14. Time flies (not).

Boy o boy is time dragging it seems an eternity till we move and what's worse we have put our move back 3 weeks for family reasons. We are now planning on leaving the UK on December the 27th and weather permitting arriving in Bulgaria on the 1st January. Oh well new year new start and all that.

anyway plans are forging on Bailey the pampered pooch now has his passport. EBay is my new friend in buying all sorts from first aid kits to plant seeds off it and we are slowly selling the contents of our house on it. Our dining table and chairs went last week which was great timing as we had friends round for dinner we normally eat with trays on our laps anyway. At least they didn't come this week or they would have nowt to sit on.

He 's containing his excitement

One for chopping logs and one for kindling

I got some GB Stickers for Vladi the Caddy

Some seeds for next year.

It was Saturday the 6th October and we headed back to Bulgaria the flight was on time but we had to wait a while for our hire car at Sofia not the usual standard of service we have had but at least we got an upgrade to a clio estate, then we set off for the long drive to our house.

That night we went out for a meal but the nearby restaurant had a wedding reception on so it was a quick trip to a nearby supermarket and frozen pizza and wedges quick and easy and an early night as we were all shattered.

The following morning I was up early at 5.30am yes there are two of them in a day . It was so much colder than when we were last there in July but as the sun Rose it turned into a gorgeous day of 24 degrees centigrade.

We headed off to show Ross and Megan the big city and had a great day looking round with a lovely lunch Sat outside one of the many restaurants.

Me and Julie lunch at La Strada

Ross chilling by the fountain in the main square

Julie being a tourist

After a look around the city we headed up for a look at the Danube and watched the world go by for a bit, then home via the supermarket for a few bits for tea.

Monday was off to Popovo for a look round a  banitsa breakfast and we found a good butchers shop where the lady spoke a little english so we decided to have a BBQ for tea she was really helpful telling us what was good and what was not good we will be going back there.

Improvised BBQ

We made a BBQ out of half an oil drum and sat and watched the stars in the sky before retiring to the house and trying out our petchka which soon became that hot we had to open the door to cool down.

Tuesday was a trip to nearby Cherven which has a medival castle on its hill and has some stunning views.

Ross on the medival castle walls

There is a small cafe bar in cherven so we stopped for a spot of lunch and bumped into some English people who live nearby so it was good to chat and get some valuable tips about life in Bulgaria.

Back in the home front everything in the garden seems to have grown since we were last there especially the weeds. We will have a big task on our hands next year taming it but we will have the time.

We bumped into Ivan our neighbour who stopped as he drove past for a chat. Him in Bulgarian me on Google translate, God knows what he thinks in on about half the time. We were outside the house when he drove past with his rap music blaring in his car, not what middle aged men are expected to listen too but he is very friendly and remembered our horse incident from july.

The following day he stopped as I was walking up the lane and showed me his car full of vegetables he was off to some market to sell them either that or he was going to a vegetable convention somewhere I suspect though he was off to market. He is a lovely guy.

July

I

Now

Overgrown gate between two of our fields

Ross looking up to me in barn roof

Snake city central

Walnuts we have two walnut trees

Don't think our grapes will win many prizes this year but wow are they sweet

Found this in the house apparently Niki Lauda has had a crash

Sledge in our barn roof

Our local shop/bar

We met this lovely lady in the bar in July she greeted us like long lost friends.

It's a rat race here

Sadly Wednesday came too soon and we had to leave. We had decided to break the journey back to Sofia with an overnight stop in Lovech so we didn't have a mega early start to our day.

We had a couple of drinks in Lovech and a lovely meal it was over too soon.

Me and Julie in Lovech.

Well next time we are in Bulgaria it will be to live.

ROLL ON.

13. Bored

Just a quick post because I'm bored I am currently laid up with a bad back so thought I would do a quick post.
Also I'm bored of waiting to go to Bulgaria. Three weeks on Saturday we go back and I CANNOT WAIT. It will only be a flying visit for 5 days, Julie's daughter Megan and my eldest son Ross are coming with us too so they can have a glimpse of where we will be living.
When we get back I will only have seven weeks left to work. This move is crashing down on us and we have so much yet to do but on the other hand time seems to be going slower than ever, it's weird.

In other news Bailey our pampered pooch got his rabies jab last week for his pet passport. He loves the vets as everyone makes a fuss of him. We also got him his travel cage for the journey which he is not too sure about but with numerous treats he now seems content about going in it

Bailey's travel cage in Vladi the Caddy 

Bailey has also been brushing up on his Bulgarian lessons words like bone, poop, walkies at he wants to be prepared.

Immediately after his last Bulgarian lesson

Until next time take care
Mark

12. Hurdles

As times is flying by towards our move to Bulgaria,except when I'm at work then it drags even though I only have 56 working shifts to do (not that I'm counting). There are hurdles we need to get over before we move.
The first of this was actually telling my parents we had bought our house. We told them we were planning to move earlier this year and the conversation went a bit like this.

