During November the weather was positively grim. Everyday was very cold, damp and misty. The mountains disappeared completely and many people who lived higher than us lived in fog for a month. Then in December the sun came out and it was beautiful. The weather was extremely mild and the shorts and t-shirts went back on for a while. It was extremely weird to be out digging the garden in shorts on Christmas Eve. However, such good things cannot last and now the weather is very cold, crisp and snowy, but despite the cold, it is still possible to sit out in the sunshine despite the temperature gauge saying minus 8. The night time temperature has been falling to minus 15 but it doesnt really seem that cold and at least our heating system seems to be coping which was our main concern.
Jobs in the New Year will continue with working indoors, with more wood work and decorating. It always surprises me how long some jobs seem to take but there are always other comitments going on at the same time. We hope that during January the weather will be kind and allow us to get outside to put our irrigation system in for the vegetable plot and hopefully replace our barn roof as the scafolding has been left in our garden for the winter so we might as well make use of it. We would much rather be outside than inside so as soon as it is warm enough to get outside again work will stop in the house and resume outside again.
Curtains have been made for the bathroom and bedroom. However, finding tie backs for the curtains seem to be a mystery at the moment.
New doors for the downstairs bathroom and bedroom. The corner was previously like the black hole of Calcutter but the light colour on the doors and the stained glass has helped.
The vegetable garden is all dug over and hopefully the frost will now get into the soil to kill off remaining weed roots and break down the soil.
Morning sunrise
Frost on the mountains. It was quite weird and the locals had never seen anything like it.
The cold damp weather led to everthing being coated in ice. When the sun did come out everthing glistened like jewels.
Snow on the Balkan mountains
In December we went to Bucharest for my Birthday. Here is a picture of the Stalinist media building known to the locals as the 'house of lies' during the Communist era.
Bucharest is an architechtural wonder
Wandering through one of the magnificent parks
Chris outside Ceausescu's palace looking like a Commie
A wonderful place to eat and make merry!
Some lovely flowers from the ex Mayor. Roses and dahlias are still flowering in December despite the cold weather
A little village social we held just before Christmas. It was really nice to see all the village turn up for it and it was lovely to sit outside and enjoy the sunshine.
Finally, our first Christmas dinner spent outside in the sunshine
