Poems, prose and Letters from Bulgaria

art now

2009-07-24T14:32:00.003+03:00

Art Now

It doesn’t seem to matter

whether it’s good or bad

It doesn’t seem to matter

whether it’s in poor taste or not

It doesn’t seem to matter

as long as the words are long.

It can come from skips or wastepaper bins.

It can travel from quarries cross far away lands.

It may stem from the lowly factory floor.

It can even be found in the household drawer.

I doesn’t have to be crafted or skilled,

so that ordinary folk can understand

The only criteria that the critics do like

Is the fact that it’s not been done!!

striking white paper

2009-07-24T14:29:00.004+03:00

Striking White Paper

A mid August wind whirls through the twigs in the lime trees.

I rush inside, warm from my 4 wheeled space capsule,

through the white door to a cozy front room.

to stare past the double glazing, nature and the traffic muffled.

tonight I don’t need the towns arterials in my mind.

tonight it’s ok, I put on the music loud.

Sometimes I just get people poisoned

can never say when it might happen,

but lately it’s happening a lot.

and each time it takes longer to go away.

I guess I’m just lucky that way

Last gulp of coffee as I turn the last page,

and gaze at the watercolours of a long dead man.

It gives me inspiration; I reach for my book and pen'

and know that there are others, out there, in the night.

others who feel the same.

Yes, sometimes it’s alright,

to be an artist in this oh, so, woeful England.

picking up a pen, I strike white paper.

It

2009-07-24T14:27:00.003+03:00

I wouldn't like to be without.

I think she'd miss it too.

Problem is, it's never the shape

you would really like it to be?

As you get older it's comfort comes first

as many will surely agree.

Although the shape is important,

it certainly must feel right too.

It's been black and blue, and often quite red.

at other times grey or white,

It was purple and white a long time ago,.

but we don't talk about that much now.

The early seventies I remember with pride,

and people would mention my name.

On size they'd remark, it's the best in the street.

though some didn't like it so green.

We've lately been thinking along bigger lines,

though the Mrs. would still like it red.

I know the one you have is cute, she said,

of that there is no doubt.

It's been so reliable over the years,

and it works any time, day or night!

But there comes a time in a woman's life,

when she fancies a foreign affair.

so if it's alright with you, and just this one time.

I fancy a Nissan instead.

peer groups

2009-07-24T14:25:00.004+03:00

Peer groups

Can of coke in one hand, fag in the other,

Two fourteen year old girls slouch by.

Using just enough effort to keep moving forward

Their Frankenstein boots on a six stone frame.

Hair dyed and tinted at much expense ,

to look like from sleep they have just awoke.

Thirty years on and our knowledge increased,

of the dangers of sugars and smoke.

Yet they take no notice of these cold facts.

Thinking it cannot happen to them!

And the biggest two dangers, always around,

the ones that they won't listen to,

are the voices of men and women,

who make a living by selling your image,

and convince you it's been your idea?

Yet the worst fear of all,comes from within,

your fears and your ego and wanting to fit.

The group you mix with, should also contain,

a warning concerning your health.

Peer groups can seriously damage your life!!!

In praise of polythene

2009-07-24T14:23:00.003+03:00

IN PRAISE OF POLYTHENE

What, with the wind and the snow and the cats

and repairs about every year.

I ask myself at the end of a long winter, why do I bother?

Then the spring comes around and I put everything back in order.

Again, I clean up the old and replace torn and brittle pieces.

Buying a sheet of polythene, I tape, I moan.

Yet when the days start to stretch.

and the seed trays are full and the temperature outside is low,

and the chill wind blows harder to lower it more,

I sit in a warm seventy plus and read by the light of the sun.

We know if it were smaller then glass we could have,

But it's not just for growing that we use the greenhouse;

A place to sit and muse, to feel warmth and sunlight,

to escape the house to watch plants grow and to tend to living things

Basic needs to grow part of our food.

So I write a few words in praise of polythene.

We have dreams for a day when monies not tight,

and plan our glass structure with extras galore,

self-opening vents, self-watering plants,

and staging that's made for life.

Heating's an extra we surely would have, a place big enough to eat in.

But until that time we will mend and moan,

and praise the men who make polythene.

precious saturday

2009-07-24T14:20:00.003+03:00

Precious Saturday

Sitting, trying to curl up on a settee as in childhood.

Cuddling a book, listening to a symphony.

Glancing towards the gas fires orange waving fingers;

trying to make use of a day when my batteries are dead.

Trying not to waste a precious Saturday, not wholly succeeding.

Spring is here and growth has started.

Flowers are out, colour is back,

and the trees in their turn are slowly greening.

Yet outside it is cold, a few people scurry,

disorganised from forgotten items on the shopping lists.

The Grey sky matches the Grey biting wind as

I yearn for sun and heat.

Why complain? artificial warmth on artificial logs,

is not a thing you would give up easily.

Thoughts of a night in a squat or cardboard box

do not make me feel better, only guilty.

I move I wriggle, turn a page, read half a page,

listen with half an ear.

Why is concentration so hard to achieve,

Why does your mind want to be somewhere else.

Tired from the weeks traumas, too tired to relax.

trying not to waste a precious Saturday.

wallflowers

2009-07-24T14:16:00.004+03:00

WALLFLOWERS

Drinking green tea in the greenhouse

sounds so very posh,

a blue and white china pot with rice decorations around.

With a small drinking vessel found in a junk shop

I sip as the sky changes hue.

The temperature reads a nice 80 plus

and the vine has been growing a month.

I pour out a cup and take a long drink

and watch a flat spider run up a round wire.

as the wallflowers go on and on.

Mid afternoon on a mid May day,

and the beans have been climbing a week.

The tulips are flagging, the daffodils gone,

and the last meal fetched from the Broccoli.

Fat purple buds from the Iris explode,

a shame they last only a day.

Last drink of tea as the clouds scurry in

and the breeze shakes our young apple tree.

In ten minutes, the temperature drops ten degrees,

and I mentally prepare to go in.

The sun hides behind our high garden wall,

the shadows arrive far too soon,

but the wallflowers go on and on.

Trays of seedlings silently wait,

for the last frost to hurry and go.

Two gardens along a cage full of birds,

start into their twilight song.

Tomatoes and peppers race to produce

as the evenings slowly draws out.

while the sweet peas we've planted look so very small

you would never believe they would get quite so tall.

and the wallflowers go on and on.

The traffic seeps back through my clear plastic walls

Down the main road the night surge begins.

as I close up the door, from the nightly chill,

I thank all the company there.

and the wallflowers go on and on.

Irish song

2009-07-24T14:12:00.006+03:00

IRISH SONG

The concrete is dusty and sweating with lime.

and a jack hammer howls by my side.

A J.C.B. screeches it's bucket on stone,

and the mud weighs too much on my boots.

We're digging out holes and filling them in,

with ballast and concrete and sand.

From holes dug in the ground in some other place,

where other men look just the same.

I'd rather be home with my wife and the kids,

with my relatives all within reach.

Where the loudest sound that anyone hears,

is the talk of myself and my friends.

But I'm here in this van trying to get clean,

for to spend a few hours in a bar,

To meet with some men who are ships just like me.

Passing on through these long nights.

The beer's overpriced and the money goes fast,

as happiness we all try to find.

With a song or a girl or the spirit that's strong

Yet we fool ourselves none of the time

I want to be back where the clouds can be seen,

racing across distant hills.

And the loudest sound that anyone hears,

is the sound of the pipes on the wind.

In no time at all the money is gone

Did we work all those hours just for that?

And it's back to the digs or a woman's warm arms,

Depending what happened that night.

You can't earn enough to go spending in bars,

and save to send home as well.

But it's hard to stay sane over the years,

if you don't have the pubs as a home.

A great deal of years it has taken off me,

as I've dug and helped lay down the roads.

and the aches they get worse as the years go on by,

yet the money is never enough.

I want to be where the houses have space,

and the sky is big overhead,

Where the wind whistles through branches and leaves,

not litter along a dark street

I dream to be home walking around,

the streets and houses I love,

Where the loudest sound that anyone hears,

is the shout from a friend to a friend.

lemmings

2009-07-24T14:11:00.003+03:00

Too many people like lemmings rush to the future

Rushing as fast as the disappearing Ozone layer

Too many vehicles spitting out blood

the blood of a sickening world

And our species like the blind of old,

running round and round like the dying throes

of a chicken that's just lost its head.

wishes

2009-07-24T14:08:00.002+03:00

Wish I could stand back and only observe.