Me "were moving to Bulgaria and were going in December"

My  dad " That's a bloody stupid idea , I've never heard anything so stupid in my life, don't expect me and your mum to come and see you were getting old I'm a ticking time bomb I could die at any moment. You should stay here and get another job when you retire. Bulgaria my arse" .

Me " so your not so keen on the idea then ? "

So  we were a tad apprehensive about telling them about our purchase. So a couple of weeks ago we went to see them and told them.

The conversation went like this.

Me " you know when we went to Bulgaria in July and we told you we stayed in a house, we didn't lie but we were economical with the truth the house was our house we bought it in April"

Mum " Oh lovely that's nice dear"
Dad   " How much was it ? "

In truth they were actually OK about it , I know it's not what they want us to do but you can't and shouldn't live your life on what other people want.
By the time we left my dad was asking where the nearest airport was and how far was our house from  said airport, so you never know we might have them visiting after all.

Last week was full on it was our second wedding anniversary so I bought Julie a lovely present something she will get great use of when we move, I did my research and went for quality something that will last her a lifetime. I didn't just want cheap and nasty she is worth so much more and deserves the best.

Julie's present she's a lucky girl.

Never let it be said I don't know how to treat a lady.
Seriously though we are taking some decent tools with us when we go so far the ones I have bought in Bulgaria appear to be made from butter and break almost immediately.
I bet somewhere there is a butter factory on some leafy green hillside and after a production run it goes like this.

Bill " ere Ben what should we do with all this left over scraps of butter"

Ben " shape it into tools and send em to Bulgaria, they will never know"

Bulgarian tools are pants.

The biggest hurdle of all was telling my kids we were moving to Bulgaria. I have 4 in total (yes I know it's a lot but I had 2 practice marriages before finally getting it right. Some say I just like wedding cake whiçh isn't untrue).
my eldest two are 29 and 26 and have their own lives and we told them ages ago and they are fine with it.
but I still had to tell my youngest two who are almost 16 and 13. All I can say is I was shitting myself , how would they react ? Would there be upset and anger ? Would they both storm off and never speak to me again. I love all my kids with all my heart and would do anything for them.
my youngest two live with their mum and over the past few years they have started to grow up and visits to dad have become less as they have started to go out to mates and develop their own interests. I still see them regularly only not as often after all what 13 year old (going on 25) wants a night at his dad's who doesn't have an x box when he can be with his mates.
So it was with real trepidation we had the conversation it went like this

Me " when I finish work in December me and Julie are moving to Bulgaria but I will be coming back to see you on regular occasions and you can come over and see us"

My kids " That's cool it's your life live it"

Me " so your ok with it, have you got any questions"

My kids " when we come over are you paying for the flights ? "

Me " of course , any other questions"

My kids " what's your password for Netflix on your TV "

MASSIVE BIG SIGH OF RELIEF.

Last week we also went looking at van 's just for a look mind to see what we fancied and you guessed it 2 hours later and numerous Great British Pounds later we are now the new owners of a  VW Caddy van.

So it was goodbye to Poppy Julie's car for the last 9 years

Goodbye poppy the smallest car in the world.

And it's hello to Vladi the Caddy

 Vladi the caddy

I will be now known as white van man

So that was our week and our hurdles only 15 more weeks now till we go. I'm sure there will be plenty more but that's enough for one week.......... I'm starting to stress but I'm sure it will be worth it. At least this week didn't involve snakes.

Until next time
Take care
Mark

Random photo's

Below are some random photo's we took whilst in Bulgaria that I haven't included in the last few post's. Everyone likes a piccy.

Our house (in the middle of our street)

Wild flowers on the roadside

Horse grazing on our street not the runaway one

Say cheese

View of the barn

Street outside our house

Sunflowers picked from the roadside

Watching England crash out of the world cup in our local shop/bar

 

Natural spring in Karan Verbovka

Monestry at Karan verbovka

On the road to Palamartsa

On the road to Dve Mogili 

A view across to our village

Busy village of Krepcha

One of our wood stores which might become a chicken coop

Our house through overgrown grapevines

Another view over our village

 View up the hill with smoke effect from our 13 day fire

Our 13 day fire

View to barn with some of my ultra modern tools

Nearby Chervan

A stray dog in our village he was so friendly

 

View down the hill to our house

Till next time

Take care

And other things

I promise I will come up with some better titles in future.

We have been back now for nearly two weeks, and are already counting down till our next trip 9 weeks to go.
It's quite daunting for me anyway, how much land we have 2000 square metres in old money that's half an acre. Here's me never had much more than a small back garden and currently live in a two up two down terrace with a concreted back yard.
I left all the garden tools I owned in a past life along with a lot of my other worldly goods seven years ago to be precise. Isn't divorce brilliant 10 years of marriage an I got the TV lol.

