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Friday 31 December 2010

Our Christmas in Bulgaria Chestita Koleda


Polski Trambesh Tree
 Phew what a few days, I'm fair knackered now like most people across the Christian world! I hope you all had a very lovely time with family, friends or both!!!! We started Christmas morning with the mark of Yovo! We asked about church at Christmas & was told yes 10am so we said we would be going. Yovo then reminded us again Xmas eve 10am I confirmed the time over & over as I am aware of his foibles! Huh yep Joanna that worked we got to church at 9.50am & waited till 10.45, no Priest!!!!! Bloody Yovo!!!!! When we saw him he was all blah blah other villages, no sorry!!!

Baba Ivanka's Donkey awaiting her work
It wasn't a wasted morning though as it was the first time I had ever been out for a walk on Christmas morning & was great meeting everyone & exchanging greetings & Chestita Koleda's! It was also a beautiful sunny 20c day & a really nice start :D  
The man ringing the bell calling us to church
I spoke to all my children, grandchildren, mum, sister in law, niece & step son on Christmas day, which was superb :D I started preparing for Christmas on Christmas eve by cleaning a functional but unfinished kitchen. before any cooking was to be done Nigel & myself donned the invisible rubber gloves, hot soapy water & polish & set to cleaning the
whole downstairs. It took till the afternoon just to get the kitchen clean of all the brick dust & plaster along with everything in it. Nigel was at the rest all day :D Its amazing though having a lovely clean sweet smelling sink with hot & cold water coming out of one tap! Also being able to have the washing machine & dishwasher on at the same time, with no hoses hanging over the sink, so I could use the sink to clean the kitchen!!! Just like a normal developed world kitchen :D :D :D Then followed three days of cooking!!!!!
I made Mulled wine which was delicious & went down very well with everyone who partook, I will most definitely be doing it all year never mind just winter, its bloody lovely cold too! I adapted a Jamie Oliver recipe, so its a JaimJo brew & I recon in the summer it will be beautiful with ice cubes, yep lets break all the rules & try it like a pimms mix! I also promised Pavlinka a apple & cinnamon cake so that was next. Yovo true to form instead of bringing the turkey he killed for dinner, at midday xmas day, bought it round xmas eve afternoon instead, so that put me out too, not for long though! Well I was so looking forward to our first freshly killed Turkey i was at first a bit shocked! It was the skinniest bird I had ever set eyes on weighing just 5lb!!!! I was really concerned about how it would cook & if it would be moist, but I wanted a traditional English dinner with a Bulgarian twist & this was it. No force fed with God knows what cage reared Turkey for us, I just needed to be extra careful with how I cooked it! Yovo proudly showed me under the Turkey was all the bits like head feet heart etc, he had obviously found out that we have giblets in the cavern when we buy one & thought I needed them to stuff the bird :-( I decided not to disappoint & spent hours over the next two days cooking giblet gravy then used the meaty bits at the end in the stuffing. NEVER again!!!!!
Step 1 million in preparing giblet gravy
The gravy took flipping hours of preparation at different stages & hours of cooking to give something greatly lacking in flavour. In hindsight I should just have chucked in some white wine! The stuffing too was yuckydah. The Turkey was good, very moist I cooked it slowly with plenty of basting so I was well pleased, & I took extra care to roast the potatoes so they were lovely & crispy.  Christmas dinner started with a Russian salad, pickled hot peppers, cheese banitza & hot Rakia, so by the time we had eaten everything there was no room for Christmas pudding which is quite normal in my house but we were then given a plate full with Pumpkin banitza, my Apple cake & something else I nearly died :D Again true to form the food I cook & took round piping hot was left to go cold & soggy even though I drove home the importance of it being HOT, yep to them luke warm & tepid is hot! Christmas dinner as we know it was ruined :-( So the next day I had some good friends, Net & Neil round for a roast pork dinner with yorkies too & got my fix :D We never got around to putting up the decorations. The tree broke, its a fibre optic & this is the first year it didn't work so we threw some lights over it & wrapped some lights around a beam & that's it, a fitting end to 2010 as far as I am concerned!!!
This was our first ever non consumerism Christmas & the cheapest ever in the history of Christmas's!!! No big tins of chocs no loaded up bags of pressies no trolly's full of food, it felt real good to have no waste & we enjoyed all we had. My friend from UK gave us the xmas pud stuffing mix & a box of mince pies. My mum sent over a huge jar of mince meat & my friend here made the pies for me. Mum also sent over some after eights & fruit jelly's we had Walnuts & hazelnuts from the garden & I made cake. I did however miss my family, Christmas was not the same without you all :-( :-( :-(
I hope you all had a wonderful couple of days!!!!!

