St. James’ Park

You can get a lot of the information that you need from looking around this website or at least you’ll get a feel for what’s going on here and who I am – read the blogs especially. Very briefly, I am English, from Newcastle and I have lived a pretty nomadic life since my first adventure when I was 17 and I set sail (on a ferry) across the North Sea to Denmark – I’m 55 now – but don’t be put off by that if you’re not that old! I’ve lived in a lot of different places since then and after 4 years in the gloom of Manchester, I am delighted to be living in such a beautiful place as this.

My daughter bought this place 2 years ago and I agreed to live in it and manage it for her – she’s beginning her career as an engineer and has no immediate plans to live here. My usual attention span in any one place is around 5 years but it could be more here because its just so lovely and there is so much potential to do interesting things.

I live in the village of Voditsa with lovely neighbours who generally live a subsistence life. They work very hard,have almost no disposable income and use the resources around them. The houses are mostly made of cob and everything is repaired and reused – no throw away society here!

There is work to do on the house although it is livable and quite comfortable right now. My main interest is the land – I am learning about biodynamics and I would really love someone to come here who has experience of this way of working. I’ve had lots of volunteers here this year and last helping me with allsorts of work and we all live communally but really I would like some other people to share the responsibility of the place and the potential. Its very cheap to live here and I reckon that if I run 5 or 6 week long workshops each year, its possible to generate a good income even when the costs of the workshops are as low as 200 euros a week. There is also potential business in organic hemp, making organic liqueurs (one of my more tasty ideas), alternative building and technology and bee keeping. I worked as community and rural development consultant for some time before coming here and I am looking for the opportunity to share those skills in Bulgaria (not speaking Bulgarian is a slight problem here).

So maybe you’re interested in living communally where nothing is already set up and we have to make it up as we go along but where there is potential to do some exciting things?  Its peaceful, quiet, healthy and fun here but I would love to have some other people stay on a longer term/permanent for 4/5 years basis. Its really difficult to live as fully as I would like to from the earth when I’m on my own. Having volunteers is great but it also takes up loads of my own time and energy and however much they get into being here, they’re not responsible for the whole place and of course they don’t have a long term view. It would also be good to have children living here and I think it’s a great place for them to grow up.

Property and the cost of living is very cheap in Bulgaria but a lot of people don’t have the 6 or 7grand you might need to buy a farm here – I don’t – this is my daughter’s place – but by living communally and sharing our skills and time, we can all have the opportunity to live here.

This all sounds rather idealistic! I’m also into loud rock music, I smoke and I’m interested in making and drinking alcohol. I like talking and good conversation and I like hanging out with people who are fun, interesting and have something to say. If any of this is at all interesting to you and you fancy a change for a few years, email me or call me on 0035960386286.

Where to start…. Its been about a month since I really got into this email and of course, loads has happened. After a month on my own, Jennie from Cornwall was here for about 3 weeks. She did loads of work on the fences and really bonded with Alan Shearer who incidentally has forgotten that she’s a sheep and runs around pretending that she’s a dog! I learned loads about Girl Guides from Jennie and she used her knotting skills to make a shelter on the lawn from corn stalks. She is now thinking about buying a house here next year and she’s coming back in April for the barn raising.

Then Max from Australia arrived – he lives a nomadic life around Europe in his caravan and has helped me with all of my computer stuff. The laptop works now and next we’re going to sort out the website. He is going to rent a house in Popovo for a couple of months which also has a washing machine- washing at the spring is fun but putting stuff into a machine is sometimes useful.

Tom and Laura from Ireland and England arrived next and they painted the front of the house – its now looks great – white and yellow and really stands out. We used whitewash (Var in Bulgarian) on the walls – the neighbours all say it will wash off in the rain but we figured that if it stays on in Donegal, it will stay on here. We’ll see! They are now in the process of buying a really nice house in the village so they’re staying around for a few more weeks.

Then Ed came back to sort out the purchase of his house down the road. He and Jess are hoping to move in next spring. Oliver from England also arrived – he had heard of the place from Christina in Finland and he’s been doing loads of weeding – I forgot to say that it rained for a few days and then everything suddenly started growing again.