Wish I had no feelings for my Mother earth.

Wish I could turn the clock forwards or back.

Wish I could fix a point to slow things a bit,

To allow people more time to think out,

the possible dangers of what might become.

news

2009-07-24T14:06:00.003+03:00

NEWS

Why is there so much news.

It's never news because you've been hearing it all day.

Every hour on the hour

as though without you might expire.

Like a junkie needs his dope,

it's a wonder we don't overdose.

Every channel every station as if they daren't comply.

With unwritten rules they all go by.

What good does it really do to here of someone's untimely death,

ten times or more a day.

The first has impact and then like war upon the screen,

the human mind dims tragedy the easier to survive.

And don't tell me you have to know while you are at work,

what are you going to do?

nip out in your break and change the world.

Why not wake up and face the fact,

It's another addiction, another soap.

If the news did count at all,

if one spot a day was laid by,

without continuous analysis

we might change something yet,

but that wouldn't do at all.

Saturations the art of the game,

keeping you numb from cradle to grave.

So if instead of acting like sheep,

you turned off the air waves for only a week.

The radio's one, two three and four.

The local ones are especially a bore.

The tele channels and satellite dish

When you come back if you last that long

You may find you've gained back some of your mind.

You may even question what to do with your time.

Until you take time to hear the quiet.

things will get faster and faster,

an illusion we are going somewhere.

Instead of somewhere insaner.

2009-07-24T13:42:00.006+03:00

QUIET NIGHT

On a quiet night I ask myself.

What good is drawing or painting when,

another species goes extinct.

Where power exists there also exists

the good and bad to choose from.

Yet though a few do try to fight

and shout for those who cannot be heard.

The inevitable chamber of torture

never seems short of willing hands,

to help maintain a stable land.

If people still can do these deeds,

to other humans not so unlike.

Then animals, trees, plants and such,

can kiss goodbye to their future good luck.

end of 91

2009-07-24T13:39:00.007+03:00

END OF 91

And so in this year of '91, with all around the rising sun.

A part of me cries out to create, a future full of light and hope.

Yet strong deep down the fear and dread,

observes the slow decline and tread.

of ever more monstrous greed.

Making room for millions more,

provides the yen for Japanese stores.

Money can buy for short term gain,

a countries forest to abuse.

To scaffold round their mighty towers,

of concrete, glass, expressing power.

And when this edifice is built,

and all the trees by which it grew,

are taken down and stacked anew.

One could think of more respect, than burial at sea.

And yet on their so hallowed land,

not one tree be touched or felled,

for trees must be respected,

at least in one's backyard!

The outlook as I see it now,

the downfall of our lovely earth.

As one remarked the other day

there's nowhere else that we can go.

But if there was another world

where room enough could be found,

to put our teeming millions on,

and ways of even getting there.

I would suggest that on the whole

we don't deserve another go.

And if the centuries still to come,

dictate that we destroy this world.

Of one thing I will be pleased,

we never made it into space.

No Work Today

2009-07-24T13:35:00.006+03:00

NO WORK TODAY

Lying in bed, awake around the same time as most other days,

Listening to the traffic, slight swish of tyres on a damp road.

We brought in the seeds from the weatherman's threat of frost.

The swish of tyres is the sound of dead frost.

A click on the window pane,

as the climbing rose waves in the March breeze.

Shadows, real shadows as sunlight outlines the pattern of lace,

throwing long distorted images of it's true shape,

up and down the bumps in the bedclothes,

over flat surfaces, round the legs of a chair.

It's not winter's cold or lack of life I hate so much,

as the lack of sun and shadow,

the absence of shape and points of light.

Gloom disappears at the speed of light, at the speed of sunlight

All this light, and no work today.

Traffic noise increases, eight o'clock comes and is gone,

I lay like a cat that's had the cream, planning the day's chores,

No not chores today, pleasures.

Young plants to go out to soak up the sun,

soil in trays with seeds yet to come.

A day out on the bike, round lanes and roads that carry less cars.

See what's growing in the hedgerows,

primroses and Celendines last week.

First lambs and daffodils, arrive with the early blackthorn.

Coffee in bed and I say goodbye and thanks.

As my partner wends her weary way to her part-time job.

No time for working we both agree. there's too many things to do

too many hobbies to explore, too many paintings and pots to make,

too many thoughts and ideas to work through,

the garden alone could take over our lives,

and now we've two frogs in the pond to watch!

Standing, looking down on the heads of people going somewhere,

Staring level with heads on the buses to town. I people watch,

a time consuming pastime or time wasting pastime,

depending on your view of time.!

People wrapped against the wind, a tin can blows down the path,

empty sweet wrappers whirl in eddies, on an invisible raging river;

caught in currents that circle in corners.

Not at the moment I say to myself,

thinking of the pedal power needed to go against that.

Coffee instead and a few rounds of toast.

The sun might melt the wind away later.

Meanwhile, No work today.

Little Flood

2009-07-24T13:31:00.001+03:00

Little Flood

Standing on the long narrow packhorse bridge I look down.

Water the colour of the Ganges curls and twists it’s way

round stone pillars, under arches,

rushing through the slender gap at the top of the span.

The noise drawing parents, children,

all staring into the swirling patterns.

Whirlpools appear, disappear, spiral down, surge up.

Twigs appear, disappear, pulled from the flooded fields and hedgerows.

Mallard and Coots dappling and diving in a field, very strange?

Yellow patches waving on the surface.

The tops of March Marigolds on the edges of the flood.

Ankles of trees and pylons covered,

reflections quiver in the quieter stretches.

A spider drops on to my glove,

a fraction to the right and he would have been swimming.

As if some inbuilt instinct comes into play, I turn,

watching the water, flow out the other side.

Eddies here run slower with brown froth.

Everywhere bubbles winking in and out of existence

Straw circling, the liquid easing over the landscape.

Cows standing, lying on the higher ground.

People pass by, adults with pushchairs children with bikes.

Many with cameras to capture this episode in the little rivers life.

Draining through a gap in the hedge,

the excess water crosses the towpath joins the canal, I follow.

People congregate, I cycle past the blockage,

a section of towpath under water.

Splashing through, the tyres part the water;

conversation dims with the turn of the wheels.

entering a hushed world, via an invisible barrier,

My head fills with words, freedom after a week of rain.

The sun emerges and lights the crests of a million minute waves,

All the clichés are here, I feel myself smiling,

no smirking, like the Proverbial cat.

I move on calmed by the sound of running water.

Letter From Bulgaria 14

2008-07-29T11:07:00.001+03:00

8.30 am
Thought I would finish off the wood decking on the pond area today. Only about 10 pieces to cut to finish it. First get garage keys to get saw-bench out. Won’t go through small door because of Jeep so open double doors at front to get Jeep out. Can’t open doors because Niva is in the way? Find Niva keys, Move Niva back, find jeep keys, Move Jeep out. Wheel out saw-bench next to decking area. Connect cable, Cable too short? Go find extension lead, connect up. Collect wood and look for tools. Ah! Claw hammers are with the men at the 2nd house. Find old engineering hammer, collect nails, and Tape measure. Ah! Tape measures are with Men and at the Gallery, Find Gallery keys, Get in Niva drive to Gallery collect tape measure. Drive back. Cut first piece of wood. And fix. Opps bent the nail. No claw hammer! go to shed find pliers or small crowbar Ah! with men on second house or Gallery, go to Pauline’s garden shed pinch Pauline’s old pliers, Straighten nail. Finish first piece of wood at 10.30am. Anybody recognize this sort of a day?

Just another day in Bdintsi. I have probably the most and the best tools in the village! but always having to make do because tools need to be at 2nd house or the Gallery. One day I tell myself I will have them all back and life will be easier, or if not easier a sight quicker anyway. Solution? Sit down have a coffee. Start again at 11am.

Pauline would like me to stop my involvement in the other building work and some days I would like to be free of the workload and constant monitoring and organizing. Shame really as I now feel I have the knowledge and connections to build anything! But on a “good day” I start to plan the next renovation, Actually we start to plan the next renovation? Maybe when our two houses are finished and the pressure is off, because of our time limit, to maybe rent or sell the second house, it will be more fun again.