Wednesday 22 December 2010

Church on Christmas Day, Cooking a Freshly Killed Turkey, Buying Freshly Killed Pig & Waterworks

So today Yovo informed us he can't get the turkey, whole, in his small oven. In Yovo's house all meat is chopped into bits & burnt till you can't tell what it is ;-( So I have been given the job of cooking it Christmas day. I have to say that makes me both happy & nervous, as its walking around with the chickens at the moment & I have never cooked a fresh turkey, especially one this fresh ;-) Still at least we have a chance of a decent bit of meat. Right so now I am cooking the Turkey, roasties, stuffing & yorkies :D Oh & making Apple & cinnamon cake & cooking the Christmas pudding, I just hope they enjoy their first traditional Christmas day dinner! I know Yovo is very excited & I have to admit I am looking forward to it big time! Trad Bulgarian accompniments will be great too but I am soooo going to miss cranberry sauce & parsnips ooh & pigs in blankets will be sooooo missed, I wonder if I can get cocktail sausages in Metro??? Nahhhhh! 
Blimey I hope I have a kitchen to cook it all in! 
Nigel is doing the water pipes today. The main huge steel pipe came out with difficulty, but thankfully Nigel is very strong, his grip is vice like! So now he is re plumbing the whole set up, but as is the norm he has run into a problem & is now as I type investigating various options. Now I do not understand the ins & outs of plumbing & water supplies so I will leave him to it & see how he is getting on when I go to sort him out some lunch. lets hope its done today.

Yovo also came to invite us to a pig kill today but obviously we couldn't go but we can buy the meat for 3 lev a kilo thats 1.50 in UK woopwoop!!! I am going to buy 20 kilo, the pig weighs 130 kilo's so next year I really want to buy a whole one. Mmmmmmm till you have eaten home reared fresh pork you don't know the real taste. It's beautiful nothing like the shop bought stuff & one of the advantages of living here is very fresh meat oh & poultry. The disadvantage is the beef, very expensive & not much about. I have found beef mince, which is very very nice, but I cannot afford the meat, so Pork it is :-)  Ooh I smell burning plastic which means some pipe work is going in :) ;)
My Christmas day is going to start with an Orthodox church service at 10am in our village. I am soooo pleased after all it is what Christmas is all about!!!! I won't understand a word, there will be no music or worship but that does not matter on Christmas day I will be in a beautiful church to say thank you & happy birthday :D My first non family Christmas is shaping up to be a good one!!!!
Can you believe the temps reached over 24c here today, snow on the ground sun shining, lovely!!!!! The sun warmed up the house so we didn't have to light the fire till just before the sun went down!
On a lovely lighthearted note my new grand daughter Chloe has started smiling this week. Look how she shines :D

Tuesday 21 December 2010

Skanky sink, Abscess & Fab Pizza

The snow is still here, starting to melt though as we have reached 11c today! Its still difficult in places to drive but Nigel has managed to drive to Polski Trambesh twice in the last few days. Me never again in the snow :D too scared now :-(
Nigel has been making shelves, rebuilding kitchen units to take the Belfast sink & smashed out the old skanky smelly sink.
Oh & we found out why it stank all the time, the waste pipe was almost completely blocked, how the water from the washing machine & dishwasher managed to run away is beyond me as there was only a tiny hole left open! I am so excited to see it gone :D & can't wait till tomorrow when the water will be re routed & we have gotten rid of all the ugly pipe work.
The kitchen area will be sorted & usable for cooking all the Christmas goodies but not finished as we have all the sealing painting shelf building & trim fitting to do but that's not an issue this week. Thank goodness I am not hosting Christmas here I would never get it ready for guests :-) I have been living upstairs in the bedroom as the living/kitchen is full of dust & everything is everywhere so I & the dogs were best out of the way so Nigel can get on with all the dirty messy work. I had a night where Nigel finished early. I cleaned a little square of top so I could make homemade pizza. I have never made it before, not even on a bought base, but I have had an urge since a facebook friend Libby made one a couple of months ago & it looked so lovely I really wanted to try. I found a recipe for the pizza base & added tom puree, mozarella cheese, cirene cheese, cheddar cheese, salami sausage, garlic. peppers, sage & olive oil. I am telling you it was the best pizza I have ever had other than in Italy itself (who can beat them!!!) I am now a complete convert & will NEVER buy a frozen pizza ever again!!!





