Some time at the end of April.

At last the weather is a bit awful and I can have a day in the house without feeling guilty in that English sort of way – you know …. the sun is shining therefore I must go outside. This works well in a climate where sun shining is rare but of course, in some places, like here, it just goes on shining day after day. I haven’t written this blog since February and thats because, one day just a month ago, it suddenly stopped being winter and spring just erupted. One day nothing, then next its was plum blossom everywhere and the grass started to grow – very quickly and very thickly.

I have considered getting an animal to keep the grass down in the field but after my episode with Alan Shearer, I’m a bit off grazing things. So its just me and the strimmer and of course its now decided to only work for 7 minute spells. I organise my day now around short bursts of strimming but sometimes I look up and see the enormous amount of grass and wild flowers and it’s a bit daunting. Why aren’t you using the traditional Kosa, I hear you say — because its too hard! Cutting grass with it requires precision Kosaring skills that only people like Drago have. I can cut down evil big weeds and I think I’m doing great then I look up and see Drago effortlessly scything away and making neat little piles. I aspire to having a lawn mower – one of those neat little things on a quad would be cool.

My first volunteers of the year arrived on exactly the first day of spring – it was snowing the day before – and they were great. Adele and Maxim from Brittany and their dog called Eureka. There were such great people to have around – they did loads of work, they cooked great food (French ..mais oui) and they were jugglers. Maxim got it organised to go and do a circus skills workshop up at the school (youtube videos to follow at some point). It was great fun and the kids loved it. He was also into cross country unicycling – this involves hurtling down steep hillsides on a unicycle – very impressive.

Adele is a journalist - she’s doing an article about Voditsa for her newspaper and we’re planning a photography project for next year. I did warn them of course that people sometimes end up wanting to live here and guess what happened after about 3 days?? Maxim is interested in setting up a circus troupe here so I thought I might put my career aim of being a pirate on hold for a while and I could run away with the circus. I love it when interesting exciting people come by here and then decide to stay.

Julie has also been back to visit and to finalise her house here – she’s coming for a while in the summer with the lovely Lielle and Dani who fixes strimmers. Hopefully she’ll be coming the following year for longer and maybe setting up some creative workshops for kids – could be circus related?

Lisa and her family are also here right now. She bought the huge piece of woodland in the next village last year and now she’s doing one of the houses up

16th May 2009.

It quickly stopped raining and i haven’t really been inside the house much lately but its actually getting hot now so I’ve adjusted my working time to stop myself from roasting to death in hot midday sun. Now I’m getting up at 6ish and getting outside by 7 and then for a couple of hours in early afternoon, I’m going to sit in the house and do my computer stuff – that the plan!.

The strimmer is driving me crazy – it just works for little fits and starts and there is no way I can keep up with the rate that the grass is growing. I’m back to thinking about watering again – it takes up so much time. Stuff is getting out into the garden – peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers – the usual stuff but I’m starting to think more about salads again but it’ll be another few weeks till my tomatoes are ready meanwhile the ones from the market are not the same standard – even if I do say so myself!

Its been great having Lisa and her kids around – she has done loads of work on one of the houses on her land in Osikovo and of course, lots of wood clearance. They’ve gone to Ireland for a month and then they’ll be back for most of the year. Their dog, Dilly, is with me now – I used to know her in Ireland – she’s old and deaf and stubborn like Jess.

A guy called Reuben has been here a couple of times now and has bought a piece of land up the back of my house – in the wild. Not sure what he’s going to do with but he’s been spending some time just sitting there playing is flute.

And two great new people from Rotterdam passed by the other day – great energy and interesting ideas. They’re off to Syria but they’re kind of looking for somewhere interesting to live – what can be more interesting than Voditsa?? They inspired me to start thinking about putting on a music and arts festival – thats a new idea that’s still floating about..waiting for the right people.

