Adventures in Arkadia: We Can Have Any Colour As Long As Its White!

Our blog title is inspired by our trip to Gabrovo to purchase a new mobile phone for Chris. With most of the pressing documentation now done it was now time to sort a few other things out. The girls in the mobile phone shop were very helpful but we soon found out that we could not have the Samsung phone we wanted on contract because we were unproven customers and they were only available if you were a customer for at least 6 months! Not to be deterred, we decided to buy a different Samsung phone and pay to use it on monthly contract for a lesser monthly fee. Therefore Chris chose to have it in black and the girls happily punched all the details in the computer. 5 minutes later they meekly informed us that although it was the same phone, the computer would only let us buy that phone if it was in white. So white it was then. Thankfully it was not a pink phone!

We are starting to get used to the little nuances here and learning to roll with them. The funniest thing is finding out we bought our car off the mafia! Every Bulgarian we have shown the log book to breaks into a smile and says 'he's the mafia guy'. Well great, we asked everyone where to buy a car from and no-one told us not to go to him, so we did! Next week we take the car to the KAT police to get our MOT and registration documents. I am sure they will crack up too.

The work on the house is finally coming along fairly swiftly now. The new roof is now on our kitchen complete with our little white chimney which I love. All the doorways are now put in and today they started work on plastering the back wall to allow for our kitchen to be fitted which will hopefully be in a couple of weeks. Upstairs more plastering has taken place on our landing where they have re plastered the fire place. In fact, because we have been busy sorting out documents, every time we return home they have started plastering another bit of the house. Originally, we were going to do all the décor ourselves but they are now moving at such a pace and the place would be so dusty to live in we are letting them get on with it.

Our little white chimney

The shuttering now removed from the terrace

Doorways now put into the kitchen

Chris about to start work

More of the second house coming down and more view being exposed

Our cats and tortoise have now arrived, unfortunately during a thunderstorm so Putin was totally freaked out and hid under the bed all night. However, they have now settled in a bit now and even roam out on to the upper terrace to survey the view. A couple of days ago we though we would try to give them the run of the garden for half an hour. Carrying them down the makeshift ladder we plonked them in the garden. Putin made a casual beeline for the fence and after a bit of exploration, snuck under a two inch gap and decided that after two months of being couped up, being a tiger sneaking though the long grass was much better suited to him and no amount of kitty treats would entice him to come back! Trouble was, we were losing sight of him and Chris had to wade through next doors thicket to find him.

As for Sebastian, he is so pleased to be back in his market house he has refused to come beyond the doorway for the last two days and takes his banana hand fed to him whilst tucked up in his house. He can't even be bothered to walk onto the ramp to get it. He certainly didn't get this treatment at Sue and Phil's in Elhovo so is milking it now!

Angel and Putin surveying the garden from the terrace

Sebastian refusing to come out of his house.

The wildlife we have seen here has been amazing. Firstly, the birdlife is very vocal. Every morning I open the bedroom patio door to listen to the birds. Every now and then we get a flash of bright yellow and black in the trees. They are golden orieles which are absolutely stunning. We have also seen nesting storks on telegraph poles and chimney pots, eagles and buzzards circling above and hoopees. A duo of house martins are making a nest under JP's terrace and also a duo are sitting in a nest under the beams in our lounge. We hope the babies fly soon so they can continue with the building work. We have also seen jackals early in the morning out on the roads, snakes in the grass and so many frogs up at the reservoir the noise is deafening. The bug life is pretty weird here as well, many, many different beatles, plus hairy centipieds which keep coming in the house. Yesterday we had a gigantic hornet in the kitchen which hastily got evicted.

Meeting the neighbours can take an a whole afternoon. After being invited to Sue's house for goats milk coffee and Turkish delight bisuits, (we also secured our regular goats milk supply in the process), we then went next door and met Dimitri and Ivanca who dished out freshly made chilled elderflower juice and proudly showed us their lovely garden. We left clutching home made plum jam and a promise for me to visit Ivanca in the autumn to see how the Bulgarians do their bottling and preserving. Walking back down the lane, another lovely old lady also called Ivanca thrust a huge bunch of freshly pulled garlic into my hands with a promise of more to come! Talk about a food fest, we will make sure we are nice and hungry before going visiting again.

Next week I start my Bulgarian lessons with Ellie, a lady from Gesha, a village 5 miles away so really looking forward to have a decent conversation with people.

We usually sit out until it gets dark as its now warm enough in the evenings. However tonight, we can hear the jackals howling and getting closer as they move through the woods. There is a stream and steep bank which seperates JPs garden from the woods but we are taking no chances and are heading in. I am sure they would not come near us but it is such an eerie cry that its making me nervous!