I am so looking forward to tonight as I plan on making another :D





Today I have produced yet another abscess on yet another tooth, that's my third on three different teeth, yes I know I need to go to the dentist but this will have to wait. \here we live on a very small amount of money & the money for a dentist is not available added to the absolutely terrifying phobia I have it's not on the cards anytime soon. Anyway I have managed to get rid of the last two & Nigel has got me some anti biotics so here's hoping it will be gone for Christmas!

Friday 17 December 2010

Snow, Brrrrrrrrrr & Christmas

Well the snow has settled in nicely here, in fact yesterday it didn't stopped but it still seems minor at the moment, 6 inches at most. Others are reporting 18"  & 2' so I am really hoping this will not be the case :-( The forecasts are so different! The temps are meant to be rising at the weekend & we are hoping it will melt & go away for a bit so we can get out of the village & get the plumbing bits we need for Nigel to finish the kitchen! Hmmmmm in the Bulgarian winter you cannot count on anything. In the past we have left the house in blue sky & sunshine to go to VT 45 mins away & left VT at the first signs of light snow to be stuck in it in the middle of nowhere trying to attach snow chains onto a Luton box van! Not good at the time as it was pitch black blowing a blizzard & bitter, bitter cold. In fact Nigel who NEVER loses his temper had a right tantrum throwing the chains hahahaha, I think it had something to do with me & my I told you to try them before now speech  (they were still in the box & shrink wrap), it's a bit hard to read instructions in the darkness of deepest darkest forest land!!! No I definitely didn't help the situation but have learnt a valuable lesson. That was in a good winter, last year was worse, goodness knows what we will be faced with this year. I have a feeling it could be better as the UK has had it worse than us so far so we could be ok (famous last words!) our temp's are pretty bad at the moment -10c days & -13c real feel nights, oh well only three & half months till spring :D





The pups are loving it







No so good for Reg though as he suffers more now with pain in his hip!











The wood burners are wonderful & warm in fact we get too hot & our indoor attire is spring/summer collection with an added thick wooly & boot for trips to the bathroom which is via the outside staircase  :D
Well Christmas is almost here & its still a very emotional time of year for me. I can't help but think of people who need help & how this time of year is sooo painful for them! It wasn't that long ago, 10yrs, that Christmas was very painful for me & with only 15.00 a week to raise my daughter on for food clothes & cleaning I would burst into tears in Safeways while people had trolleys overflowing with Christmas goodies. I didn't have any money for my 3 children's presents let alone Christmas treats, it was truly awful. The loveliest thing was when someone put my name forward to the local charity group & I was given a hamper with some bits & bobs in, nothing much but it was the fact that someone had thought of my plight that touched me so much!! Christmas is a time for love, giving & family & when that's not there it means not a lot! So my Christmas this year, well I have found a way, My Bulgarian friends are going to receive a brand new electrical item from the UK (with new plug) one which they would love to have but would never buy themselves as money is not for luxury items! I would spread some money around but they are better off than us at the moment hahaha! Did I say I love Christmas!!!!! Silent night makes me cry & I love it even more with the snow & the log fires, Mmmmmmmm.
I am excited now as we have organised Christmas day with Yovo, Pavlinka, Svetlana, Anton & anyone else at a loose end :-) It will be a traditional Bulgarian/English dinner. I am cooking the roast potatoes, stuffing, Christmas pudding, custard & Apple & cinnamon cake, Pavlinka's favorite & she has put in a request! Also I will be providing mince pies & cream. Yovo will kill the turkey & asked how we cook it in England I have said it is roasted whole in the oven so if he can get the women to cook it that way it will be a huge bonus :D Pavlinka will cook all the traditional Bulgarian accompniants so a good day I think!!!! On Christmas eve I want to go caroling with mince pies & had a romantic vision of the snow softly falling while we are all wrapped up, like last night but the forecast is for warmer weather :-(





still I am looking forward to it loads & plan on us wearing our flashing father Christmas hats :D :D