I have just moved outside – I’ve spent the last two days tidying everything up, sorting out tables ( I actually have 7 tables – dont know how that happened), getting the pots and pans moved out and getting back to walking a lot when I’m cooking – half the stuff is inside the house. We made a great new BBQ when the French volunteers were here and we christened it the other night. Sitting chatting and it struck me as bazaar that we were sitting, in the dark, half way up a field in Bulgaria at a table with a sparkly tablecloth and a candelabra..but the stars were great. But hopefully, that’ll be me outside till the end of September.

The cherries, apricots and plums will be starting soon – I actually have run out of jam and I think I’m ready for the onslaught this year – I was taken by surprise at the apricots last year but I am prepared to turn slightly orange this time.

It has been surprisingly windy the last few weeks – lots of pleasant breezes making a lovely noise in the trees and right now, its bringing a sweet scent of acacia blossom – so lovely – it always make me think nice places in the Mediterranean. That’s the first crop of the year that gets made into rakia.

I have a washing machine!!! Well its not exactly mine – it belongs to my new best friend Kareena. She has a house in the next village and comes here afew times a year. She borrowed the car for a couple of days and loaned me her washing machine in exchange. That may not be a huge thing for most people but it saves all the time going to the spring and …..the clothes are clean!

On an interesting note, I had a conversation with the Mayor of Voditsa the other day and he is interested in my development plan for the village. I got it translated into Bulgarian, I’m gong to meet with him to discuss it and then hopefully we’ll actually do something about it and get some EU money coming into the village.

I had an interesting random email the other day from a woman who manages events and wants to use this as a venue and maybe she wants to bring 80 volunteers here on a capacity building project in September ….interesting and loads of possibilities.

Great business opportunity : the bar and restaurant in Voditsa is for rent for 400lev a month – that includes electricity. Its fully equipped –although I haven’t actually been in the kitchen. It has huge potential to be a great place to hang out. It needs a little bit of reorganising and some good music – there is space to have a band on in the corner. This village so needs a buzzy little bar and a place to eat. If my development plans work out, there’ll also be a lot more people coming around this place in the future.

I had a little holiday – my friend Patti came over and took me for a few days in a nice hotel in Varna. We just walked about, talked and ate lovely cakes. It was a lovely week.

Its sheep’s milk season right now. I happened to mention that I would like to buy some sheeps milk yoghurt and two days later, a woman came round with 5 kilos. It was pretty nice but that is a lot of yoghurt when there is only me.

The sun has now moved away from the very hot place where I was relaying the path so I have to go back out and finish it. Lots of love to all my friends, how are you doing, whats the craic, where are you are…..send me your news.
Lece veche.

Last week I was happily thinking about seeds and greenhouses and digging over beds in the warm spring sunshine. Then on Friday, as the Moon went into Sagittarius, a metre of snow fell in about 24 hours and here we are in the middle of winter again. I know all that about the Moon because this winter weather was predicted in my moon planting calendar – I wish I knew more about the planets. But anyway, its just like last year now and I spent the day in bed writing my book and messing about on the internet.

Ziggy has become a house cat – the snow is to deep for him to go out. He was jumping from one of my wellie holes in the snow to the next but then he got stuck. So I let him sleep in the house at night but he’s not very sure of this sleeping thing – me sleeping I mean. He keeps coming and touching my face with his paw in the night – a bit strange and annoying but he is cute.

Apart from the snow, things are getting exciting here and I think that this year things might start to happen here. I’ve now set up a company, CKMI Training and Development, with Marc and Cara and we’re hoping that a Bulgarian called Ivan who is in Canada right now, will son come and join us. We’ve applied for some funding to be partners in a project around traditional food and we’re also involved in generating an organic hemp industry in BG. We’ve got a name, nearly got a logo and a website and we’ve got loads of ideas so we’ll start putting ourselves about a bit and see if we can generate some work. There is so much potential here with community projects and new ideas – I just hope we aren’t let down by political decisions and corruption here.

