St. James’ Park

7/7/07

Serendipity – I love it – I hope Mel is reading this – she’ll know exactly what I mean! The other night I watched a DVD of David Attenburgh – definitely one of my Dinner Guests – and he was talking about the history of the planet and I suddenly realised that I’ve always wanted to be a geologist. I was immediately distracted from the DVD as I started to think about how I could fit that (3/4 years of study)into my current plans – it would have to be a University in an interesting place – Australia maybe?

Anyway – the next day I had a lovely hostel guest come to stay – Mike from the Boro decided to get off the beaten track and check out Voditsa. He was a great guest – good company, interesting conversation and he worked for his food. And he left a book to add to the library here – the book is a history of mountains and of course that means its mostly about geology. So now I’m reading this book and the little planning track that continually runs through my head, alongside my life, is thinking about how I can make this happen –it doesn’t fit very well with the Boat Plan - hmm – but the Universe will provide in good time meanwhile I’m going to check out the rocks around here.

The weather has been really strange the last few days – it has been windy! There has been a pretty strong North wind blowing for three days – this is the first time since there has been anything other than a light breeze. The temperature has dropped – it was actually deliciously chilly last night but I’ve found it a bit disquieting. I had an email the other day from a woman who was sitting in a caravan near a Northumbrian beach –I could smell it and feel it and of course it was windy. I was feeling nostalgic and then, serendipity again, the very next day the North wind did blow. My head has just got used the stillness of the air and now everything is moving.

I’m taking a break from the field and decorate the hostel room – actually I’m on a roll with it and its going to look brilliant.

8/7/07

This is turning into a diary – I quite like that because I’ve never really kept a diary before – tell me if it’s boring!

A little message for the people who love me and are wondering what to send me for my birthday – here are a few things that I really miss: marmalade, Patak’s Aubergine pickle; anything in a jar by Patak; Bisto; Birds custard powder – what else could possibly go with these million apples? Marmalade; Stilton – how ripe it would be after 5 days in transit! Any cheese that isn’t white,soft and comes from goats or sheep; marmalade; anything sweet and delicious that doesn’t look like it’s got a shelf life of 5 years; Basmati rice – I’m getting used to the stuff here but its like glutonous Japanese rice; mindless magazines. The things I’m running out of are Norwegian fisherman’s handcream, thatlovely pink foot stuff from Lush, The address is on the website! All Red Cross parcels will be happily received and I’ll stop with that train of though as I’m getting carried away.

The weather has gone back to melting today. Since I came here in the middle of April, it has monsooned for about 4 days in mid May and there hasn’t been a drop since. The ground is like rock with big crevasse’s like you see on parched desert scenes. I water the veg about every other day but my neighbours can’t afford water – they have virtually no income – and all their water has to come from the spring which is now a trickle. Pretty serious stuff because for them, the food they grow now has to keep them in the winter and spring and everything is dying. There was also no snow here last winter – a unheard of thing- so the water table is already very low. I gather most of the missing rain has been falling in the UK!!

I went to buy paint the other day and I was reminded of a visit to B&Q last year when I was astonished to see a whole aisle of different types and shades of white paint. Here its just white paint! But I have to admit,there were a few times when I thought longingly for non-drip paint.

Another nice thing about Mike the Smogy, he left me some great music – I cant get the Mark Viduca song out of my head! and he had DVD’s.I watched the whole series of Blackadder II.

I bought and SLR camera in a charity shop before I left and now I’m practising to be a famous photographer but I don’t under stand the numbers on the lens about the light – can anyone tell me – simply and untechnichally.

Had an email the other day from 2 people who want to come and camp in the filed for 6 weeks – that would be so great – I hope they come.

My Bulgarian is coming along – I’m kind of getting the hang of the grammar now. They don’t have a subject pronoun in the sentence – its implied in the verb ending so I’m practicing with that bit now but I’m still in the present tense. I have hit a couple of snags though – whilst I’m getting my sentence construction together, my pronunciation is obviously appalling because people don’t understand me! Also, when people write, they write a whole load of letters in a different way – like D becomes g and T becomes m – how confusing is that? I’ve also started having practical Bulgarian lessons –I learned how to make plum compot the other day and tomorrow I’m making walnut banitsa – its like a baklava I think but that reminds I need to set aside an hour or so to shell a couple of kilos of walnuts – I’ll think twice about every buying whole walnuts again –it is so hard to get them out in one piece and some people have to sit there and do it.