Today after Nigel did all his winter chores, as all Bulgarian men must :-) Before anything else happens on a snowy winter day Nigel has to do snow clearing, wood chopping or gathering in, fire cleaning, fire lighting then he can get on with whatever renovation work he is doing on the house. I do feel sorry for him but this year my hands are really past carrying the wood sacks upstairs or even up to the kitchen so its all down to him now :-( I did do it for a bit when he was away but it did me more harm!!! Anyway today he has been building the cupboard that will house the Belfast sink. The sink is soooo heavy & the cupboard has to be reinforced to carry that amount of weight. If he can get out to Polski tomorrow or the next couple of days we should be all set by christmas but I don't think the kitchen will be painted or have all the trims attached. Still I will not be complaining if I have the worktop & sink installed by then :D

Wednesday 15 December 2010

5 Weeks Later........ Chloe, Snow, Friends, Poorliness, Dogs & Mini Kitchen Renovation Oh & Life Back To Normal

Wow it's been over 5 weeks since I wrote my last blogg! can't believe where the time has gone but thinking about it we have done loads & seen loads & been living loads Hurrrrrrahhhhh!!!!!!
Now don't get me wrong I don't need a man to validate my existence but I love my husband & it has been a hard path to tread! Also I have found out not only was I missing him & obviously lonely but I was also quite poorly which obviously didn't help the situation! Well I am not happy that I'm poorly but I am happy that I wasn't a complete weak willed lump of mush hahaha, here is a round up of the last 5 weeks.......

Nigel made it over in 3 days of sensible driving & sleeping! I don't understand the stupidity of people who drive straight through. It's ok if they want to take themselves out but invariably they take out families too! So he slept in the car upright but at least he slept. The Kia & trailer was so packed solid it was quite a sight to see & took two days to unpack!
It's lovely having him home & also having help disciplining the dogs who are a lot better behaved & love all the attention :D

I have also become a Nanna for the third time! Here is the beautiful Chloe, isn't she gorgeous!!!! Born on the 13th Nov, a lovely unexpected little girl, she was predicted to be a boy!!!! NEVER believe the hospitals!Well she has been a real joy & Daniel & Katie are over the moon! This is when I miss being in UK, it's a hard price to pay sometimes!

It's been a lovely time as we have some new friends, I have finally found some ex pats on our wavelength! We have had lots of fun & it's been great seeing Nigels little boy part of his personality resurface, he is having fun being silly & his funny voices have come back. The ones that no matter what accent he is trying to mimic sounds like his native Bummie or a Pakistani, he just can't put on accents but to his ears he sounds welsh hahahaa which does make it quite funny!!!! So its been Nigel & Jo & Net & Neil out & about trying different chicken kebabs in different towns :D we have been to monasteries, towns, markets & shopping lunch trips & had a great time!! Net & Neil make me laugh & Net has been invaluable to me in helping me feel better as even though Nigel was home safe & sound it didn't make the depression go away! First Net cut my hair which helped me feel better in my appearance then as she has trained as a nurse she made me go to the doctors.  It turns out I have high blood pressure & was retaining water, the doctor put me on water tablets & almost immediately the pain I was feeling all over my body went away!!!!!  This was amazing, I was in so much pain even I was concerned not all was well! So now I am being monitored, BP is back to normal, pain still subsided & I am just waiting for an influx of energy please!!!!! Talking of super energy that describes Net she has so much energy it puts me to shame & I think how unfair she has too much & I don't have enough :-(
We have also been visiting a friend who comes over every month for a long weekend (even in the winter) & Nige is helping her re wire her house at the moment & while he is working we are chatting & visiting :D So we have met new people who have moved into her village since Nigel went to UK. Its been great. I love meeting new people & making friends. I have always been a people person & until I moved here have never had trouble filling my life with lots of people, but here it is different. I think maybe its that in the UK we have a choice & make friends naturally but here it can be very unatural. UK culture is very diverse, I am from South London (& proud!!!!!) but have moved & lived many years in Kent, the South Coast & Midlands all these places have a different culture to my upbringing & I have had to adapt & make friends, but it has seemed harder here. Just because we all have the love of adventure & Bulgaria in common does not mean we will automatically get on! Anyway I digress. The last couple of months for me have seen a new mix of people who I hope will all be good friends & we all want the Bulgarian way of living with friends in both cultures mixing with both as there is nothing like sitting & chatting rubbish when you have spent the week struggling & trying to remember words to communicate. Oh don't get me wrong I enjoy it, it's great fun & makes for lots of laugh's but easy chatting is needed to. Also knowing there is someone who understands the word emergency without having to say it 100 times is a great thing to have in my life :D Friends from all countries, sounds good to me!