Alex from Holland came next – he met Jennie somewhere and was interested in doing something different. His project is to paint the windows and he’s sleeping in the hammock under the walnut tree.

So we have quite a little community here right now – we have great food, good conversation and loads of things are getting done. We’ve build a cob toilet and Laura and I have made loads of  jam, chutney and tomato stuff called Lutanitsa – and various bottled fruits. I have so many lovely things in jars that I was inspired to sort out the cellar – a very spidery place that I never really went into. But we cleared it all out – found a few scorpions but nothing much else. Me and Ed, Alex and Oliver spend a very tiring day making cob (mud and straw) and put in a new floor. We improvised some great tools and pounded the earth down to make a smooth floor. I remembered what I learned in India about making cow dung plaster and we’re putting that on the walls – its not yuky or smelly and is a great building material. We should be able to do the whole cellar without buying any extra materials – just using the natural resources from the garden.

Before it rained , I was concerned that I only had 4 pumpkins but now I’ve lost count – they’re everywhere! I took my eye off the ball in relation to the garden cos I’ve been doing house stuff the last couple of weeks and the whole thing is quite overgrown – millions of tomatoes and courgettes and I have great plans for next year!

A couple of days later – Alex and Oliver have left and Aslak from Denmark is here now. He and I spent a couple of days plastering a new ceiling in the cellar – using mud plaster – we’re now waiting to see if it stays on! He’s interested in bricklaying now and has also cut all the grass in the field with the Kosa. Tom has done a wonderful job sorting out the tomatoes which ha gone crazy after a few days of rain. Laura and I are still making things in jars – I have now completely run out of jars!

I am so lucky with the volunteers that I’ve had this summer – everyone has got into the communal aspect of  life at St James – we sit around the dinner table on the lawn every evening, eating great food, drinking rakia and having really good conversation. I’m now going to have lovely neighbours in the village and I’m feeling positive about running various workshops next year. I don’t have nearly enough food in my store cupboard compared to my neighbours but I guess I can live off walnuts and pumpkins! Or and the apples of course! I have a couple of boxes of dried apple pieces, I have apple compot, apple butter, apple and beetroot relish, apple and green tomatoe chutney and tomorrow we’re making apple and mint jelly and maybe apple juice!

Elaine who lives up the road has household encyclopedia from 1905 which has everything you need to know about living, eating and looking after servants! I’m going to learn how to make a press from it and I’m going to try pressing walnut oil – I have 10 walnut trees so I’ve got scope to experiment!

Laura from Manchester is coming next week and hopefully her and I are going to focus on the field and the land for a god few days. I also have volunteers booked in for October – very hard work time!

Love to everyone and look forward to hearing from you all.

Black hands again.

I’ts walnut time again and that means everyone is walking around with black hands - you see people everywhere carrying sacks of  nuts and people drive around with loudspeakers shouting ”orihee, orihee” (орехи is BG  for walnut) and its also the time of millions of peaches. They’re actually nicer than they were last year but its still hard to use them all! I’m making rakia again, I’ve bottled loads, I’ve made peach jam, peach chutney, peach cake, had peaches baked in honey – and the other day I reached out of my bed room window and picked one to eat in bed.

I’m having a volunteer free couple of weeks and its really nice and peaceful. There has been so much work going on and so many people around that I feel i need to have some space to engage with the land again. The trees are starting to turn red and yellow and the light is quite lovely now that the sun isn’t burning my head off. I’ve advanced a little further into the field – Laura from Manchester was here for a week and we spent most of the time digging next year’s potato bed – its half way along the field between 2 walnut trees – then I read in my biodynamic book that walnut trees are not good for growing vegetable nearby! This will have to be an experiment.

My potatoes are out now but it was probably the worst crop I have ever grown – a combination of drought, no manure and Colorado beetle – but next year I have a plan! (and I have some manure now).