The people who drive around with the loudspeakers buying things came today and Jorge brought one in to buy Alan. He was very confused when I said no. I really can’t decide what to do about her –there are so many different ways to look at it. 2 people are coming to stay this week so they can help me decide – I could have website poll! “Shall we eat Alan Shearer or not?” vote here!

After gushing about the wild flower meadows, I have to tell you about the stars last night – when there’s no moon, there are always lots of stars to see but last night I could have been on the Enterprise! It was really marvellous. I lay in the filed for a while and got carried away in to infinity and thought about the poor people living inn Manchester. I’ve now added a telescope to the list of things I need.

I wonder what evil spirit was around when I decided to paint the dull grey ceiling with white gloss! What an idiot I am! Its not like I’ve never decorated before and remember we are talking about drippy paint! Anyway the rest of the room looks great.

Lots of love to everyone.

Tuesday 26^th – a flower day so I don’t get to mess with the vines till tomorrow after 7am. This biodynamic stuff is pretty precise and its actually really interesting. I’m now tuning into the energies in the field and practising listening to them and I’ve just found a load of resources that I’ve downloaded –a whole course actually – which sadly gives me another reason to not have time to learn Bulgarian! Time is so weird here –I do actually wake up at about 6 and usually go to sleep around 11 – in between there is so much to do that sometimes its hard to know what to do next. I spotted a plum tree yesterday that I hadn’t seen before –it was previously in disguise as a green tree – now its bright yellow! So today I went up to pick plums – followed by 2 dogs and a sheep. I was there a couple of hours and picked masses and also discovered a new part of the field. There’s a lovely little flat bit at the foot of the hill that’s actually in shade till mid afternoon. I sat there for ages just looking at the field from a different direction and tuning into to the energies. That was a lovely way to spend half the morning but what I have realised over this last month when I’ve been working this place on my own, is that it needs people. Its fine enough having volunteers but sometimes it’s a very frustrating thing when people say they’re coming then they don’t confirm and then you don’t hear from them again and meanwhile I’ve said no to other people. I have been really lucky with the volunteers who have been here – they’ve all been wonderful and I’m very grateful for all their work but organising it all is a hassle.

But I was thinking about Jorge and Vasilka next door – there are three of them and usually Vasilka stays around the house, gets the food together, makes jam and stuff like that while the guys are off doing the field work. When there’s just me, I have choose which of those things to do. Its wonderful having so much fruit, but will I have the time to pick it all and them do something with it?

I need a couple of other people to come and live here on a longer term basis. That means people could take a bit more responsibility and I don’t have to make all the decisions although, to be fair, all of the volunteers who’ve been here so far have taken loads of responsibility.

Wednesday

Had a visit yesterday from three 16 year old girls from the village – one of whom speaks very good English. We had afternoon tea on the lawn – they loved my tea pot and they all want lessons in scone making. They gave me an idea for getting rid of Alan – periodically people drive around in a car with a loudspeaker and offer to buy things – so I’ve just got to get it worked out what I need to say and run out next time I hear them. But it’ll be sad to see her go – we’ve kind of got used to each other but she really is a hassle.

I’ve never really been an animal person – except cats of course and all farm livestock has always seems to me to be a big hassle – correct on that one!

There are fireflies around at night and last night there was one in my bedroom when I switched off the light – it was lovely watching it. I captured one and watched it through my little magnifying glass – fascinating and thank you Eden for the glass.

Saturday –full moon. Two Scottish people have just moved into the village – their house is up the other side of the village and they’ve got loads of work to do on it. They’re not much interested in the land but I’m sure they will be eventually however, they are interested in Alan and they have a whole field for her to eat. So maybe that’ll work out.

I have just been for the most incredible walk – I need to just gush about this for a minute – I walked up the back behind the house but didn’t go into the woods. I wandered along the goat track then came upon miles of the most beautiful wild flower meadows. I was walking knee deep in glorious colours – a whole field of white with tall yellow flowers dotted about then loads of pink and masses of different purples and blues…. and hundreds of butterflies - I lost count of the different types, sizes and colours. I wonder if there places like that still in the UK? How sad if there aren’t but I can’t remember ever seeing so much wild beauty in one place. I walked for about an hour in the flowers and of course there was no one there – just me and the dogs. It was quite stunning – it’ll be really interesting seeing those meadows at different times of the year.

Then I came back to another interesting hour – there was a strange scratching sound coming from the water barrel – I looked in tentatively hoping I wouldn’t have to rescue a rat! But there was a bird – quite big, white and black speckles and quite stuck! I lifted it out and it was too heavy with water to fly so I sat it on the vines where it obligingly sat while I got the bird book out. I really wanted it to be a baby falcon but it wasn’t even in the book – I think it was a young wood pigeon.

