is due to go colder this coming week so fingers crossed they grow.

Future food.
Today we also took Daisy to the vets for her first jab she has to go back in two weeks for her 2nd one we also got some calcium tablets for her and another worming tablet 
All in this came to 28 BGN about £14.

She is cute but im sure she has doubled in size in the last fortnight


Well that's all for this week, take care
Mark and Julie




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