The original roof has needed some work and a complete chimney rebuild, So the only sensible thing was to strip the entire old house roof to see what we needed to do, before we started fixing the OSB board and tiling the extension. This has put us back a bit but the main structure is sound on three sides and we have now finished rebuilding the North side with all new timbers, OSB boards and of course roofing felt. We now need to strip all the tiles off and replace and add a couple of more new timbers to the front felt and replace the tiles and point up.

I went in to Dobrich today to order more materials but they don’t have half what I need. And as transport is quite expensive I will wait until it is all in before I order again. In Dobrich a great deal of building work is going on also in and around the surrounding area. The builders yard I use has doubled the size of it’s Building in the last year and with the stock they now carry it is hard not to find what you need under one roof unless it is specialized. Two years ago we were running round from one small place to other getting materials. You could easily lose most of the day collecting stuff and getting it organized for one lorry to pick up, from the various shops.

Fuel prices have shot up the same as everywhere but when an average guy earns 20 to 30 lev a day (8 to 12 pounds) and some earn less. And it’s 2.44 a lev. (about a pound a litre here.) You can see why the price increase of basic commodities can seriously affect most of the population especially the pensioners. With the advertising on the TV, now pumping out credit availability to all and sundry! I can foresee a fast decline into debt over the next couple of years. Most of the people I know will have no chance of ever paying back what they are trying to borrow, Most have no concept of Banks and Credit company’s policies. When they say “I am sorry I had no work this month, can I pay you next month?” to me I complain but don’t threaten them with court (not yet anyway) but try the same with ploy with these companies and your furniture, TV, car or whatever will be gone and the money they paid for it, will be gone with it. The Western world can’t seem to stop spending on all sorts of unnecessary material possessions, and can’t sort its debt problems out, with all it’s so called safeguards, so what chance a new European country when suddenly everything is available? I think too many people will not understand until it’s too late. All for now. We will if all this comes to pass? Ah well back to looking for goats? Definitely NO credit allowed there!

Letter from Bulgaria 13

2008-07-22T11:07:00.001+03:00

Took a long time to get to around to writing this letter. Gallery is finished except the floor? May have to laminate it all. Cleaning option was a waste of time and money. We have been painting the studio during the odd rainy days, but not too many of them now, it’s been a good year for the roses, should be a song there. (sorry) This month the wheat fields have had the combines working into the night we have had a lot of warm days getting up into the mid thirties sometimes.

But enough thunderstorms to keep everything growing well. The sweetcorn is doing really well too, maybe make up for last year, though I don’t suppose it will ever go down in price to 2 years ago. We have 2 haystacks now and are ready for another cut. I hope everyone is checking my site on the summer seasons pages. I am trying to keep up by using my photography instead of the writing. Tomatoes are great and cucumbers have been cropping since early July. We have had a lot of peas and dwarf beans but they don’t crop again, because of the heat I think. Carrots have made two crops, Still more next year, crop them all at once for the freezer then leave fallow till winter digging. Still it saves watering, which is a full time job some days. 2nd house has the walls up and the big lintel all round.

Had a delivery of wood and OSB boards for the roof. Found a few problems with the old roof on the original house so we are rebuilding the chimney and boarding and reproofing all the north side. The other three sides have board so we will strip back to them, put felt on, replace the laths, replace the tiles and re-point all the ridge tiles. This time I am using old tiles on the roof from the village, I like the look of them they are cheaper and accessable and the models are not so bright, don’t keep changing or go out of production. Although we reckon on having maybe four or five different old tile models, but as long as the rows are all the same its not a problem. It’s slowed us down a bit, but no good making the new roof on the extension then redoing the old one above it. Garden is a complete tip! Not the tidiest of workers?

Dogs are flat out in the house asleep on the tiles most of the day because of the heat. Problem is they go berserk at night running round like maniacs and occasionally digging great holes in Pauline’s flower beds just when we are having tea and trying to relax! We have been putting sticks in all over the beds, to try to give the new roses and shrubs a chance, not ideal astheitically speaking but beggars can’t be chooses. I built another little room on the side of the house last month to house all our garden stuff and as a shelter for the dogs in the Winter. That let us get rid of the old home built dog kennels outside the back door. So looking a lot smarter now. Have nearly finished the second pond on the field and have plans to surround the Southside with trees and shrubs starting in the winter to give shade and shelter and some more privacy not that anyone is within 200 yards anyway. We went fishing to a local lake and brought back about forty small fish for the two ponds, so far only one has died and if they get big enough the locals will eat them? No idea what species they are, must look on the net. Sorry for the pun.

Pauline is of course gardening like a woman possessed, which is not all bad. It gives me a lot more time to do other things. We have had a big superstore built in Dobrich called Kaufland its great?
I can even go there myself shoot round and do all the shopping in one go. Has real Bacon nearly real Cheese. Lurpak, great bread, its almost a pleasure to shop Almost. Pauline has a laptop now,so we have finally retired our trusty 486 windows 95 model, still working too. Maybe more letters will be on the cards from Pauline.

I have bought another house in the village this one at a proper village price, (not English price) with half an acre. We can plant this next year for added forage or wheat. This should also keep the lads working in the autumn, while their working I am getting the loans back, so just basics on the house nothing fancy till the winter sets in. More later. Mladen my man Friday and sort of foreman and now translator, is getting his little calves this month maybe twelve and some goats, to use their milk to feed them for the first four months. I am getting another six calves and with my big pregnant one and the two more females that we raised from calves, makes nine, so I need some more goats as well . We can buy dried powder milk for them, but by the time we have paid out for powder over the four months we could have bought all the goats we need for the same price, so we will go together to find some good milking goats around the villages. Not a fast job I am sure but it’s the only way to get what we need. He can look after them all together, now he has moved into the house next to the Gallery, and in maybe a year or two will be self sufficient in animals.
All for now, Dave

Letter from Bulgaria 11

2008-07-03T11:05:00.001+03:00

Another Day, Another Dobrich. Pauline had her operation this week and is reckoning to be in for five days under observation before coming home. We have friends in Dobrich who are checking in on her and she has her mobile with everyone’s number, who she can call if she wants anything.

The food is basic, so food and drink and any materials she needs have to be bought in the chemists outside of the hospital grounds and taken in. She is in room with two other beds and the people who work there are really nice but it is still a little daunting with our limited Bulgarian, I am trying to get in once everyday, I just have to organise the dogs and have someone working around the place before I feel happy to leave. Turned drizzly today and colder, yesterday at about four o’clock I was sitting in the sun with a cold lager having spent the day pruning back the vines. We have this new black four legged alarm clock called Mecho, very reliable, goes off about six thirtyish every morning and unfortunately doesn’t appear to have a snooze button! So around four in the afternoon is a good time to stop and put your feet up.

The birds have started to appear from nowhere, Jays were flying around the Walnut trees with the Magpies, dozens of Starlings were winging over the fields, Sparrows, great tits and a redstart were sifting through the compost spread around the garden. The woodpeckers have been hammering for a couple of weeks now and outside the village on the rockier areas are jackdaws with their grey bodies.

Had a night and day of bad wind, which has affected my internet antenna, at least that is what they told me when I phoned. They knew what was wrong and threatened to phone me when it is fixed? I am not holding my breath. The street lights in the village have also been off for two days. Inconvenient, but the night sky has been brilliant. Have noticed a lot of plane trails lately in the sky sometimes five at a time. We hardly ever hear the planes but can see them. I am guessing the northerly ones are heading for Romania and Russia, maybe even Moscow and beyond. Varna airport is sixty kms. South East of us, which is close enough for convenience, about an hours drive, so not too bad if I have to pick up friends.

March the 1st here, is the day when everyone buys red and white wristbands or tassels shaped like little red and white dolls, symbolising male and female. When either the wearer sees the first stork arrive or the twentieth of March arrives the bands and tassels are hung in the fruit trees. So nearly everyone, men and women alike are wearing these red and white symbols. Last year Pauline woke up and looked out over our field and shouted for me, that was the first time we had seen the Storks, maybe ten or so stabbing at the ground working their way over the field. This year we are waiting in anticipation for another visit. In the villages around us they nest on top of telephone poles, electricity poles almost anything that is high enough off the ground. Why they don’t topple off I have no idea. Normal size of the nest I am guessing, is a metre and a half across. All these twigs etc. plus the birds’ weight? defying gravity.