On the property front, my son Alex has just bought a really great, very old house. Its all built in the traditional style (and it was very cheap) and I’ve got someone who can do the old building things. It’s a very different style to this house and doing it up will be more like a project to preserve the old and traditional building methods. Should be fun but I might change my thoughts totally on that as the work progresses. My experience of BG builders is that they may be skilful but often they’re unreliable – we’ll see.

A great piece of land came up the other day – its just up behind my house – in the wild place – and we sold it (in 24 hours) to a guy who, I think, wants to live in a yurt. Now that should turn a few heads here! We’re getting more interest from people who are just sick of their life in the UK and want to start again – great and very exciting for Voditsa. I just wish someone would come and open a good bar here! People sit around the shops in the village, drinking beer and eating bits of sausage, but its not really a bar – there’s no atmosphere, the seats are not comfortable and there’s no music. I’ll keep on about this to everyone and one day………..

Lisa is moving over here in April and Julie is coming from Israel next month and Jo is coming in May. I’m also getting loads of visitors this year – I’m so looking forward to all my lovely friends who are coming.

Jorge is still not really speaking to me. He doesn’t ignore me but there is something different in his manner. He hasn’t forgiven me at all for Tino and he blames me for not taking enough care of him. I guess it’ll work out in time – I hope so.

On a happier note, we are having our first mini-festival here in July. Elly is having a birthday bash here and we’re expecting around 40 people to be camping in the field for a few days. This is what I really want to do with the field – I cant really be bothered with random campers just turning up – one or two are ok but I now know that a proper campsite is not what I want to have here. But doing some hard work for a short time, like a week, is great. If I can do about 3 of these a year, it’ll be brilliant. This is the tester this year – I have to finish flattening the field, organise extra toilets and showers, sort out a bar (done that), buy more plates and generally start coming up worth ideas that will make the week and the whole experience great.

I learned a new food thing recently. Dancho’s father killed a pig and I bought some meat from him. Its hard to say which bit of the animal I ended up with because butchering is not a skill here – the dead animal is just cut up. Anyway I got one piece that was meant to be cured and dried. Dancho kept coming along with the next set of instructions from his granny – first of all the meat was rubbed in salt and then covered in salt for about 2 weeks. I had to drain it and rub it some more everyday. Then it was washed and soaked in water for 3 days to get he salt out. Then I rubbed it in herbs and hung it up outside to dry off in the air for a few days. Dancho’s granny injected hers with red wine but that was a bit advanced for me but I did compare the taste and the red wine helped so next year I might do that. But the meat was lovely and now I have new preserving skill.

The sun is shining outside now – its minus quite a lot but the sky is blue and the white is dazzling. I really could do with some snow shoes – I thought this last year – I’ve just remembered that I have some handmade wooden skis – I might go out and give them a try – I’ll have to dig my way to the museum first tho…..

I went to visit some friends last weekend in a little village south of VT. I met them last year when 5 people and two dogs dropped by one night. They were part of a small group who wanted to buy a big piece of land to build a kind of eco-village. They now have the land and the project will soon start to happen – very exciting and hopefully I’ll do some work with them on planning the whole thing. So I needed a break and I went off to visit them and to my surprise, I ended up in Brit-land! 50% of this little village are Brits and there was money oozing out of every wall! Some of the houses had been renovated beautifully but there was nothing remotely like a real Bulgarian village about the place – it was a bit surreal. Lovely people but a bit too ‘ex-pat’ for me. This village is not where the land is by the way.

But I did manage to go to VT this time without driving down the wrong side of the motorway – that’s good progress!

I’m so enjoying listening to Radio 4 again but the down side is that I hear all the news from the UK and its so unhappy. I cant believe how many jobs are being lost and people loosing their homes. I guess when you’re in it, your own concerns are paramount but when you look at this from a distance, it seems so unreal. Especially when life here just goes on as ever. The weather , the goats, the apricots and whatever just keep on in their own cycle – I always feel that life here is about keeping up with nature – especially when there is yet another mountain of fruit!

