St. James’ Park

I suppose being British, we tend to think that we have the monopoly on bizarre weather. Maybe we do in the microcosm of a day –you know sunny morning then snow. It hasn’t been above freezing since early December – mostly around minus 5and easily minus 20 at night but then 3 days ago I understood what Christina said about winter in Finland. After weeks of minus a lot, when it gets to 0 it feels like a summer’s day. It was just above freezing but it felt so warm – I had all the windows open and didn’t wear my long johns. I sat outside on the step late at night and enjoyed the warn air – it was just minus 1.

But then yesterday it was actually 18 degrees – T shirt weather and of course everything is melting and its so noisy! After the silent world of the snow its just drip drip drip. Its going to take a while for all of this to go and I cant help thinking where is it going to go? I guess it’ll be variations on mud for a while now but hey .. this isn’t spring…. There could be another 3 feet of snow next week but its bright sunshine right now and there’s some heat in it.

I am glad its going away now – its getting dirty and cos it was still deep before the thaw, its really hard to walk anywhere. Its just sort of sinking now and things are becoming visible that I haven’t seen for weeks – saw some green yesterday! We’ve been using different paths around the field mainly because Tino was the trail blazer and I just followed in his footsteps

I am alone in the village now – Elaine and Keith have gone back to Scotland for a few weeks. I think Jorge is quite impressed that I’m staying – he came in the other day to see if I was alright cos he couldn’t see any smoke from my chimney and I’m sure they wonder what I do in here all day –they know I don’t have a telly. I dont know what I do sometimes! I’m not very motivated to do actual work – I haven’t finished the bathroom yet although its getting there. Sometimes I don’t speak to anyone all day and I’m surprised at how that’s OK. I’ve never had the luxury before of just sitting down and reading a book all the way through and I’m getting through a great variety –  Agincourt, The Secret Garden, Zen Archery and a few very thick best selling paperbacks. and I have some god DVDs to watch

A happy New Year to everyone and I hope you all had as good a Christmas as I did. Elly and Alex came over for a week – we met up in Plovdiv and drove up to Pamparovo in the Ridope Mountains. Gorgeous place – just mountains, trees and snow – oh and magnificent views. We went with a group of Bulgarian friends so we were able to stay at a hostel for only 12lev a night (4 pounds) – its not just for Bulgarians but its hard to find places like that if you’re a foreigner. I didn’t ski but Elly and Alex got right into it – I sat around drinking coffee and cognac and reading the Guardian. Christmas was really great because nobody noticed it happening! No hype, no packed trollies in Asda with huge queues at the checkout, no boring TV and stuffing your face all day – actually nothing! We just decided to have a Christmas week – we spread out the treats and gifts over a few days and had Xmas dinner on Thursday. But it was lovely to get texts and a couple of surprise phone calls – thanks.

We were there for 3 days then we had a epic journey to get back to Voditsa – the aim to set off by 10 was a good idea but a flat tire was the first hassle then trying to find a tire repair place on Boxing Day. Then the brakes weren’t working very well so we had to stop for an hour to get them fixed. We had hoped to be home before dark but it was 4pm before we headed up the Shipka Pass and it started snowing. I then drove in the dark in a blizzard for almost 5 hours – sometimes I couldn’t see the road - but only one little skid. When I finally got to bed much later that night, I could see whirling snowflakes every time I closed my eyes!

If you recall from my last email, I’d had another eventful drive on the way down – I have now figured out the field thing and I did drive across a field. I came to a cross roads, knowing I should go straight ahead but the sign for Plovdiv was to the right. I went along it for a couple of kilometers and then turned back and carried on along the straight road. The key word that is missing from all of this is the word ‘diversion’ because a little way ahead I came to a huge mound of earth and a road closed sign. It was dark by the way so I was easily tempted to go along the rough looking road to the left – ‘no wonder this road needs fixing’ I thought! I was reassured by the lorry in front of me – driving in first gear at 2 miles an hour. In the day light I would have indeed seen that I was driving in a field but like everyone else, I wasn’t going back.

