What’s that crashing sound ???? Ah, that would be the temperature dropping !!
Arose to another chilly day….flicked on Bulgarian telly….temperatures today: Sofia 4◦, Plovdiv 3◦, Varna 5◦…I’m somewhere in the middle of those places so I’m guessing Miladinovtsi might reach the dizzy heights of 3◦ or 4◦ today…..and it’s only autumn !!! And the clouds gathering in the sky in front of me have that distinctly heavy look of snow about them.
And what else did I wake up to……No bloody water….again !!!! So, absolutely freeezing and no chance of a hot shower to warm me up….Grrrr. The Mayor did say it would only be off for a few hours, and remarkabley, this time, it was…..came back on the same day…Hooray
I can no longer wait for my wardrobe to arrive…and I don’t want to pressure Doncho about it. He’s such a sweet and gentle man who has an enormous workload at the moment, and he always looks vaguely terrified when he sees me looming on the horizon. So, I’ve just done another raid of my boxes and dragged out boots, jumpers, jeans, all the necessities for the cold. I really haven’t needed them as yet, but I certainly need them now. So, even more clothes strewn around my bedroom…….the place looks like a bomb’s been dropped in there.
The builder that came yesterday has just returned with a carpenter…..perhaps I misjudged him…perhaps he will get things underway. There’s lots of Bulgarian chat and measuring going on just now…dare I get optimistic about this ??
The carpenter seems to think he can make some chairs to match my existing dining chairs as well…….wonder if I’ll have to sell my soul to get that done. He also says he can build me a nice big table for the kitchen area…and again, I wonder what he’ll charge for that. It’s a wee bit more delicate than throwing a few doors together and timbering the stairs, which was his reason for coming here in the first place.
Just received my quote for the Solar water system……depending on the size tanks I decide to have.(400 – 600 litre), it’s going to be somewhere between 7,000 & 11,000 lev…not bad for a complete solar water set up….I may have to forgo the swimming pool and settle for a paddling pool instead, but I certainly think it will be worth it. With the size of this house, I need to do something that’s environmentally friendly…..if I keep doing everything electric, I’ll bring the Miladinovtsi grid to a screaming halt. I’m already concerned about what’s going to happen when I get my Christmas fairy lights up :o)
Just went up to the local café for a quick ‘kafe dalgo’ (long coffee) and ran into the Mayor. I’m looking for someone to plough my yard in preparation for the winter and guess what ? He’s going to do it for me …gotta love this place..the Mayor is coming to plough my backyard :o) But what do you pay the Mayor for doing something like this ??? In fact, do you pay the Mayor for doing something like this ???
Later that same day: it’s actually not as cold tonight as it was last night…so I only have one heater sucking the life out of the local grid…..I’m sure the locals will be pleased…..they can at least have lights tonight :o)
Masha walked into the house the other day with a wee ‘gift’ for me
…there’s an awful lot of pumpkin soup in that baby :o) This could even result in a batch of Flo Bjelke Petersens famous pumpkin scones…and if you’ve never eaten pumpkin scones, you should…they’re fantastic.
Speaking of pumpkin (tikva), the local don’t eat it as a savoury vegetable…it’s eaten here as a dessert, which sounds odd, but the pumpkin here is so sweet. I’ve never tasted anything like it and when I made soup the other day, I actually added sour cream because the flavour was so incredibly sweet. The Bulgarians also roast it with honey….which seems strange given that the natural flavour is already very sweet, but Christina bought me over a plate of it the other night…and it was absolutely gorgeous.
Some of the veges I’ve seen here are HUGE…I bought the smallest cauliflower I could find in the markets the other day…it’s twice the size of my head……and I don’t have the smallest head in creation.
And the leeks are about a metre long and as thick as a big man’s arm……so this pumpkin is actually not that large here. I saw one in one of the markets the other day that really could have been turned into a carriage…….
Hopefully, I’ll find some time soon to get the stuff for my website set up…..just now, I don’t seem to have time to scratch myself…and it can’t go live until the pictures are added and the spelling mistakes rectified……suddenly I don’t seem to have any time to gaze into the middle distance or pick lint out of my navel… and it’s looking mighty woolly just now…my navel, not the middle distance :o)
I’d better be careful….don’t want to find myself working toooo hard :o)
Away to my bed now….Masha is away at 5am and though she’s insisted that she will just get herself a cup of tea and leave, I’ll most likely get up at least to say goodbye. It’s been an interesting experience having a paying guest in the house but, I have to admit, I’m feeling a wee bit weary. What will I be like if I ever end up with a houseful ???
For now…leka nosht