I think I have to get out of bed now and maybe venture out to the shop – I need some bread. The road is clear – I just have to dig my way to the gate. I also need to go and see if my new greenhouse has fallen down with the weight of the snow – hope not.

Around the same time, Geordie, one of the cats, disappeared. His sister, Little Jackie, disappeared last September and this really brings home the reality of life at the edge of the wild. There are jackals and wolves and things like that just beyond the end of my field and I guess that I should consider the very many creatures that those two cats killed and ate. What goes around comes around. But I miss them both and Ziggy now has no-one to play with. I’ll get a couple more kittens in the spring.

But the saddest thing happened yesterday. Tino is dead - he was shot, presumably by a hunter who may have thought he was a fox. Jorge, next door, is very angry with me because he says I should have kept Tino tied up all the time. I think that if Tino could have spoken, he would have agreed that a short life of freedom is better than a long life as a prisoner. He was tied up during the day but I used to let him off at nights and he always came back the next morning. It’s a bit of a different thing having pets here - a new set of things to think about but now there is just me and Ziggy and he seems happy to be a well fed, fat fluffy house cat. Tino and Jess are both buried up on the hill and I’ll plant trees for them in the spring.

Its been a while since I did a blog and I guess the most significant thing to talk about is the weather. Climate confusion is maybe more apt than climate change - it is weird and there isn’t much pattern to it. The winter was a long time coming - it didn’t really get cold till the end of December. We had snow and it was around minus 15 for quite a few nights and minus during the day too. Then two days ago, it was +15o - it was warm and the sun was bright and its January! There was actually a wasp that flew by the door today -it was also obviously confused. I might have to move myself out of this hibernation mode and go and do some outside work.

Christmas was lovely although we didn’t actually have one! I went down to Istanbul to meet Elly and we had a couple of days being tourists. Actually we didn’t do much that was really touristy - Elly spent the time trying on loads of ball gowns and wedding dresses in some great retro shops. I love the fact that I can get a bus from the end of the road to do a bit of shopping at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul - cool. I had a lovely volunteer called Dawn here to look after the animals while I was away and her and Elly and I had a ‘Christmas Day’ together when we got back.

I bought a neat little weekend suitcase in Istanbul but when we got off the bus at the end of the road, it was about 5.30am and I discovered how noisy a wheely case can actually be. We woke up every dog in the village as we walked home - it was also very cold!

I now have three books on the go -writing them that is- I haven’t yet found the momentum to carry on with my story of all the houses I’ve lived in - its still stuck on 70,000 words and I’m waiting for inspiration. I also started to write a book about community development - that’s coming along but needs lots of attention and now I’ve started a cookery book. I realised how often people ask me how I made something or could they have the recipe for whatever we just had for dinner. I don’t have recipes and sometimes what I end up cooking isn’t what I set out to do. So I’m writing a non-recipe cook book. If anyone wants to be a tester for my non recipes, let me know.

But I don’t really have time for all this writing because of course I now have the internet and it takes up loads of time! Before, if I had a question, I probably just let it go cos I didn’t have the information to answer it - now I can find out the answer in an instant but that instant usually leads to more browsing and curiosity and suddenly, an hour has gone. Elly got me into Facebook too - fun but takes up time.

This winter is so different from last year which was new and everything was pretty and a novelty, including being cold. This year I’m just annoyed at the lack of insulation but as its not snowing and not freezing, hibernation isn’t really working.

Some good things have been happening though - I met a couple of interesting people, Marc and Cara, who live in Palamartsa, near Popovo. We’ve been talking about doing development work and the three of us are going to set up a company for sustainable training and development and this will hopefully lead to EU funded projects. Its very exciting and we have already been asked to be a partner in a transnational project. Its going to be about lost traditions around food and I guess this means we’ll get new cooking ideas and skills and get to eat good Bulgarian food. We’re also thinking about a project to explore commercial production of organic hemp and running a short festival to bring together traditional skills and new technology - that’s really exciting and its good to get my brain working again.