Anyway I need to get some tools, I have found a few at the house in Bulgaria but I think they were made when God's dog was a pup they are that old.
I think the two main tools I will need will be a chainsaw and a brushcutter/strimmer. A chainsaw for cutting wood to keep us warm in the winter and a strimmer to tackle the garden and the jungle (which has thousands of snakes in it by the way).
I was toying with the idea of buying a good quality strimmer like a stihl but boy are they expensive.
So me being financially astute (read tightwad) I have done a bit of research on the tinternet and have decided to see how I get on with this one.

Screwfix strimmer

 It's £100 with a 1_year warranty not that that will be much use in Bulgaria but all the reviews are good for it and it's fitted with a snake alarm (I made that  bit up). If I get a couple of years out of it it might work out cheaper we will see.

It will need to be good to tackle the jungle

Plenty of gardening to be done

WILDLIFE

our village and garden is full of wildlife we regularly saw little lizards in the garden and one day I saw a large green and blue one, we have birds flying round from swifts or swallows I don't know the difference,sparrows and a  Jay seemed to visit regularly.
We have flies (not so good) wasps, bees, caterpillars, crickets, scorpions (only tiny ones thankfully) dragonflies and all sorts of weird bugs. One day we had a bat fall out of the barn which seemed to sleep all day on a path but flew off at night. Also one day in the road we saw what we thought was a fox but later discovered it was a  jackal !!!

this little fella fell out the barn.

Nice blue dragonfly

One day as we were sat outside the front of the house a car pulled up . It turned out to be one of our neighbours not that we have many. He wanted to know what we were doing at the house, he knew the previous owners and with the help of Google translate we managed to get across to him that we had bought the house. It's good to know he was keeping an eye on it.

His name was Ivan and lives at the top of the hill at the back of our house.
Later that day about 2 pm I could here some metal dragging along the road, I stuck my head out of the gate to see a horse trotting past with a 20 foot chain around its ankle and a large metal stake that it had pulled out of the ground and obviously escaped from somewhere at the top of the hill.
I got in the car and drove up to ivans house and started to beep the car horn and shout ivan.
a couple of minutes later Ivan came out wearing his underpants obviously woken from a sleep. Where else other than Bulgaria can you stand outside your house in your undies and think nothing of it.
again Google translate to the rescue he must of thought I was mad but eventually I got him to understand.
Ivan put his shorts on and we drove around the village looking for the runaway horse.
After about 30 minutes we found the horse on a street near ivan's.
Ivan shouted at the horse and it came towards us I swear it was smiling. It turned out it wasn't even his horse.

I went back home and about an hour later Ivan turned up at our gate with a large watermelon for us to say thank you , how kind, the villagers are so friendly.

A random picture of a bottle of vodka £4.50 think we will like it here.

Till next time
Take care

Things

Not the most original post name I know but below is a list of things we did/saw/thought/said/liked/disliked etc etc etc during our two weeks in Bulgaria.

1 number of flies swotted 24583
2 number of times we said WTF is that bug 1508
3 number of times we said ITS TOO HOT 36
4 number of times we said IS THAT RAIN 6
5 number of fires we had in the garden 1 for 13 days
6 buckets of sweat sweated 9 (if you move an arm you sweat, if you cough you sweat)
7 weeds pulled out 548376299
8 lizards seen in the garden 8
9 bats seen 5 or 6 a night
10 fireflies seen 1 a night
11 stars in the sky thousands (its amazing)
12 beer drunk lots
13 wine drunk, more than the beer
14 mozzie bites too many
15 Skoda Fabias are crap cars (we usually get a clio much better)
16 number of brambles that wrapped round my leg in garden 250
17 number of brambles that wrapped round my leg in the garden that i thought was a snake ready to bite me 250
18 snakes seen in garden 0 but i just know there are thousands in the jungle waiting for me when i get my strimmer.
19 snakes seen 1 but it was dead on the road, phew.
20 wasp nests we have 1 will be gone in the winter
21 bulgarian tools are crap, i bought some secateurs and hedge trimmers both brok
e
22 donkies heard 1 every day, eeh aww eeh aww ehh awways brayed (sorry)
23 there are lots of chickens
24 restaraunts sell chips chicken pork,pizza and chicken livers never anything else.
25 if you order chips they come 20 minutes before your meal.
26 Bulgarians are really friendly people
27 its difficult to buy two drinks in our local bar for more than a quid
28 our local bar is also a shop
29 english people spoke to in 2 weeks 4
30 snakes i thought i saw in the garden 478

Crap Skoda Fabia hire car

This little guy was dead thank god

My left leg got mozzied big time, sorry for the Eric Morcombe shorts in shot

A blue Bulgarian drink

Dont wear ankle socks before going to the pool

Lovechs answer to weatherspoons this is a great bar overlooking the river, run by an old lady who must be 90 everything was 1 lev and it was busy, away from the posh part of town. If I lived in Lovech this would be my local.

The toilet in Weatherspoons, at least you didnt have a 2 mile walk
and 4 flights of stairs to get to it

Thats all for now see you soon.