The weather is being amazingly beautiful right now and it raises some interesting questions….. yesterday we moved into major frost – every single piece of moisture on any tree, leaf or blade of grass was frozen into tiny flakes so now the whole place is white but in a different way. With lots of snow you can still see lots of green on the conifers but with the frost, all of the trees are white – its looks like the snow queen has waved her hand. Its been around minus 5 during the day for about 3 weeks but I think it’s a bit lower than that right now so here’s  the question: how come you can step outside in Newcastle, the sun is shining, nothing appears to be freezing but its so cold that it makes your skin hurt. Sometimes this is due to the wind from Siberia coming over the North Sea but even without it, the air can be painfully cold. But its minus 8 ish here now and its cold but it doesn’t hurt. You can be outside for quite a while before it penetrates the layers and of course there is no wind. I’m remembering about weather from geography but how come minus a lot doesn’t hurt?

Back to Christmas – the traditional celebration here was at New Year and they had Father Frost – looks like Santa but he’s dressed in blue. And being Orthodox, they celebrate the Epiphany on 6th January but all the commercial crap that is so familiar is edging its way in. Some people I spoke to are surprised that now they have 3 celebrations now. They don’t really do presents here either – people give each other food at Xmas – lots of Tikivanik – a pastry stuffed with walnuts and pumpkins – very yummy.

I got some really lovely presents – thank you to everyone – I have never been so delighted to receive socks and scarves. And so many delicious treats. I do love the food here but a cheese fest of English cheese, Panetonni and real chocolate just makes it for me!

2nd of Jan
There is nearly a metre of snow outside and its still coming down. Before it got really deep I went to the post office to collect even more lovely pressies including a cutlery tray – Jo of course!

3rd of Jan – I’m snowed in! its been snowing now for almost 48 hours – real professional snow that looks like its here for ever. It’s above the outside tap and there are drifts up to 2 metres. I looked out the gate – after digging my way there – and it was a good 4 foot high and much higher where the snow plough had been back and forth. I had to rescue little Jackie this morning – she couldn’t get across the garden and Jess, who normally loves snow, panicked a bit when she went in over her head – it was funny though.

6th of January
No more snow has fallen but its all still here – its hard to imagine that its going to go away – there is so much of it. It took me almost an hour to dig a route to the compost bin but Tino is a great help – he has made routes through the snow that I just follow. Just found out some of the things he gets up to – Stoika now has a new puppy and guess who is the father! He had icicles hanging off his chin yesterday but the cold doesn’t seem to bother him – he lies in the snow eating a bone or his loaf of bread just as if it was the sunny green lawn.

Jess on the other hand is not impressed by minus 15. We made another first in the village yesterday – they had never seen a dog in a coat! I did think more than twice about actually putting it on her, but she was shivering and she seems likes  it. It was a present from my friends Lynn – its orange with a fur collar –very stylish and it certainly turned a few heads!

I’m getting a bit bored with this snow now – its still beautiful but you can’t go anywhere. Off the road, its still about 4 feet deep but it is starting to go down. This is new kind of snow for me – very big crystal like flakes – very soft and you can’t make snowballs with it. I put Wor Geordie on top of a big pile to see what happened – he sank about 2 feet – I rescued him of course! But it seems to just be shrinking down but still no good for sledging.

I’ve had some lovely phone calls lately as people start figuring out the cheap or free ways to call – its great – thank you.

I have to share with you all my complete pumpkin disaster! As you may recall, I had about 25 rather large pumpkins. I left them out in the barn to dry out and as I don’t have Sky TV I didn’t know there was a big frost due so they all got a severe blast of frost- not good. I put them in the cellar and hoped for the best – didn’t happen. They all began to rot very quickly. I took a few of the ok ones out and put them in the tool room which was fine until it hit minus a lot and they all got frozen. So now I am spared the thoughts of how to cook 25 pumpkins and next year I’m only going to plant 2 or 3 seeds.

I’m excited about my new water plan – Alain (M. Le Chef) told me that his father used to fill up their well with snow – interesting but right now I cant even see the well! But I am going to build a gutter system that stores the water in the well – it should take quite a while for the water to go down to the level of the water table so I can pump it into the field. If I get the opportunity I will put loads of snow in – hoping of course that Jorge and Drago don’t see me and ask what I’m doing.

Just got to tell everybody about these really cool things that I’m wearing – remember leg warmers? Well these are wrist warmers but they’re also really elegant –they’re black and rucked so they’re quite tight and they look great. Corinna from Switzerland had a pair that I envied a lot and she’s just send me some in the post – in exchange for a pair of galloskis. I could sell these things to all the Goths I know!
Chestiti Nova Godini.