Maybe during the winter they are taking secret courses in engineering? We have been working around our acre mending and replacing the old fencing where necessary, unfortunately before we finished the dogs learnt a new trick. When they stand and lean on parts of the old fencing it bends over at the top enough for them to climb out. One day they disappeared and did not return till eight at night. I opened the gate for them and in shot Jessie, but Mecho was half hiding in the next door field and would not come. I strolled across to get him and wagging his tail he came up to me with a full grown chicken hanging out of his mouth. We had a quick discussion on the merits of chicken bones not being too good for dogs, which had no effect on him at all. So I grabbed the chickens legs, which I could tell he wasn’t quite sure whether this was allowable or not and pulled, and he reluctantly followed me in through the gate. Once through the gate he let me take the dead bird from him. We gave the chicken to Mladen who gave it to the pigs, who will eat anything. Exchanged three little pigs for six cubics of wood, when we eventually get it? This will help with feeding the few we have left. When the feed runs out they will be out in the village foraging for the summer, giving us time to find a buyer for them.

Pauline is out of hospital and can do no lifting for six weeks which will drive her mad as she is dying to get started on the garden. Last two weeks have been sunny and cold. Had a friend Alain over to stop during the week and help rebuild Harry’s roof with my men, it is busy again. April is here with a vengeance wet and cold, problems with the men and Alain not seeing eye to eye so the idea of help is not working well and now Alain is in Hospital having contracted Pnuemonia. So not a good week for anyone especially Alain. So it’s back to instructing everyone working on the roof and the gallery and garden will have to wait a bit longer.

Letter from Bulgaria 12

2008-04-25T11:06:00.001+03:00

Finished Harry’s roof and we are now building him a new front wall to his new living room, installing double glazing with double French doors and had doors built for his newly built garage, and it’s the last job I am doing for anyone else. I am starting on my 2nd house this week with a delivery of sand and cement to start the floors. Have moved all the extra materials from Harry’s into the 2nd House. There is quite a lot as I ordered extra on the delivery to Harry.

First job is to put up the Y tong walls and a separating wall from the kitchen to the living room, then rebuild the top of the back wall and end wall. When that’s done and spaces for the door and windows are left we will put a concrete ring reinforced with metal rebar (sort of full lintel) on the extension on top of the walls tying in with the reinforced concrete pillars we will build at intervals into the new walls. I really liked Harry’s French windows so I will be leaving enough space (1.5 metre gap) in the wall for them facing the garden. I am also planning to have a series of columns on the south side and to extend the roof over by a metre to make a covered walkway all around the extension. As it is south facing it will give shade in the summer and be good for winter use too when we get the snow plus a good place to store and dry wood for the stoves.

Rain stops play about every other day. We are progressing but slowly because of the weather. This month we have had a good measure of rain and so the garden is looking good. Bought plastic to finish the extended greenhouse, we now have peas growing well, first lettuce and potatoes up along with radish, runner beans and tomatoes in pots, spring onions, onion sets, carrots and various flowers seeds.

The local market is selling tomato plants, so we bought four of each of three varieties and have planted them in the greenhouse. The rockery is looking well, the snow in summer is flowering and the Lupins and foxgloves are coming on fast. Our friend Trevor in Varna told us of a little place selling plants in the town, so we paid a visit Sunday, and came back with about forty plants, all good basic shrubs plus a lot of roses, which do incredibly well here despite the hard winters. It is not unusual to have a hundred buds on one plant after two years. Starting to rebuild the low wall in front of the house making it wider and cementing in the stones to stop the soil leeching out. We took down a perimeter wall last year and replaced it with wire fencing so we have a lovely selection of stone to use.

Making a second pond outside the new garage on the field and will be using all the runoff from the two garage roofs to hopefully keep it topped up. Must get some pond plants but only know of one place in Varna to get them so must wait for when we have time to get them. Pauline is doing a bit in the garden now slowly, frustratingly getting her strength back but must be careful not to over do things. The field is full of plants and looking like a meadow, with all this rain everything has shot up including the grass. I mowed all the back area today and in between the grape vines using the clippings as a mulch round the base of the vines instead of weeding and hoeing all the time. Will see if the mulching idea works when they fruit.

My friend Jan flew out for a week while Alain was here, so very hectic again. He’s selling his house in North Cyprus to buy a flat in Nicosia so his wife can open a shop there. He is also making a few contacts regarding selling his artwork, with a full colour spread in a local magazine. In the mean time he is back in the U.K. in a flat and looking for teaching work until the house is sold or rented. Had a good week all round and showed him around our neck of the woods. It’s a shame he won’t be moving here, because I would have loved to have shared the Studio and Gallery space with him.

Internet down again due to high winds, so when it is less windy the men will have to climb up and re-adjust the dish again. Daffodils have been excellent this year no big wind to knock them over and the replanted ones have doubled the show. We have a few tulips flowering but will have to get more, this is another plant that seems to thrive in Bulgaria, everybody has them in their gardens and in a large variety of colours, the reds mostly come out first and the yellows later.

Will try to remember to plant more in the autumn, we dug up a few from the 2nd house garden and field before the men devastated the garden while doing building work. Paperwork is still trickling in but we have put it on hold and are going to get to grips with the garden over the next month. Well that’s the theory anyway! Have a plan to build another little room on the side of the house for various reasons, all will be revealed eventually.

Letter from Bulgaria 10

2008-03-01T11:04:00.001+02:00

I am having to write notes to myself so that I can remember what has been happening over the last week or so. This village has a population of approximately seventy five in the winter months (minus one from last night) which increases during the summer when people who own property here come to live. Some are retired people who live in apartments in Dobrich or Varna over the winter period, which is very understandable given the severity of some winters, or others who have permanent jobs in the cities tend to come at weekends to visit or stop over, plant and raise vegetables in the season ready to store and take back for the winter time.

If we ever get enough spare money together it would be my plan to buy a place in Dobrich. Prices of apartments are on the increase and in the future it would be handy to have a place in town for ourselves and maybe for others to stop over or even rent it out?
An old man died in the village last night so Mladen and three others have gone to the cemetery to finish the grave. A tractor with an arm digs the main grave and then the guys construct a wooden platform for the coffin to lie underneath, it is about 30cm. above the base of the grave made of timber and the soil is put on that. Still not sure why? And when I asked the answer was I don’t know it’s always done like this?

This week we have had excellent gardening weather, warm enough to work outside in comfort. The bulbs are coming on a pace now, so I have been digging out the ones in the lawn we didn’t have time to move last year. And splitting and replanting in the bed near the workshop. “Only take an hour” I said foolishly, but along with well intentioned interruptions by friends dropping by for a chat, it took the whole afternoon. I think I must have moved nearly three hundred, so should be a great show in a month.
The building work and the gallery refurbishment has taken me away from the garden and I am determined to get all the bones done this year. I have laid the first layer of the new low retaining wall running alongside the stone path, Mladen has dug about twenty five holes around the edge of the field and some in the garden too, ready for the trees. I have started to half fill these with manure from last year to give them a good start. The soil here is black and looks like peat but is actually very fine with clay particles and more like a silt, gets very dry in the summer and can be baked hard, alternatively when it’s wet it sticks like glue to your boots and is virtually impossible to work. We laid straw and manure as a mulch over most of the flower and vegetable beds last year keeping it so much cleaner for the dogs and improving the soil will definitely do the same this winter to get as much humus into the soil as possible.

We have decided to plant a lot of roses this year because they grow so well and with a spray early in the season we should not have any real problems. We are looking at getting about another fifty or sixty to start with and see how we go from there. Last year the bare rooted were just over a pound each. So even with the exchange rate being the lowest ever we should get them for one pound fifty each. Actually the price of pelargoniums and small ones at that, cost more? We are hoping to put in a mixture of year old cherry, peach, apricot and fig trees, cost should be around two pounds a piece this year. So you can understand why we are planting so many.

The walnut trees are more expensive and I am estimating on five pounds English each and we will have to get them from a specialist nursery. Not too sure how long before walnuts produce, but that’s just a bonus if we live long enough to eat any. On the other side of our road / track alongside the field edge that belongs to next door’s empty property, are well established walnut trees, and this season we are having the walnuts. Last year everyone was round at all hours, morning and night shaking the trees and being a general pain, so if we get in first it will save a lot of hassle for us, plus they sell at a good rate and we can have a sack full for the rest of the year. Incidentally this property that has been owned for three years is now up for sale again, in much worse condition than it was, by a woman we met two years ago who lives in the North of England.

