Dogs, Houses,Pitchforks and Work

Gee, what a busy month June turned out to be. It’s certainly been a time of mixed fortunes, mixed emotions and great changes to the appearance of my amazing house…….

I guess the first stop I should make in this months entry is with Pirat.  All has not been well in the land of dogs and me.  Adorable as he is, he has the most incredible wilful streak and a battle of wills has commenced between man (woman) and beast….he wants to be boss….but so do I…….

He is going to be an incredibly powerful dog and I may not be strong enough to deal with that. He is the most delightful creature to have around when things are going his way, but if I try to discipline him, and trust me, sometimes he needs it, he has shown a somewhat nasty streak…and it’s worrying me.

He has become a great companion though, and the times I spend enjoying his company are wonderful. He joins me in the morning for toast and honey, he sits and watches me in the evenings when I’m preparing dinner and I’ve discovered that he has a love of tomatoes, cucumbers, salami, cirene cheese, eggs, yoghurt. strawberries, raspberries, chocolate and bananas, but don’t try and give him peppers or onions…..Oh no, he’ll have none of that.  This is a dog who knows exactly what he wants and what he likes.

He’s also a dog who, though he’s not supposed to be on the couch, isn’t taking NO for an answer and I often turn around and am greeted by this

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or this

[photopress:DSC04252.JPG,full,pp_empty] [photopress:DSC04241_th.jpg,full,pp_empty] when he’s made himself comfortable on said sofa. And yes, I do have to turn around so he can’t see me laughing, because it is very funny watching him trying to make himself tiny so he can slip onto the sofa unnoticed…….and then popping his head over to look at me, as if he’s exactly where he belongs…

But, and it’s a huge but, though he looks like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, I do have a deep concern about aspects of his personality. If I try and remove him from same said sofa, he snarls and snaps at me….problema ?? Maybe….time will tell……..

And then there’s my house. It’s just starting to look even better than I imagined.  The guys are working very hard in extremely hot temperatures, but work on they do, and this is the result……

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Ivan has decided, as only a Bulgarian man could, that some stonework around the base of the building is a must, and though I had little say in it, when I see the results of his work, how can I argue with his ideas……it just look spectacular.

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And, after seeing the stonework he’s done on my fireplace and the work he’s doing around the bottom of the house, it’s obviously one of his many talents.  He seems to have a feel for natural products like wood and stone ,and really knows how to make them work in the building work he does. He’s shown me houses he’s built in Yambol, and they have a particular look and he uses plenty of the things, like wood and stone, that can make a house special …and now he’s using those things on my house.  I’m just loving how he’s making my house look.  I’m quite set about what I want inside, but really, he’s been giving me most of the ideas for the outside, and the place is really starting to take shape and look wonderful.

And talking about the men working in hot weather, Holy, Moly it’s been almost unbearably hot.  This is my third summer here and by far the hottest.  Far too many temperatures up in the 40s……it’s starting to feel like Perth, and I don’t like that sort of heat.  I guess the only saving grace is that there seems to be little or no humidity here, which makes it slightly more bearable.

Mind you, I had a few days of reasonably hard labour in the burning sun myself …..

Ivan was heading up the side of the Manistirski to cut summer grasses for winter animal food and asked if I wanted to go with him and have a bit of a look around while he worked. Well. of course I did…never say no to an adventure, no matter how big or small.  We wound our way halfway up the mountain in his truck, he got to work with a scythe and I went for a bit of a look see around the place…….

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I got back from my walk and realised that he was cutting the grass AND then pitchforking it onto the truck….so, I volunteered my services.  He said ‘No Sue’, because he seems to have some misguided notion that I’m a delicate little flower that can’t manage manual labour……I said ‘don’t be ridiculous’ grabbed the pitchfork, and after a few lessons from the old wise one (it’s not as easy as it looks to pitchfork grass onto a truck), I got to work.  Jesus, it was indeed hard going for an old girl like me, but I enjoyed it so much.  Sometimes I think a good dose of manual labour is good for both body and soul. 

It was very hot though and I did get slightly frizzled in the hot afternoon sun……but…..I enjoyed it so much that when Ivan went back the next day to do it again, this time with Angel and Chocko, I went along as ‘second pitchfork’……

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couldn’t ask for a better backdrop to the hard work though [photopress:DSC04323.JPG,full,pp_empty]

and I picked a few of the flowers growing wild on the slopes

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They’re beautiful and I’m assuming, wildflowers…and also assumed that it was legal to pick them.  I did ask Ivan and he looked at me like I was crazy for even asking.  He asked why it would be illegal…I told him because, perhaps like Australia, the wildflowers had been picked almost to extinction and it was now illegal to pick them.  He assured me that it was OK….so home I came, sweaty, exhausted, hair, clothes and boots full of grass seeds, but feeling very satisfied, clutching my big bunch of colourful, beautiful flowers.

Krassie and I are still working hard getting the business going.  Had a  few real estate clients, not just from the UK but from down under as well, which is great…spreading all over the planet maybe ??  There’s also been a steady trickle of folk seeking accomodation, again, not just from the northern hemisphere but the southern as well, including folks from my old home town and a young fella from New Zealand.

Unfortunately, our new website never got off the ground as we have been let down by ANOTHER expat, so any new properties we have are being added to Krassies existing site, so anyone wanting to have a wee look should go to http://www.bgyambolproperties.com/index.php or just contact me via email aussiebulg@gmail.com

I guess that pretty much covers June…….I might even succeed in getting a July entry up…while it’s still July 🙂 

And I’ve been told by some of the ladies that there’s a couple of events coming up in August that I’m invited to go to with the village. I know we’re heading into the Stara Planina for one event and Stara Zagora for the other.  Sometimes not having a good command of a new language can be quite interesting….means you get more surprises when you get bundled into a bus and popped out hours later at some place you know little about.  That’s what I’m looking forward to in August….

for now…..caio