Winter 2006/7
21st nov
It was minus a lot last night and although the sun is shining today, its really cold and the sky is clear so it’ll be very very cold again tonight. I remember last year when Svetlana said that if I stayed here for the winter I would die. I laughed and put that down to general Bulgarian pessimism but now I see that she was right! There is something so very real about winter here – theres nothing pretend about how cold its going to get and how hard it is to actually keep warm – I keep looking at my wood pile for a sense of security!

I can feel a sense of hibernation coming on – my energy has changed and I’m slowing down. My diet has also changed – it was just the other week that we were still trying to eat all the tomatoes in the garden and having lovely salads now all i can think about is hot stews and soups which is fortunate as I have the ingredients for a great many soups –pumpkins and meat. In the summer I was always up around 7.30 or earlier now I have my breakfast in bed and stay there for ages!

I have a new perspective on this house now – so far I have only really lived in it in the summer and then actually I don’t  live in it – sometimes I’m never in the house between getting out of bed and going to sleep at night so my thoughts then are about the outside and the field. But now it’s the opposite – its too cold to do anything outside so I’ve started thinking about how the house could be more efficient in the winter. Its like life has two very distinct halves here – summer and winter – even though there are 4 clear seasons, spring and autumn are short and then before you know it, its either 45degrees or minus 20.

I bought a thermometer today so I can give accurate temperature readings.

I’m curious now to see which of the trees will be the first to bud in the spring and what happens to the plants sitting in the soil. Some plants are so amazing – how come spinach doesn’t die in minus 10 or when its covered in snow? I’ve still got leeks in the ground and parsnips but probably the most amazing plant is Jerusalem Artichoke. I planted it to see if it was good for shade – the plants grow to 8-10 feet. It was and it also wasn’t bothered with the drought or the heat – it still grew and now the tubers are still in the ground and they’ll stay there all winter till I need them. They’re not everyone’s taste as a vegetable – a bit of flatulence guaranteed- but the garden is going to be full of them making shade next year. I gave some to Vasilka today – she had never seen them before but was impressed by their resilience. Hope she doesn’t mind a bit of wind.

Oh my God-there’s a jackal or something howling in the garden! (real action news!) I heard one the other night but the dogs were out and they went crazy – barking for ages. They often do that, especially Tino as people who have stayed here will know. Now I know that he wasn’t just barking at shadows. He’s locked in the shed right now which is why they’re able to come so close. I just went to the door to see if I could see them and Little Jackie ran in with a mouse and at the same moment Wor Geordie pounced on another mouse behind the logs. Plus Tino was going crazy barking in the shed – peaceful silence one minute and animal chaos the next. It was also too cold to leave the door open to chase the cats out so I’ve shut the door to my bedroom and left them to it. I wonder if I’ll know the difference when I hear a wolf.

It feels a bit like the edge of the world here right now. Not in a scary way but I was just looking up the field and realising that beyond it is woods and wild land. It was daytime when I was thinking that though and now I’m thinking I wont be walking out in the dark again for a long time. I can hear the jackals now down by the spring.

Cant decide whether to keep Tino locked up and they come in the garden or listen to him bark all night or maybe he might get eaten! Jess has developed a new character too – in Ireland she learned how to be an Irish Farm Dog and run after cars and bark at everything. Here there is actually something to bark at plus there are some quite ferocious dogs around here so she’s learning how to be mean and nasty – not often but I have seen another side to Jess sometimes and she’s a bit scary. But I don’t want her to get eaten by the Jackals. It’s a pity I’m scared to go out cos there’s a lovely almost full moon and I do want to see them. I’ll wait till somebody is here.

I’m going to learn a bit about animal tracks – easy to spot in the snow. Keith, my Scottish neighbour who was a gamekeeper and who yesterday sawed through his foot with a chain saw, knows all about tracking –he reckons he’s seen large cat tracks. Keith is ok but in plaster for a good while. But we now know how the hospital system works.