It is sad to see a house slowly deteriorate, but in these extreme conditions of hot and cold and where no money is spent on maintenance, people do not realise how quick the damage can happen. First the tiles on the roof start to crack and split and the water gets in. Now in the roof space above the ceilings it is usual to pack this with earth for insulation purposes, but when this earth gets wet you can imagine the weight pushing down on the ceiling and pulling down on the roof timbers! Next the doors and windows literally get blown in or out, and the weather gets inside and then the rendered earth walls start to peel without their protected layer of lime wash. The sheds on this property are made of tree timbers and filled in with wattle and daub and lime washed.
The same problem applies here as to the inside of the house, as soon as the exterior lime wash is not protecting the render, everything peels off. Hence a lot of falling down structures in Bulgaria. Here endeth the first lesson on buying old property abroad and expecting it to stay standing without spending!

LETTER FROM BULGARIA 9

2008-02-14T11:03:00.001+02:00

We have kept the dogs happily munching on pig and calf bone for weeks, mostly keeping them out of trouble? But the downside is, one buries its bone, the other one digs it up, and then buries it again somewhere else. ad infinitum. All good fun. For the dogs anyway. When the ground unfreezes I think will we have a few holes to fill in and a bit of reseeding to do. We also have the Bulgarian equivalent to the English mole. Which having done its best to ruin the lawn over night gets extra help as the dogs try to dig it up. So between them, the beds and lawns are looking like a model of the battle of the Somnes?

Temperatures have dropped again to minus, -8 at night and –3 in the day with gusts of wind. Its dry with flurries of snow and today I had to break the pond ice to get a few buckets of water to the house because we have had no mains water for 2 days, ahhhh village life, never a dull moment, but at least we don’t have the responsibility of our animals here. (I’m not a complete idiot?) When the water pressure is low or non existent Mat. and Cas. our English friends in the village have to go to the local spring and collect enough water every couple of days for their animals, including the four horses. And Mladen or a family member have to walk the cattle to the spring and back. We are getting sick of this water problem and will be doing some serious shouting on Monday when our village idiot (or the mayor as some people call him) gets back to work.

This weeks disaster in Bdintsi is Mladen’s father Philip, who probably the worse for wear, drink wise managed to fall into an old empty concrete water bunker, we think, break his ankle and definitely bite a piece out of his tongue! So more money lent out and no more work again as they go off to Dobrich to the Hospital to get him sorted out. His Rakeya (plum brandy) drinking is a problem to the extent that Mladen’s mother has signed over his monthly pension to me to help pay back the money we have lent them and stop him spending it on drink. Oh did I mention that the other week Mladen’s uncle, who has 2 small children from his first marriage, incidently, looked after by their grandmother, had a very short courtship with a young lady from another village and is now married again. The interesting point is we are not sure if she actually knew if he had children or not until she arrived in the village?

It’s not always easy to get the details right in the translation and sometimes we get the complete wrong end of the stick! So will have to probe a little more to get the facts. Water pipes have been renewed in the vllage so we have good pressure until the next time. The infrastructure is slowly all being replaced in Bulgaria but the villages will be the last to benefit. Day temperatures are up to 10 – 15 in the shade and the sun has been out for a few days with colder but clear skies at night. For a week around the time of the full moon all the field and tracks are lit up and the stars are brilliant.

We have a street light directly outside our house and more intermittently spaced along the tracks / roads but apart from that there is no light pollution to dim the night sky, one of the bonuses of a village life. We have ordered twenty cubics of wood to stock up for next winter. The wood arrived late this year and never dried out probably which means less heat and more regular cleaning of the metal pipes leading from the Kotel to the chimney in the wall. This only takes ten minutes to do, but the pipes have to be removed and always leads to a bit of a clean up afterwards. So the less we have to do this the better.
The wood arrived in approximately one metre lengths, stacked to be measured and then is chain sawed to size, split where necessary and moved under cover to be stacked. In the summer when the temperatures get into the 40’s and above in the sheds, it will dry out in a few months and be much better for burning. I usually chainsaw this myself but this time I had Little Vasko (to differentiate from big Vasko another guy in the village) do it for me, He has a bigger professional chainsaw and its much faster than my domestic model.
When they finished moving alI the wood I turned all the sawdust into the ground and have put my first row of potatoes in under plastic. Philip is home and dry for 10 days. he had to have his tongue sown up, but still carried on smoking and eating in hospital? So now his tongue has been glued on the edge somehow and he’s back home with his ankle in plaster. So even more useless than when he was drinking and having to be looked after as well.

Another trip to Dobrich to spend two hours waiting to see a specialist, mostly unnecessary, Pauline will have to go for a heart test with our doctor and the form is wrong (oh what a surprise) they put her name in English and not Bulgarian so more paperwork. Have a date for Pauline now, must be in Dobrich 4th March at 8 a.m. to see Nellie (our consultant/accountant) and general sorter-outer of all mad Bulgarian systems, hopefully to go to hospital, get blood tests then back home until the next day when she should be in for the Operation!

LETTER FROM BULGARIA 8

2008-02-06T11:03:00.001+02:00

Have been inside the house for four days now and in bed for two, with “grip” I think that is what the locals call it. It’s basically flu and was almost to the week last year when we had the same. So far Pauline has been spared it, which is good because she may have to go to hospital this week. Symptoms are the same as flu, headache, coughing, sore eyes, sweating, shivering, stomach upsets. The Dobrich hospital is full of people with the same problem. If it is the same virus as last year it will take weeks to get back to normal. The constant change from high temperatures in the day and cold nights is said to be the cause, I don’t know about that, but the result is horrible! I am normally physically ok and shrug off most infections easily but this one has floored me. The night temperatures are over freezing now and the mornings are starting out with heavy mist and dew on the field. Hope to get to the studio today to catch up on the emails etc.

Not a lot of work has been done this week as Mladen had to take his 1 year old daughter to hospital to get antibiotics and his young brother Ignat and his mother have succumbed to this virus too. We are working on rebuilding the raised beds in the garden using new 10 cm. X 10 cm. square timbers for the ones near the house and older timbers for the vegetable beds in the top garden. The wood here is not treated, so we have managed to get a ten-litre bottle of old tractor engine oil from the Corporation to paint the timbers with first and I have some old concrete posts which will be good for the first layer, The Corporation is the village farm business and every village has one. It’s the main employer of staff and where the heavy machinery, tractors and combines are kept. They farm all the adjacent land around Bdintsi, deciding on what to plant and where. They will also plough and sow for the locals priced on the decare (quarter acre approx.) and what is needed, whether it be wheat or sweet corn etc. They have an office in the same building as the gallery, on the first floor, next to the Mayor’s Kemet’s office. With luck the firm will be using my Internet connection for their business later this year. This would reduce my payments to the Internet firm in Dobrich. There is also a possibility of another personal connection in a separate village using my mast, one more and it will be free. That would be a first in Bulgaria for me.

Pauline went yesterday to the doctors in the next village, Vladermirovo to see about the paperwork needed for the hospital. I was still ill, so Mladen took her in the cart. The normal cart is 2 metres long and on solid wooden wheels, I have used this transport and understand why the first chance they get the wheels are replaced with a car axle and rubber tyres! It may not look so pretty but it’s not as likely to put your back out either? The one he took to the doctors was a two seater similar to a trotting rig. When Pauline arrived back she told me Mladen had said it was too far to walk back and the bus would be hours so he had borrowed the two seater from Gospert for the trip, she said it was pretty comfortable but the donkey was a little slow, but we could borrow it in the summer if we liked.

Gospert is another villager who looks after the sheep for a Russian man in Vratariti, a village two kms. away to the East. Now the question as to why a Russian man should buy the corporation and a lot of land and then stock it with sheep needs very little imagination as to where the money may have come from? But at least the work is helping to keep the village alive for now.

Had to go to the Doctor today, I needed to meet her anyway to get on the computer system. She has put me on antibiotics for a week, hope that does the trick, am feeling like an old bloke at the moment. Have had no energy for anything since I picked up this Flu. Checked emails in Gallery and came home. I have decided to have a pit dug in the field and line it with plastic so we can store the water from the two garage roofs. The roof is about forty-five square metres total so will help with the watering in the spring. We have also decided to put in more fruit trees and walnut trees. So will get all the holes dug first to make it easier and quicker for when we eventually buy them.

