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.
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| Our first egg |
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| Some of our girls in their coop |
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.
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| Me assembling said strimmer with instructions in Bulgarian |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Onion starting to sprout |
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| Garlic growing |
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| Tomatoes from seed. |
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.
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| 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.
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| Storks have arrived |
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| Martinitsa hung on one of our Apple trees |
Take care
Mark n Julie
Great post! Congratulations on your first chickens. It's pretty amazing that they started laying so quickly after moving to your place. Stress like moving usually sets them back but they must like their new home.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting about the storks. I hope you get plenty of fruit too! The cherry trees are certainly blossoming prolifically.
Thanks Leigh. The first 3 chickens we got we had to transport home in a banana box, it was fun carrying them to our van as banana boxes have a hole in the bottom, the next three we were given them in a sack, only in Bulgaria. They did stop laying for a few days but have now started again.
DeleteThe storks are in every village we pass through now. Loads more fruit trees are in blossom now we have about 15 in total im eagerly awaiting to see what kind they are.