A few normal kind of things that happened yesterday- I got up early and went to the Wednesday bazaar in the village – its just small but has all the seasonal equipment – thermals, hats etc and a good second hand stall. I bought some great green shiny leggings and angora socks. Chatted with a few people, pretended I didn’t know Tino and met Laura. We went for a coffee in the secret supermarket and in my best Bulgarian I arranged to buy some Rakia from the guy who has the eggs. Later as I went to collect it, I passed the little old lady at the Turkish house chopping some logs – the axe was almost as big as her and I commented on her muscles – she responded by effortlessly slicing a huge log in half.. Then I met Norm, the cow guy and he introduced me to his turkeys which I hadn’t seen before. He said he would kill one for me – that was kind but I’ve no idea when he meant which means he could arrive at any time with a freshly plucked turkey. I then bought 5 litres of really nice looking plum rakia and walked home as the temperatures plummeted and everything started to get crispy – then the jackals came out………

The secret life of Voditsa!

Nov 5th

Its November already – time seems to run differently here and it seems to run very fast- like I just turned around and its winter! The weather has changed – right now its drizzling,grey and cold. I’m looking forward to when it actually snows – I think its not like snow and winter in the UK –the sun shines a lot and life just goes on around the snow – all will be revealed in due course and Ill let you know.

I still think autumn is my favourite time of the year here –the light just after the sun goes down is quite lovely – I often just stand in the field and watch the colours on the trees. That colour is getting less as the leaves fall –had a great picture of the hammock the other day –it was full of walnut leaves. It’ll be good to see a different skyline along the field when all the trees are bare.

I thought I’d share with you some of my experiences with secret shopping in Voditsa – first of all there is the Secret Supermarket –found by Jenny in July – we use it all the time now – it even has a secret terrace for quiet drinking. Its below a small blockof flats and there is nothing outsideto indicate that it’s a shop. Last year I found the secret Hardware shop – they are both completely without signs and are actually quite invisible. We also have a secret Bar – not sure when its open but it has posh chairs and a secret Hairdresser’s which I have yet to find. Of course this makes me wonder what else is secret that’s going in this village?

There is a small market in the village on Wednesday morning – vegetables, batteries, duck feed, strange bits of tools and winter clothing equipment –great jumpers, coats and cardies for 1 leva and a brilliant selection of colourful cord trousers – the kind Monty Don wears on Gardener’s World but with tiny leg sizes. On the big market in Popovo, you can also get all sorts of thermal underwear, socks, hats gloves etc – no more sunhats right now – just major winter equipment.

I don’t think I’ve overestimated the amount of wood although it looked at bit scary when it arrived – but its reassuring to see it all – hopefully I wont be cold in the house but I do think there’ll be lots of days when I just stay in bed! I don’t actually have all of the main requirements for winter survival – the two main things missing are 500 jars of pickles and some embroidery. However I have loads of wood; 25 pumpkins; a couple of barrels of walnuts; loads of jam and chutney; an impressive number of jars of tomato related things and a good supply of grass – I really feel a sense of hibernation coming on.

Plus i  have lots of work to do– writing my best selling novel about life in Voditsa, also writing the biography of the 29 houses and tattie shed that I have lived in – 2 bestsellers on the way! And if I haven’t got enough to do, in the next few weeks I have to write the content for 89 website pages – new business venture – Max and I are setting up a new site called www.alternative-bulgaria.com  Its going to be a directory of services, information and links for people who want to do things a bit differently. Things like cob building, alternative energy things, Shiatsu practitioners etc. more on that later.

Nov 14th.
Alan Shearer RIP.
Sadly Alan the sheep is no more. To those of you who knew her this will be sad news but all went well and at the moment the cellar is full of meat which is going to get cut up tomorrow. Some will go in the freezer and some for gifts to my neighbours. And I’m going to learn how to make sausages and how to bottle meat.

The skin is currently drying and then I have to do some things to it (don’t know quite what yet) and then it’ll be a rug and Alan will be with us for ever.

She had a pretty good life for a sheep and I’m sure she thought she was a dog at the end. I took her for a last walk along her favourite track on her last day and she ran up and down with the dogs. She’ll always be remembered and there will soon be some photos to see when I eventually get it together to sort them all out.