February 12th Saw our lady doctor last week and have been on anti-biotics for a week with Bronchitis: feeling a little better, but no energy and only went out today because we have to restack our wood box in the house. It’s approximately 1.8 x 80 x 80 cm with 2 compartments and holds about 5 days supply of logs and has been a boon since I built it the first year. It takes about 6 barrow loads to fill but saves going out everyday. Snow flurries have been around for the last week and below freezing temperatures too in the day. The only consolation is that the ground is solid so no mud from the shoes or the dog coming in and out. Dogs are quite happy playing all day in the sprinkling of snow.

The flowerbed outside the extension is coming to life with the tips of bulbs breaking through. Roll on Spring! We have had to cover it with broken branches to try to keep the dogs from running all over it, at least until they have a chance to get their heads above ground! Until they get a little older, I’m afraid the garden may not be at it’s best this year?

LETTER FROM BULGARIA 7

2008-01-31T11:02:00.001+02:00

One of the important changes in Bulgaria has been in the quality of the service. This has improved markedly; the sometimes off-putting very gruff outward manner that was normal 2 years ago is disappearing fast. Although it was never a real problem, once you smiled and were polite, people responded the same way. In the supermarkets and bigger shops staff are much more polite and helpful. Waiters and waitresses are better and faster and the food is now hot which was a big problem before. Food is cheap, although to my taste sometimes a little bland, Salads are popular and varied, 3 to 4 leva, we have found a good couple of pizza snack bars charging 4 to 5 leva a meal. I was not a great fan of these in U.K. but as there are no bacon sandwiches here, no burger bars, and as yet no fish and chip shops with a choice of pies, no hard English cheeses, (we do miss these foods,) it is a good hot food to have. We also have a very good Chinese restaurant 7 to 8 leva a meal, and the lager that is twice the price of shop bought, is still only 1.50. to 2 leva a half litre. Nearly all beer is Lager, some supermarkets are stocking small amounts of other brands, Beck’s and even Guinness can be found, but at English prices. Wine in the shops can start as low as 1 leva a litre and you can buy straight from the wooden barrels into plastic bottles from some of the wine shops. Mostly dry reds, but some white is available, 5 to 6 leva will buy a good wine. If you want you can spend a great deal more, the choice is yours. As each month goes by a new snack bar /restaurant seems to change or open. A self-service caf? is the latest one I spotted, so fast food will arrive in Dobrich one day. For better or worse!

Today I am typing this sitting in our extension looking out over the field with the hoar frost covering all the trees and fences, and everything is white. We are getting cold nights of minus 3 to 5 degrees C, Sunrise is before seven o’clock now and it gets dark around six thirty. A few white strips of cloud low on the horizon drift in a blue sky and the forecast is dry for a week. Maybe? Hassan our young neighbour at the bottom of the field is taking his donkey over the track and pegging in a metal pin to the ground fixed to a chain that goes round one of the donkey’s ankles. A braying donkey is enough to wake the dead; and if he needs a drink he will let you know! And all the rest of the village too. The Bulgarians call them Bulgarian lions because of the noise they make. The odd cart goes by, with a bundle of clothes hanging on to the reins. A Lada or Moskovitch (Russian car) drives by on the bottom track, the dogs bark and howl as a horse who has broken free from it’s tether runs up and down the tracks, followed by men and boys with sticks trying to catch hold of the broken rope shouting general abuse in Turkish and Bulgarian. Our cows munch their way up the lane into our next door neighbour’s field where the fencing, now another year older is looking worse for wear, in places laying on the ground, allowing the cows to walk through, happy to be munching the uncovered grass instead of a diet of dry hay. We are letting the Kotel go out now, switching off the pump to the radiators and relighting it in the late afternoon.

The sun is strong enough to keep the temperature in the extension around 20 C as we have double glazed windows on three sides and the walls are Y-Tong 30 cm thick, a brilliant insulating material and no need to use plasterboard. Mladen and Ignat were here helping today we have extended the ’greenhouse’ by a couple of metres using thin tree trunks buried in the ground, nailed and screwed to the roof and sides with old timbers. I will buy plastic in the spring and we will pull it over the framework as we did last year. It will last the year and when it comes down for the winter, (the snowfall would break it if wasn’t removed anyway) put it into one of the sheds till spring then we will lay it under the paths to stop the weeds and top up the stones again.

The area around Bdintsi is limestone and the ballast is a creamy yellow colour perfect to use for the garden paths. It costs around a 150 leva for a 5 ton load. Delivery is always extra, even from the builder’s merchants, (magazines) after you have ordered and paid for your materials they phone small lorry (kameon) owners who give them a price based on the distance. We have a friend Dansho in a village called Volchi Dol, which is only 16 kms away who delivers to us our sand, aggregate and cement. He uses his local council lorry and pays them a fee. He is very reliable and here that’s worth a lot. Most of the houses in the village are built using about one metre high walls of this stone and topped with brick to cut down costs, while others are made completely of stone. The mortar used in the construction is clay /earth, some of the outbuildings are made of pressed clay bricks like the adobe of warmer countries, If it is kept lime washed and the water excluded it lasts for years and costs nothing. The stone is well known and lorries come occasionally to recycle the old building stone for reuse in new homes.

LETTER FROM BULGARIA 6

2008-01-29T11:01:00.001+02:00

January 29th 2008
Another day another Dobrich. Two days on the trot into town. Bought the vignette (Road tax) for the old Merc 4x4 today, for main road use for a year, it has gone up to 67 leva. It’s printed in English as well now. It sounds cheap but a great deal of the roads are not good. I have broken three front coil springs in the last two years. Must get some third party insurance too as this ran out last November.

Sometimes forget we are in Bulgaria, it’s just home now, don’t see the big concrete apartment blocks in anyway different. After going through three winters here, now we can understand why people go back to their apartments for the winter months and leave the village houses closed up until they return again in the spring. Only when we have to ask for something new do we realise how little we know of the language. In the village I have spent two years with Mladen and his English has come on a pace, so we get through on the words we both know, we know, if you know what I mean? But when I talk to other Bulgarians and they don’t know the words I know, it’s quite hard. I have no head for languages I admit and I make no excuses for not finding more time to study, apart from working everyday and not having any free time, plus an antique brain that’s getting past it’s sell by date. We know the majority of English speakers are youngsters, so it is easier to talk to them if you are shopping. Any one who is computer literate has a basic knowledge of English even if they think they are not any good. Menus are now appearing in English and Bulgarian. Village names are now also popping up in both languages too, which would have helped a lot in our early days here, driving around getting lost especially at night. Most people here dress up in the towns, fashions are bang up to date and mostly everyone is smartly turned out. Labels are nearly all in English and slogans on clothes are the same.

We now have a big new supermarket in the town called Easy and two stores sort of B & Q style, one called Mr. Bricolage and the other T Max. One big store on two floors has also opened on the outskirts with car parking, selling the normal bewildering variety of cameras, phones, video cameras, washing machines, fridges, cookers, computers, televisions, dvd players etc. etc. and alongside all these goods, the credit companies reps. handing out leaflets and sitting in their offices offering their services. The apartment blocks all have their own shops on the ground floor, which open out onto the main thoroughfare. Clothes, shoes and caf? / snack bars are in the majority but mobile phone shops and electrical goods are everywhere now. A new large second hand clothes shop has opened where clothes are sold by weight and is excellent for good quality named bargains. Even the equivalent to the British pound shops can be found. New Banks are emerging every month. All with the obligatory door signs No smoking, No dogs, No guns. It would be difficult now to not to be able to find anything you wanted in the town.

Life is lived in and around the caf?s all year round, and in the warmer weather, which is easily eight months of the year, tables and chairs are put out onto the pavements. The main precinct in Dobrich is a paved area approximately half a mile long with a big open center and pedestrian areas running at right angles to this, with little parks and a lot of trees. Also an old area of original houses restored and turned into little craft shops. The trees are plentiful and big and needed for shade in the summer, temperatures can get over 40 C in the shade. The outskirts of the town are less inviting and a lot of what we in the west would regard as brick shacks are located in and around the big concrete tower blocks. A remnant from the communist era. Some are slowly being restored but how many will survive and how many will have to be destroyed time will tell. The price of apartments has risen so maybe people will realise and start to spend money on them and look after them a little more.

A lot of new building and restoration work is going on in the town, apartments are getting plastic double glazing and buildings are being insulated on the outside and repainted. Lots of small kiosks have gone from the main pedestrian area in the last two years, many were illegally trading. There are figurative metal statues dotted around too and the local art gallery I think is great, mostly last centuries work, a big range and variety from engravings to oil paintings. One leva to get in and the lady will follow you round switching the lights on and off for you as you move through the exhibition rooms. Although I do not always like to visit Dobrich as we seem always to be shopping, collecting building materials, buying animal feed or dealing with another obscure paperchase. We like it as a town, it is small enough to get to know intimately, it is very open, and feels friendly.We will be enjoying it a lot more this year as the workload reduces. A little more information on the food and drink next time. Still cold and still sunny Bulgaria.