16th June

Sometimes I don’t feel like I live in Bulgaria – I feel like I live in this field! I’m not complaining – there is so much to do and it’s a very beautiful field. Everytime I look up from doing one thing I see half a dozen other things – but all in good time I have to keep telling myself. Someone kindly told me the other day that growing food organically takes a lot of time and is very labour intensive – that thought has made me laugh a few times when the sweat is stinging my eyes when I’m in the field slowly picking off the white fly from the cabbage! I have for the first time in my life found a use for sweat bands! I look silly of course but there’s no-one here – it’s a bit of old curtain actually –not the thing you’d wear at the gym!. Life here reminds me of India when I think about the work, the fields, using the traditional tools and the heat – but at least I don’t have walk up and down a mountain to go to the shop!

Its been interesting being here on my own all of this month – I’ve remembered that I am crap at getting up at 6 in the morning and being sensible to do work before the sun come out full blast. That’s easier when there’s a few people around – and I just cant sleep in the afternoon – mad dogs and Englishwomen….that’s me. Its light here till about 9 at night so I do lots of work then and of course now that there’s no-one here to talk to, I’m reading! My children will know that this is fatal – once I’m into a book that’s me stuck there. Watched a few videos too but I have resisted the temptation to watch a series of 24! That would be fatal and somehow Jack Bauer just doesn’t connect with Voditsa. I’ll keep that for the long winter nights.

Everything is growing now – the next bit is the Gardener’s World bit – I’ve got masses of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and courgettes all about to produce something– the potatoes are getting big although they are well behind everyone else and I’ve got lovely crops of basil, cumin and coriander. I do miss going to the Asian shops for the rich variety of vegetables but at least i have the spices and herbs. I’ve got a few million beans too – no onions – I was too late for them this year and the aubergines are very slow. And finally the parsnips have come up – there was a little cold spell a week or so ago and up they came – just when I was about to give up on them.

I also have about a hundred pumpkins and loads of sweet melons and as for the trees….. I cant believe the amount of fruit! Great find of the week was a mulberry tree – it was always there but I didn’t know what it was till it began to fruit – mulberry liqueur has just been added to the list. It also feels like I can sit and watch the vines grow – they move at a phenomenal rate and there are loads of bunches already – all very exciting. Sorry if that didn’t grab the non-gardeners amongst you but you will enjoy the fruits of the labour if you come to visit – or maybe buy some St James Park organic liqueur for Christmas presents?

There is also a big climbing thing growing up the side of the house that has just been an ant superhighway since I’ve been here but this year it has just produced the most stunning huge orange flowers – like big long trumpet things. I will put a photo on the web site and maybe someone can tell me the name.

I’m actually starting to get the hang of the biodynamic idea – I stopped myself tidying up the vines the other day because the Moon was in Leo and it wasn’t the right day. I love the idea that hoeing allows cosmic influences into the soil and you’ve just got to know which particular cosmic influence is around that day. It may sound mad but really its just reconnecting with the energy that’s all around us – in the earth and the connection with the moon. More as I learn more myself.

The saga of Alan goes on – she really needs a transfer but I don’t know how. Maybe I’ll stick a notice outside the gate. She’s so unhappy – we went up the hill the other evening and she just ran back and forward and looked like she was smiling! Made me feel so guilty. Anyone want to buy a sheep – only 3leva per kilo?

A note on wind – being English and coming from the North East, I am an expert on wind and there isn’t very much of it here! Its strange and a bit disquieting sometimes to have no movement at all in the air. But just before it rains, there is always an amazing big blast of wind that comes out of nowhere. And when it thunders, which is quite often, the air starts to move quite violently. I just looked in the dictionary and there is only one word for wind and no word for gale! Interesting.

My lovely friend Mary in Ireland has inspired me to offer short adventure holidays – not everyone wants to volunteer and work hard for 35 hours a week and some people just like to do something very different for a holiday especially if they’re alone. More on that as the idea develops.

I’m just about full now for volunteers till the end of September and someone has already booked in for next spring! There are three people coming in July plus I’m looking forward to a visit from the Geordie lass who’s been in the frozen Arctic. Ed and Jess’s house buying seems to be going ahead OK and maybe Jo has found a good place too. I’m excited about next year – we’ll be able to do things more easily together – might even get an EU project together…? It’ll be great to have more volunteering opportunities – now every time I open my email I have to say no to people – there aren’t enough hosts in Bulgaria at the moment. But having all these English speakers around is terrible for my Bulgarian which is coming along terribly! A woman called Anna from up the street comes in every day for a hour to help me – I can now read stuff OK but I cant remember what it all means!