Had some more great volunteers in the last few weeks. Corinna from Switzerland helped me with loads of things – digging, plastering, painting, and making a living room – it looks great with big red fun fur cushions and a white floor. Then Danny from the US came for a week just when the wood got delivered so he chopped for a week –he then went away for a week and came back to do the rest! Brodie, from Canada sat around in a T-shirt –used to the cold! And he had experience in killing and skinning moose (as you do if you’re canadian?) so he helped with Alan. He also painted all the fruit trees with biodynamic tree paste and most important – they all had really good music. I now have a wonderful collection of really great stuff. I’m interested in the fact that everyone who comes here has similar tastes – not much pop stuff around here. Today I’ve been into The Streets, Nina Simone, Ani diFranco, Xavier Rudd, The Be Good Tanyas and of course Dylan – some albums I haven’t heard for ages. When I’m on Desert Island Discs I’ll refuse the complete works of Shakespeare for the complete works of Bob Dylan. (that will only make sense if you listen to Radio 4)

Listened to any good lectures lately? Funnily enough I have. Brodie has a selection of lectures on religion and politics – great combination but interesting. Made me miss Radio 4 though. Has anybody got any books on tape or CD that they don’t want? That would be so cool to listen to a story.

I also got a gift from a volunteer who hasn’t even been here yet! A woman from Israel (she’s British) is coming with her
Daughter next spring and she sent me some Birds custard powder. Most welcome but custard via Israel is not something you get everyday.

The weather has got really cold. It snowed a lot for a couple of days then it slowly went away. I now have some Glastonbury style mud. The next blog will probably be all about the cold!

Laura and Tom are leaving at the end of the month – they came for a week in August! They’ve been great friends and neighbours and I’ll miss them. They’ve done loads to their house and I’m looking forward to when they actually come to live here.

Lots of love to everyone and it would be great to hear from you.

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.

Now here’s an interesting thing –I have a thing on my website now called GoogleAnalytics which tells me how may people have logged on to the site, which pages they’ve looked at and for how long and it also tells me where they are they are logging on from. Big Brother via Google! So I want to ask you to now go to www.stjamespark.biz and I can check who is actually reading this blog!

So for those of you who have got to the end of this – who hasn’t talked to me for a while? Send me an email with a bit of news from your life. Lots of love from the lovely autumn sunshine of Bulgaria.

Winter 2007 21^st Nov

It was minus a lot last night and although the sun is shining today, its really cold and the sky is clear so it’ll be very very cold again tonight. I remember last year when Svetlana said that if I stayed here for the winter I would die. I laughed and put that down to general Bulgarian pessimism but now I see that she was right! There is something so very real about winter here – theres nothing pretend about how cold its going to get and how hard it is to actually keep warm – I keep looking at my wood pile for a sense of security!

I can feel a sense of hibernation coming on – my energy has changed and I’m slowing down. My diet has also changed – it was just the other week that we were still trying to eat all the tomatoes in the garden and having lovely salads now all i can think about is hot stews and soups which is fortunate as I have the ingredients for a great many soups –pumpkins and meat. In the summer I was always up around 7.30 or earlier now I have my breakfast in bed and stay there for ages!

I have a new perspective on this house now – so far I have only really lived in it in the summer and then actually I don’t live in it – sometimes I’m never in the house between getting out of bed and going to sleep at night so my thoughts then are about the outside and the field. But now it’s the opposite – its too cold to do anything outside so I’ve started thinking about how the house could be more efficient in the winter. Its like life has two very distinct halves here – summer and winter – even though there are 4 clear seasons, spring and autumn are short and then before you know it, its either 45degrees or minus 20.

I bought a thermometer today so I can give accurate temperature readings.

I’m curious now to see which of the trees will be the first to bud in the spring and what happens to the plants sitting in the soil. Some plants are so amazing – how come spinach doesn’t die in minus 10 or when its covered in snow? I’ve still got leeks in the ground and parsnips but probably the most amazing plant is Jerusalem Artichoke. I planted it to see if it was good for shade – the plants grow to 8-10 feet. It was and it also wasn’t bothered with the drought or the heat – it still grew and now the tubers are still in the ground and they’ll stay there all winter till I need them. They’re not everyone’s taste as a vegetable – a bit of flatulence guaranteed- but the garden is going to be full of them making shade next year. I gave some to Vasilka today – she had never seen them before but was impressed by their resilience. Hope she doesn’t mind a bit of wind.