LETTER FROM BULGARIA 4 and 5

2008-01-22T10:58:00.002+02:00

Last couple of days have been hectic again. Weather has changed completely, snow has melted except on some of the tracks, we now have water and mud, but temperatures up to 15 C in the shade, blue skies and the sun is strong.

Animals are out all over the village, the goat and sheep men are taking the animals to pasture past our bottom field. You can hear him calling them to him with his referees whistle. He collects them from each house as he goes by and then spends the day moving with the flock until late afternoon when he will bring them back and they just peel off as they reach their home.
Our little piglets are running around the center of the village digging up food and Philip, Mladen’s father, (Bashtir) is walking the cows round the village grazing as they go.

Everyone can feed anywhere in the village, common land, the same as in England before the enclosure act made the rich richer and the poor poorer: that is if they survived at all after the means to make a living had been stolen from them. This saving on feed is perfectly timed as we are all desperate to get the animals out to graze again. Mat and I have split sixty bales of straw between us for 280 Lev including delivery from a village close by, so we should be ok for a month or so. I went in the opposite direction this afternoon and bought another 270 Kgs of sweetcorn from another village and repaid him the 50 kgs we borrowed from him. So a good day all round and now the snow has cleared, I finished chain sawing the delivery of wood we had, This last cubic has been sitting on the front “lawn” (well mostly its sort of green with dark patches and a few holes the dogs made so we call it a lawn) since November.

Oh did I mention we have another hole digging, fence jumping, dog, that was a sweet puppy brought round with the guys from the village and kept tied up here while the work was going on. I really took to this dog and started feeding him. To cut a long story short, one day he
went home with them and at night came back jumped in over the fence and has stayed ever since. Now at 9 months although still sweet and a better temperament than our prima donna Jessie, he has taken on the appearance of a large black wolf: Which is nice.

They have bonded well, although Jessie is inside at night and “Mecho” is out in his kennel.
they spend all day together and she is a lot better for his company. We are slowly replacing the old fencing (maraysha) but still they find ways to get out, have an hour or two round the village and then come back. Everyone owns a couple of dogs and it can get a bit noisy when they all start to bark together. Majority of owners leave them tied up day and night which can be very
upsetting. Mladen had five at the last count if you don’t count the puppies arriving and leaving at various times, and none are chained up. This is very different to the UK and is another practice one has to get used to. Another good reason to have double glazing!

Weather cold again two days after the thaw. We have dispatched another large pig but this time the guys brought the carcass round into my garage. We had prepared an old door on two small tables covered with plastic and Alain my French chef friend drove over from his village and together (I mainly watched) cut the pig into small joints, and packed and froze it.
It was supposed to be killed and gutted before he arrived at 10:30 but it was Mladen’s younger brother’s eighteenth birthday the night before so after to-ing and fro-ing for 2 hours in the morning and the harness having broken, they pulled the cart round by themselves and we lifted it out of the cart and into the garage. Hilarious wasn’t the word.

Now this was going to be one of those days again. I think they call it character building? I have several words of my own but I am sure I can leave those to you imagination. I have an old Mercedes Puch “G” wagon circa 1983 a two and a half ton monster 4 x 4 that I bought in Varna after I found I could not drive the Nisson I bought in Spain on Bulgarian roads with out the appropriate documents, but that’s another long story. I had taken off the spare wheel from the rear door because the bolts were a little loose and I had also removed the rear seats (to have more room to stack food and bales inside. Today it decided not to start having been left standing for a while. No problem we push it onto the drive. Halfway out it stuck, we looked up to find the roof jammed against the door frame! We pushed it back in and had to load the back with the wheel a gas bottle etc. to lower the roof so we could push it out. About this time the wind rose and it started to snow.

LETTER FROM BULGARIA
5
January 22nd 2008 (cont)
After we closed the main doors and went out by the side door, we found it would not shut because it had expanded in the wet, so we botched a dog lead to pull it as tight as we could. About this time Pauline asked if we would like a coffee. Great five minutes we said. Five minutes later in the house No coffee? No water? This is unusual for us, electric going on and off yes, but water hardly ever. Which reminds me must go and hassle them again to get some information as to why they read our meter in June and we are still waiting for a bill? Usually the next time they come they take the money and read the meter for the next time, but the water company, like the electricity company has everything in flux. It has taken four visits and phone calls just to start a direct debit for the telephone because no-one has ever used this payment method before. And if anyone is thinking of bringing a cheque out? Don’t! they don’t take cheques in Bulgaria! Unless you want to wait two months and be charged a stupid amount. Now where was I.

We had a few bottles put by so we did get our coffee eventually and enough for the pig cleaning too. So panic averted. We started about one o’clock. After a couple of hours we were asked if we wanted another coffee. Fine we said, 20 minutes later, nothing Where’s the coffee I asked coming into the kitchen. Little problem, Pauline said but its here now. The water we had put to one side was in two litre plastic bottles. Unfortunately so was the 2 litres of Rakia our friend had given us the week before! Pauline had boiled a half litre of fifty proof home made plum brandy then having found out her mistake had thrown it away! It’s cleaned the limescale from the kettle anyway she said! Not the cheapest descaler on the market. When I told Mladen this the next day he said its not unheard of, everything is in plastic bottles. I wasn’t worried about the loss as my wine making last year turned out awful, so in December we took the hundred litres of wine and grapes to the next village and the local still (cassan) with your own supply of firewood? left Mladen’s brother Ignat to keep an eye on the man and the process and went back in the evening to pick up 20 litres of Rakia.

Four hours later we had had enough cutting and the chest freezer was full, so Alain packed the rest of the meat into his jeep to take home to process. After we had eaten a nice chile and drank our very expensive Red Chateau Karnabat, now up to 12 leva a 3 litre carton. (Present rate of exchange is 2.85 leva to one English pound). Ah the price of joining the European union! He went home mumbling about smoked hams down his chimney and Pate. So a tired but happy man.
After seeing a specialist we have just found out Pauline has to go into hospital for an operation. Fortunately we do have some decent connections here after two years, and the good news is no waiting list and the local hospital does have a good name. No privacy but a good name. Bad news is maybe one to two months out of action? Hope to get to Dobrich this week to sort out more paperwork and make some arrangements for a hospital date.

Two of our medium sized pigs have died, and the meat is no good for consumption either. They were out in the village and found a dead sheep and pigs being pigs! Anyway the sheep belonged to a village man who’s flock have a disease problem. He was told this and didn’t inject them soon enough. This man is not short of cash just tight. But what’s worse is he left the dead sheep near the village center and did not remove it. If any of the local dogs have eaten from it they could die too. And of course our Two houdini’s will have to be chained for a while for their own good. Mecho only had a collar fitted today so I reckon he’s not going to be a happy hound tomorrow. The local vet has been out over the weekend injecting animals, and has put a quarantine of sorts on the area. Whether this will do any good or not we will have to wait and see.

At this rate I won’t be able to keep the letter to one A4 page.

LETTER FROM BULGARIA 3

2008-01-15T10:57:00.001+02:00

Warmer today, above freezing, perhaps my studio indoor toilet might start working again? I Insulated the pipes inside but the incoming old metal pipe is on the North side of the building and I didn’t insulate that until it was well frozen. Ah well! Next year I will be a bit more prepared, allegedly.

The puppy we had we called Jessie, a cross collie with a Bulgarian whatever, and our other English couple in the village who knew the lady with the pups had her brother, (affectionately I think) known as old unfaithful! on account of it spending more nights away than an hormonal 18 year old. This is where Mladen came in, like most of the village people he was raised on bringing up animals so we agreed if I buy the stock and share the food bills he would look after them and so we started with two pigs, and it sort of took on a life of its own?

After a little less than a year we now have about twenty small piglets about eight medium sized pigs, which we bought from Mat. and Cas. our other English couple in the selo (village) and 2 full-grown females that had litters this year. It was five full grown but one female only had 3 piglets so it is in Harry’s freezer now. The other two and a small calf are in our freezer, and very nice they are too.