Got some new residents – two swallows have been checking out the place for the last couple of weeks and now its looks like they’ve decided to build a nest in the ceiling of the veranda. There’s an old chain hanging here and they sit on it, chatting away. They brought a load of friends in before and that was a bit hectic ..and noisy. I suppose a nest full of chicks will be too but I do feel very privileged that I can be so close to them.

Just realised they weren’t inviting in their friends – they were defending their territory! I’ve just narrowly missed being dive bombed while I’m sitting here.

I did actually get up at 6 this morning to put some biodynamic preparation on the plants. this involved energising the water for an hour before spraying it but I did manage to do it while the dew was still on the grass. I was then going to have an early night but I was invited, at the usual 2 minutes notice, to eat with some neighbours – Stoika the post mistress. Her daughter was here from Spain and I ended up coming home quite drunk around midnight – went straight to sleep and got woken by Drago at 7.30 reminding me to pay my water bill.

I must go and pay some loving attention to my hands before I go to Popovo – they look terrible!

By the way – its lovely being so switched off from the horrible things on the news but sometimes I think I should keep in touch a bit – if anyone wants to send me their Sunday papers after they’ve read them or the occasional Guardian – that would be lovely. I remember in India when the Observer arrived, whatever day it was became a Sunday– Davy made breakfast and I sat around reading the paper.

June 24^thI have moved outside now – I got Drago and Jorge to help me move the stove outside so now I really only come in the house to sleep.

Svetla came round the other night in major Bulgarian pessimist mode. I’m sure she is convinced that I will die through my choice to live here – that’s what she kept telling about being here in the winter! I don’t think she quite gets why people are coming here (not just for the property investment!). She can’t know how unhealthy the UK is as a place to live and working hard in this field everyday and just living on what I grow is a much better way of life. Its hard to explain that some people actively reject the lifestyle that most of the undeveloped world strives for – actually it’s the morals and ethics (or lack of them) behind that lifestyle that I reject.

I have been quite unhappy that the strimmer wasn’t working and thinking about the hassles involved in taking it back. Then I did a very radical thing – for me! I read the instructions and hey presto – it works. I bet Jane Miller is sitting there nodding sagely right now!!

I’m still developing my skills with the kosa, but the strimmer is a lot more efficient for me right now.

The swallows are getting on fine with their house building although they do make a mess and the invasion of the little yellow plums has started. There are a few million in the process of falling. First batch of plum liqueur is about to get started.

Lots of love to everyone and I look forward to hearing a bit about your lives.

The other day I was thinking that it was inconceivable that a Geordie would want to swear at Alan Shearer – even just a sheep named after him but this animal is doing my head in. I think its now a universal fact, agreed by me, Jess, Tino and my neighbours that I made a mistake. I understand now that I should have got two lambs so that they have company but they’re also not used to going out walking in lots of company all day and everyday. This poor animal just can’t deal with being alone.

It was actually quite funny when we were all up the hill behind the field, I hid in the grass, just to see what she would do, and she ran up and down the field in panic when she couldn’t see me and then came charging over when she saw me. I don’t quite have an answer to this problem yet – maybe I could swap her for 2 lambs – my Bulgarian isn’t quite up to that standard right now.

A word on houses and building materials – I can’t believe how cool these old houses are in the height of a hot afternoon and also how easy they are to heat in the winter. They are build so that the house can breathe – bricks and mud I guess with a huge open loft space above the whole length of the house. Sitting in the shade of the porch is cool but its quite chilly in the rooms. Who needs air conditioning? Also, people live their lives outside so much here – everyone has a cool shady place to sit and eat – I’m on the porch at the moment but the vines are growing at a phenomenal rate and will soon be covering the lawn area. I’m also growing climbing flowers and melons across the frame so we’ll be able to sit in the shade and just reach up for a melon or a grape.

A few days later – Alan seems to be getting the hang of this business of eating grass on your own but I’m not sure that I have the patience to wait around till she learns. However, getting rid of her is also a b ig hassle so I think I’m in Scarlet O’Hara mode on this one – “I’ll think about it tomorrow”.