Oh my God-there’s a jackal or something howling in the garden! (real action news!) I heard one the other night but the dogs were out and they went crazy – barking for ages. They often do that, especially Tino as people who have stayed here will know. Now I know that he wasn’t just barking at shadows. He’s locked in the shed right now which is why they’re able to come so close. I just went to the door to see if I could see them and Little Jackie ran in with a mouse and at the same moment Wor Geordie pounced on another mouse behind the logs. Plus Tino was going crazy barking in the shed – peaceful silence one minute and animal chaos the next. It was also too cold to leave the door open to chase the cats out so I’ve shut the door to my bedroom and left them to it. I wonder if I’ll know the difference when I hear a wolf.

It feels a bit like the edge of the world here right now. Not in a scary way but I was just looking up the field and realising that beyond it is woods and wild land. It was daytime when I was thinking that though and now I’m thinking I wont be walking out in the dark again for a long time. I can hear the jackals now down by the spring.

Cant decide whether to keep Tino locked up and they come in the garden or listen to him bark all night or maybe he might get eaten! Jess has developed a new character too – in Ireland she learned how to be an Irish Farm Dog and run after cars and bark at everything. Here there is actually something to bark at plus there are some quite ferocious dogs around here so she’s learning how to be mean and nasty – not often but I have seen another side to Jess sometimes and she’s a bit scary. But I don’t want her to get eaten by the Jackals. It’s a pity I’m scared to go out cos there’s a lovely almost full moon and I do want to see them. I’ll wait till somebody is here.

I’m going to learn a bit about animal tracks – easy to spot in the snow. Keith, my Scottish neighbour who was a gamekeeper and who yesterday sawed through his foot with a chain saw, knows all about tracking –he reckons he’s seen large cat tracks. Keith is ok but in plaster for a good while. But we now know how the hospital system works.

A few normal kind of things that happened yesterday- I got up early and went to the Wednesday bazaar in the village – its just small but has all the seasonal equipment – thermals, hats etc and a good second hand stall. I bought some great green shiny leggings and angora socks. Chatted with a few people, pretended I didn’t know Tino and met Laura. We went for a coffee in the secret supermarket and in my best Bulgarian I arranged to buy some Rakia from the guy who has the eggs. Later as I went to collect it, I passed the little old lady at the Turkish house chopping some logs – the axe was almost as big as her and I commented on her muscles – she responded by effortlessly slicing a huge log in half.. Then I met Norm, the cow guy and he introduced me to his turkeys which I hadn’t seen before. He said he would kill one for me – that was kind but I’ve no idea when he meant which means he could arrive at any time with a freshly plucked turkey. I then bought 5 litres of really nice looking plum rakia and walked home as the temperatures plummeted and everything started to get crispy – then the jackals came out………

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.

I might have to put a little note on the website to warn people that when they come to Voditsa, it might be really difficult to leave! So far this year I have had 10 volunteers or friends staying and 8 of them are now interested in buying a house and living here!
There is going to be a realy interesting little community in this village soon but my Bulgarian friends are puzzled by this! they cant see why we all want to leave our developed and income obsessed world in the UK for this basic life. But thats exactly waht the attraction is - its lovely here and we can do things that most of us cant afford to do in the UK- like having a field and 10 walnut trees and practising biodynamic gardening and using the resourses around to make things. It’s hard to explain sometimes why we reject the ‘easy’ life in the UK.

I have 4 volunteers here right now and talk about the Universe providing…. Max from Australia arrived on my doorstep and has reorganised my whole communications stuff - I now have a landline and I might even have the internet soon - he’s also going to help me with the website and he’s interested in staying around Popovo for a a while. Then Laura and Tom arrived just for a week and they’re painting the house - just when i thought it wasn’t going to happen cos 2 volunteers let me down. They are now looking at property in Voditsa. and Oliver arrived from England last week - he’s doing the weeding in the field - note that we now have weeds! it has been raining!!! Wonderful for the land - I have pumpkins, happy tomatoesand weds!
and before these volunteers, Jennie stayed for almost a month - she was great and guess what - she is also thinking about buying a place in Voditsa!
I’m so lucky that i’ve had such great volunteers staying with me and now they’ll all be neighbours.
I never have much time to write emails or letters when there are volunteers here - i get caught up in the energy and the work is getting done - so this is a short blog - lots has been happening but you’ll all have to wait.

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.