Nigel is busy renovating the kitchen area for me :-) He came home with a small kitchen & Belfast sink so we can at least have a workable kitchen for the next couple of years while he turns a cow shed into my super duper kitchen & the cellar room into our dining room! It's a work in progress but time & money dictate all. So he has been re wiring, plumbing, ripping out, smashing down, plastering & that’s just the prep work bless him! He is making me shelves as we have loads of wood & its really lovely to have shelving that’s been part of the property for donkeys (& cows & chickens & pigs & goats & sheep & people hahaha) it keeps the history & its better than burning it all :-)



Nigel is altering the few units he has bought over (purchased on ebay for 42 uk pounds) & then its just a matter of painting the walls & sealing & painting the ceilings.



The sink is going to be the worst as it was built in with the house & he has to re plumb everything to the new septic tank, we will see, I am hoping it will be finished for Christmas, if not painted, as I really want to get the dec's up :D







Oh & the snow has arrived, so our winter starts, but for those of you in Europe, well you have had it worse than us so far! We have a inch maybe but temps falling to -13 feel last night! Our temps are worse but the snow will eventually be up to Nigel’s thigh & we will have to dig our way into our house soon enough LOL we have outside stairs so in the winter we have to clear the steps & dig the path to get in downstairs :D

This photo is from Feb on a mild snow day :D It gets a lot worse!!!!


Well that’s long winded enough I will continue this in another blog but for now enjoy your snow!!!!!!!

Tuesday 14 December 2010

Old post 4 Days & Counting, Beautiful Sunshine, Sophie Returns Emaciated, & Yucky Recipes!

Somehow this post never got published so here you are a preview to the update I am about to undertake!Woohoo 4 days & I will be a couple again!!!! I miss my husband soooo much & it has been a tough 6 months I can tell ya! All, all, all, respect for wives & husbands of military etc you just don't think of the loneliness involved for the people left behind. I have just been talking to someone who had only been married a few weeks when her husband was posted & gone for two years!!!!!! My goodness I can't even......... How strong must that make them, I bet the divorce rate is phenomenal. I have had separations in the past when the kids were babies but then it was just the first two weeks that were awful then I settled into normal life with 3 babies to sort & the house to run & I had loads of friends & family around me, that made all the difference at the end of 7 months I was not that happy being together again, mind you that was also because I had moved away from everyone, hmmm. Today is a change over & busy day for Nigel. He has a bit of running around as he has to get a number plate for the trailer, but first he has to say goodbye to gaz, Kirsty & the boys. Then its a long drive from Birmingham to Hastings to stay with mum & see my sister in law Bren & nephew Mark, his wife Laura & my growing very fast great niece Imogen. I am hoping to speak to them all this afternoon. Then a day last min stuff tomorrow with mum & off he jolly well goes, fingers toes & everything else crossed that all goes well on the trip & nothing gets stolen!
The weather is really lovely here full sunshine & blue sky's 18c but indoors is well chilly to say the least, although my bedroom get the sun full beam through the windows so that is a nice room to be in. The fires are being lit & if I am indoors faffing with the wood burner alight its very weird with the sunshine too. I love the evenings though with the wood burning & the warmth, it's so different to central heating although I do miss that as my bathroom is verrrrrrry cooooooold & I have to light the gas fire in there an hour before I want to use it but this does not help needing a wee hahaha cold wee times!
Sophie came home last night after being gone quite a while & she looks terrible sunken haunches all her ribs on show & very sad eyes. So poor girl is now tetherd for her own safety & will only be let off when she is indoors, otherwise she will be over the fence again, stupid girl. Not much else I can do!
I have had this recuring day of  double vision & bluryness where I can't see properly with or without my glasses (varifocals) & this week I had it really badly where I could only see really badly if I squinted. It lasts from waking in the morning till I wake the next day? I have also had two disasterous baking results. Not as in didn't work out but just yuk as in no flavour or just not pleasant! I made some Apple Muffins & waited till the following day so they were developed but oh dear there was just no taste to them so they ended up as dog treats. I also made Pear Clafoutis which I was excited about & that was just all kinds of wrong. So anymore recipes with these two fruits will def have ginger & cinnamon added it makes all the difference & I do always use these spices but these were recipes I found on the net & I followed them as written, yuk! Never again!
Right lots of housework now first round for the week then tomorrow I am meeting a FB friend for the first time & going shopping, looking forward to that. I love meeting new people & since Nigel has been gone I have only  met one couple in Gorna & we met for lunch so this will be a good day, hopefully a good old chat!!!