I get a bit despondent sometimes when I look at other people’s gardens and their fields full of vegetables but then I have to remind myself that they’ve all been here for most of a lifetime and even this year, I started nearly two months later than everyone else. And things are growing now so I do feel a bit better but there are ups and downs – millions of cucumbers and tomatoes but the cabbage, turnips and sprouts have all been decimated by white fly when I wasn’t looking. I’m taking the Zen approach to my veg growing and gardening this year – I’m being fairly passive while I get to know the soil which I do now know is pretty crap! But it’ll get there eventually. I’m activating my compost heap biodynamically right now so that should help – I haven’t shared this information with the neighbours as they already think I’m weird enough. Those of you who were here earlier will be happy to know that the fifth apricot tree has now got leaves on it – Rescue Remedy ad lots of attention worked.

I’ve decided to advertise the campsite around hostels in BG even though the toilets and showers aren’t finished – the gazebo and the solar showers will be well good enough. I have to admit that bricklaying is now really high up my list of things I just cant bring myself to do! I’m sending out some really powerful messages to the universe to send me someone to help.

I spent a lovely day doing totally nothing the other day – I was very tired so I put on a skirt and a sparkly top and lay on the lawn, reading and watching the vines grow. I may have no cabbages but I have a lovely lawn but then I am English and I do have a couple of cake stands for when I have afternoon tea.

Thanks for all the lovely responses to mylast blog – great to hear from people.

One of the problems about naming a sheep after England’s greatest centre forward is the expectation that it will have a bit of backbone. This morning I spent about half an hour making a shelter for me to do the bricklaying and another one to keep Alan cool in the melting mid day sun. A short while later a gust of wind blew down her (yes Alan is a she) tarpaulin and she completely freaked. I thought about the characteristics that I had automatically attributed to her just by virtue of the name …… she needs a bit of confidence building! Actually I didn’t realise how ego centric sheep can be – I thought they just happily ate grass all day but no – Alan is very attention seeking and very noisy. She wants to be beside me all the time but if I let her off the rope she immediately eats all the things that she’s not supposed to and tramples over the vegetables. She was just making a big noise there and when I went to check, she had spitefully (and cleverly) tipped her water over and was refusing to stand in the shade! How do I end up with animals like this? Jess kind of likes it here except for the heat but follows me around all the time. Tino, who does have some characteristics of his namesake but is a bit of a woos, runs in mad circles around the field and loves me because I feed him. To be fair, Alan isn’t afraid of the dogs and headbutted Jess the day she arrived. If I was a proper techie (and had the time)I could set up a blog called the Antics of Alan and everyone could share with me the frustrations everytime he tangles his leg around the rope. It also really hurts when he stands on my foot.

Apart from the animals, I’m alone here just now. Ed and Jess, the last volunteers left last weekend but they’ll be back – they liked Voditsa so much they’re buying a house here! Jo and Jacquie are also looking for somewhere in the village – its not an ex-pat invasion because they all intend to live here and invest time and energy into the village. Ed and Jess are keen to keep animals – maybe Alan could go for a holiday down the road sometimes and they’re all into organic and ethical farming – its quite exciting now to think about the possibilities as we work cooperatively.

Ed and I are going to explore the liqueur business – I cant wait for these trees to all start bearing fruit so I can get started.

Trees – there is so much fruit this year, I’m going to be really busy using it all! Last year there were only a few apples on one tree, now there are hundreds on about 6 trees. I now seem to have 4 different kinds of plums and the peach trees seem to be producing the same 5 million that they did last year. There are also loads of quinces and the funny red berry called Drianka which tastes awful but has liqueur potential.

The grass seed that I sowed in Mid April has finally germinated –after not a drop of rain for 8 weeks, it then rained for 5 days almost non stop. One day was just amazing with thunder and lightening all day and a downpour to rival the monsoon. It was also rain that came straight down – wind and rain together seems to be a particularly British thing and it was warm so we just sat on the porch all day and watched it.

Back to the word “bricklaying” – plan B in relation to the toilets and showers is based on the phrase “how hard can it be?” Jo, Jess and Ed did the hard stuff at the beginning – moving up from the foundations to the some eventual straight lines. It looked really hard so I kept out of it and planted vegetables but now its up to me! All I have to do is keep it straight and plumb – I don’t really know how to use a plumb line and I don’t have a spirit level but it all looks quite straight and it seems to be sticking together. Any brickies or builders reading this will be having a fit but it doesn’t seem that hard although I do have a use a lot of hand cream and its really bad for my nails! I’m also quite slow at it – Winston Churchill used to do bricklaying for a hobby – maybe I’ll get into it – there’s a long way to go so I’m going to get plenty of practice.

We have the most lovely sign for outside the gate – Jacquie is now the star pupil in her mosaic class and I cant wait to get it on the wall.