I had a lovely visit from Jenny from the Co-op in Manchester last week – she helped me with a load of bottling, found a place for a swing and was generally very encouraging about the benefits of having a break in a place like this. She enjoyed the simpleness of the life here and she learned how to light a fire-that is always an  easy thing to do especially if you normally live in a city and don’t cook with wood.. Actually the whole thing about cooking on a wood stove is a whole new way of thinking-you cant just turn up the heat when you want to – you have be a couple of steps ahead of the fire. You really have to anticipate what the fire is going to do next and be ready for it. Also the two cooking stoves and the other wood stove are all quite different when it comes to lighting them. You have to learn how to live with the fires and I guess in the winter, it’ll be a different ball game cos I’ll also have to think ahead of the weather. I don’t want to have to go out in a snow storm to chop kindling. I’m thinking about the logistics of where I store my wood (I’ve just bought 10cu. Metres of mixed wood and its coming next week) but I bet there will be times when I have to go out in the snow to get my morning fire going! I don’t anticipate getting it together this winter and I’m sure I wont have enough to eat. I do have 24 pumpkins! Any interesting pumpkin recipes will be useful.

Laura and Tom are in their house up the road and they’re having a great time getting it oragnised. They had a wonderful infestation of ants but I think they’re winning. Bookluk is the Bulagian word for rubbish and its very important to try to acquire as much Bookluk as possible when you buy a house here-the barns here were full of bits of wood, tools,straw, bits of metal, old stoves and loads of etc. Its all been so useful-if you want something to do a job, you just wander about for a bit and then you’ll find the perfect thing! Laura and Tom got Bookluk in their house instead of the barns- they got loads of old clothes-we had a dinner party one night and all dressed up in old polyester dresses and sombre suits-they also got lots of great kitchen thing-pots and pans and lovely glasses plus a great 70’s standard lamp-so kitch. Elain and Keith also got house Bookluk(as well as ants) – loads of communist memorabilia and more clothes.

I almost forgot about my last volunteer – Aslak from Denmark. Max rescued him from another volunteering project that wasn’t working out very well. He was great and did all the big heavy things plus he started the bathroom with Tom. We’re converting the spooky spidery little room into a shower room-although I haven’t touched it since they left- I’m waiting for a  rainy day-meanwhile the weather has gone back to being hot.

I a now full of admiration for the Danish education system- Aslak’s English was amazing and he’s\never been to an English speaking country. We had some great conversations about language and also about puddings. We started this conversation with Alex from Holland who didn’t understand what a pudding is. After much debate in which Laura and I were the only ones qualified to make the definition, being English, we decided that custard is the defining factor and that things can have potential to be a pudding ie if it could have custard poured over it! These were long conversations! Aslak is now thinking of doing Erasmus (student exchange) in England and exploring puddings around the country. These discussions were prompted by Laura and Jennie bringing some Birds custard powder. Its great when people arrive with cool bits of shopping and I got a lovely Red Cross Parcel from Jennie Hayes- thanks-the Mars Bars were fantastic.

It’s the first of October tomorrow and I have to keep remembering that winter is just around the corner – there was no snow last winter but judging by the amount of berries on the trees, it’ll be different this year. Its such a big unknown- I don’t know what happens here when there is 2metres of snow for weeks on end and it gets to minus 20 –might just
spend a lot of time in bed!

I think I’m now qualified to say that yes you can get sick of peaches! They’re almost finished and I’ve added peach nectar t my list of ways to use them –that was pretty brilliant actually. We’ve now moved on to quinces- I have 2 trees full and so has Laura. Yesterday, being the correct day biodynamically, we had a mammoth session of making quince cheese – a bit like lemon curd but pink. If you’ve never seem a quince, they’re like very big, hard furry pears. It actually took us all day to do this – peeling ad chopping, chopping wood, cooking on the open fire for an hour, pureeing, cooking again and bottling 25 jars plus having visitors ad cutting my hair- but now we have Christmas pressies for all our friends in the village. Must make some cute little frilly lids for the jars.

At the beginning of the summer I was being really challenged by the whole bottling thing-I never seemed to have the right lids for the right jars, not enough jars(everyone has about 500 in their cellar), I didn’t have the right huge pot to boil the bottles in – but now I have all the right bits of equipment and best of all I’ve found a shop in popovo that has a room full of jars of all shapes and sizes. It’s a doddle now-just got to wait and see what they all taste like!

I’ve also got to think about what to do with loads of meat- Alan’s days are numbered now. That’s going to be hard but I’m not thinking about it just yet.

 Lots of love from the lovely autumn sunshine of Bulgaria.