Harry and his brother Colin moved here permanently this year. His older brother Colin has a pension and Harry is on a sort of early retirement (whatever that is). I think boredom is setting in, so in the Spring we may have a few plans to work out together. We also did some work for them this year by putting on a little extension for a bathroom with shower and toilet.
Oh, and back to the animals, we bought a large milking cow that produced a male calf four days after we had her, so the milk has been a good source of food for all the pigs. Hopefully she will produce another calf this year as we have had her artificially inseminated recently, plus 3 other calves we picked up when very young. (Was four but you guessed it, December and in the freezer).

Unfortunately the butchering side leaves something to be desired, as no one knows how to cut up the joints properly, so, all goes into mince! or the strangest shaped joints you have ever seen! A bit of a waste, but feed is getting scarce so we must cut our losses, But we are working on finding a knowledgeable person to cut them up correctly for this year. Probably the worst time to start a little farm with the crops being so poor last year but if we could forecast correctly we would all be rich!

Good news is we found that the local bakery in Dobrich sells off the returned bread to anyone who goes to collect it. Cheaper per kilo than the feed. And the pigs love it. But if we have to drive in specially it puts the price up!
Wired in a couple more lights and put up some shelving in the gallery and studio this week.
I will be trying to make an area for local crafts and small sculptures, hopefully to make a trip to the gallery a little more interesting, and maybe help to cover the costs by selling smaller more tourist oriented goods.

Have also been gutting the office at home, rearranging shelving, hoping to move most of my art related and source books into the studio this week.
Have thought of having a few bookshelves in the Gallery for English books, to sell or exchange, as they are quite hard to find and not cheap like the secondhand bookshops in UK, maybe dvd ‘s as well, whilst trying not to go down the Steptoe and Son road? I was talking about this to a French friend we met out here (spent last twenty years in England) who was looking for premises for a caf? bar or restaurant, maybe we could combine resources and come up with something to satisfy both our needs?

Internet was on for three days, and when it is working it is pretty fast, but not today, so this will be posted as soon as possible as and when the Internet comes to life again.

Bye for now from not so quite so cold but wet and misty BG
Dave and Pauline

LETTER FROM BULGARIA 2

2008-01-11T10:55:00.003+02:00

Snow still around, packed down on the roads now, day temperatures 2 to5 below freezing very slow to thaw. The roads are now passable and as I invested in a new Lada 4 x 4 Niva: a few weeks ago (small but perfectly formed) I can get around with a fair degree of security. Buying a car in Bulgaria is a little different. And painful. One day I will try to explain. When I have a page to spare!

Internet a problem again! Has been off for a week (this time its ice, allegedly) and because the telephone system is so ancient and won’t allow modem access, I had to have my own dish and mast put up at my expense! between the main town, Dobrich to Bdintsi, my village I am a little peeved.

But I have a cunning plan? I won’t pay them! This seems the right plan for problems of this ilk.
If it was the electric supply I would be wary of being cut off, but as the service is intermittent I don’t have a lot to lose, and hitting them in their pocket might improve the service. He he

I have set up a couple of extra computers in a side section of the Gallery hoping to have a small internet cafe? for the locals and visitors one day but the reliability issue is making me wary of talking too much about it. Managed to get hold of a few bales of food for the animals and 250 Kg of sweet corn for the pigs at extortionate prices, but it’s the same for everyone because of the really bad harvest last year, no rain to speak of for months. All being looked after by my main man “Mladen” a sort of apprentice everything. We have spent about 2 years working together now and we rebuilt most of the house along with the front extension in addition to the sheds and garden work plus work for other English in and around the village.

We bought a couple of lambs first, to keep the ? acre field down: Dilly and Dolly, then an old one with bronchitis we called Daisy who recovered after a few injections. The local vets are good and cheap, they have to be, а lot of village people are poor. These sheep were never meant to go in the pot as we hoped to breed from them in the future and the old one even had a baby a few months later. But one windy night in February 2007 we had a fire, and lost the sheds, part of the new garage roof our 4 sheep, lots of equipment and all our sweet corn, hay, fodder, wood and coal. If it wasn’t for the local men coming around we could have lost everything.

They were stripping the tiles off the roof and we were all emptying the sheds and garage. Water pressure was low so Pauline was filling buckets and everyone was running in and out of the house. It was a nightmare. The flames were so fierce we couldn’t get within 2 meters of the sheds with the animals and hay in. We were trying to hose the men down with this trickle while they were on the roof ripping out the timbers and anything else on fire.
We were not even insured at this time because of problems with some companies not paying out so we were looking to find a decent European firm that could be relied on.
It took the local fire brigade at least 40 minutes to get here from Dobrich which is 30 km. away on some very bad roads, especially in the next village called Vladermirovo. We are talking serious holes, called dubki or dubkers.
We didn’t dare sleep that night and Mladen insisted on staying in a shed to keep an eye out in case it started up again. The next day we looked out to see everything strewn across the lawn, I had twenty years of framed paintings and canvases, tools and equipment etc. brought from England, everywhere was black and soaking wet. Where to start? It took months to get any normality back in to the chaos.

The fire was still burning in the rubble for days after. When we cleared the mess up we had to dig a big hole and bury the sheep the young one was only a week old too and we found it under its mother. We hoped the smoke had got to them first. This was a very traumatic time so we decided not to have animals for a while. But instead we did as the locals suggested and get a dog?
Now as any one who knows me will tell you I like my garden and I do not like noisy dogs!
But needs must. So towards the end of March we get a puppy! And we are going to keep this as an outside dog. Yea Right!

LETTER FROM BULGARIA 1

2008-01-05T09:31:00.001+02:00

Snow a couple of days ago, drifting across the roads, tractors are the only thing moving at the moment, bright blue sky, suns out. Last night was -16 C. Praise to the Kotel (multi-fuel burner) and radiators we had installed, last year.

Writing this in my Studio –9 C at the moment but will be ok when the Peshka (woodburner) gets going might even get up to +10 C later, now I have had a little office built with a lowered suspended ceiling.
Now in BG for just over 2 years, not the easiest place to live and get things done!
Probably the hardest 2 years of our lives (David and Pauline) not only working on our house but also working with the local labourers on other English peoples homes, both physically and mentally and at 61 years old people are telling me to slow down. These good people have never lived in Bulgaria!
The bad news; we have had to spend extra money in the process (along with all the English who have moved here) during our dealings with:
a) Bureaucracy. Paperwork plus paperwork plus paperwork plus paperwork
b) So called Builders? and contractors?
c) The amount of time and paperwork needed to do the smallest job.
d) The need for a good translator and advocate (Solicitor/lawyer)
e) Materials are not cheap and a lot are inferior products, basically rubbish quality.
f) Living in a small village of approx. 80 people 30 km away from the nearest town

The good news is,
Living in a small village.
We have nearly finished with building work.
1) We have nearly finished refurbishing a rented Magazine (shop) as a StudioArt Gallery
2) We have the bones of the biggest garden we have ever had.
3) We have found a good worker and his family as friends in the village.
4) We have both lost weight (hard labour and stress combined!
5) We have swopped a 2 bedroom terrace in UK for a now nearly! finished 8 roomed house
6) set in 2 Decares (half an acre) garden, another 2 Decares (half an acre) field in front of the
7) house. Two new nearly finished 6 metre garages and enough brick rendered rebuilt sheds
8) to keep any man happy. Plus another house at the bottom of our lane that is half completed.
9)
10) Now we don’t have a lot left of our house money, but we can live here on one person’s pension, so to me the chaos and maddening system is the price you have to pay to live here.
Would I go back to the U.K.? not on your life. I don’t think anyone can live on the megre pension the state provides even if you had no mortgage or rent to pay.
Hopefully as the pain drifts slowly into the background the humour will be more apparent.
Did I do things wrong after spending a year researching BG?
Yep, most everything, with no real effort on my part. Guess I am just a natural.
I now work on the principle of there may be God, but I am certain there is a MURPHY.
I hope to have a little more time to jot down these rantings and ravings along with our experiences since coming here, partly to reflect on what we have done because sometimes it’s hard to see the wood for the trees; but also to give our friends an idea and maybe a good laugh at the, to us, absurdity of the situations we constantly kept finding ourselves in.
As someone once remarked you couldn’t make these stories up, there too crazy.
Things are changing here since Bulgaria entered the EU but at the moment there would appear to be two sets of rules running alongside each other! so no one is expecting a quick fix.
Bye for now from sunny but cold BG
Dave and Pauline