Its been a very long time now since I had any real income here and things are now looking quite dire. The property business is taking off but there’s a bit of a recession, I do believe, in other parts of the world which seems to be stopping people from buying houses. But there’s also a lot of people who just want to escape the UK and that’s interesting because, ultimately, we want people to come and live here. It is the middle of the winter right now and we do have a few viewing trips organised for the spring so hopefully it’ll work out.

I’m having a rethink about volunteers this year. Looking back on last year, everything got screwed up by my disastrous long term volunteers who came in May. It took me a long time to recover from that and it also meant that I had to restart finding volunteers - the whole thing was a waste of time and made me question why I was doing it. Fortunately, the rest of my volunteers made up for that experience and I’ve learned a lot but the whole work plan for the summer never got off the ground with that poor start. This year I am looking for a long term volunteer who can manage the garden while I do building things and try to earn some money - I just need to find the right person. I had one enquiry room a woman who asked if there were ballet lessons nearby for her daughter - that might go in my list of mad things that volunteers ask.

Happy New Year to anyone that I haven’t already said that too. Lots of love from me and Ziggy.

Thanks
WWOOFbulgaria Team

Anyway I think my whole energy focus changed with that decision and maybe that opened the door to opportunity – first of all we made our first sale. Lisa from Ireland has bought The Jungle. She came over last week and I had almost a week of the intricacies of Bulgarian bureaucracy. But it’s all sorted now – just waiting for the Company documents. While we were talking to a guy in Osikovo about Lisa’s place, he asked if I wanted to buy a car and it was just what we were looking for – a 1500 Moskovits – a Russian antique with character. It’s a great little car actually it’s a got the feel of a tank about it – it feels really solid and potholes are not much of a problem - I think I’m going to enjoy it but here’s what happened when we made the deal.

Semo, who was selling it, came and took me and Jordan to Popovo. First we went to the Notary- this is someone who certifies things, swears oaths and generally ensures the validity of deals and documents. They don’t seem to do any ongoing work – they just have steady stream of people waiting outside their door for certification and a stamp. The one yesterday had not a scrap of paper on his desk – in fact there was nothing at all in the room – not even a file but…they do make money. He was overseeing our deal – this involved him generating 4 sheets of paper, all to be signed, stamped and entered into the ledger. It took about 30 minutes and cost 37 leva. There were about 6 people waiting outside when we left so I guess that this guy takes about 60-70 leva an hour – when you think that the average teacher’s salary is around 300leva a month, then he’s doing alright.

So that was the sale done, now I had to reregister the car. To the first office to get my details on the computer and first big problem because my details don’t fit. Everyone in BG has a personal ID number and every computer, database, form and official document is geared to this number – a UK passport does not have the same number of digits so it doesn’t fit. This happens all the time and it’s a right hassle. So then I had to drive back into the town centre and go to the bank to pay for this change – they don’t collect money at the car office – another computer hassle about the ID number. Then back to the car office for the new documents and then, the best thing of all …. the BG equivalent of the MOT had expired. So we drove to this little garage, no appointment, and had the test …. which took the grand total of 7 minutes! They checked the brakes, told me a headlight wasn’t working then went underneath and poked everything for, oh, about a minute and then that was it – the 25 year antique car had passed. I commented on this to Jordan and he said that they would have known it was an old car so they made allowances! I still have two other departments to go and visit before the car is finally legal but nearly there.

This car also has a choke – remember them? I’ve never driven a car with a choke and now I have to develop a relationship with it so I stop juddering along the road and looking like a fool.

So I have a share in a car, the beginnings of a business and my next mission in life is the internet. This is going to happen -it has too –I have so much work to do this winter and I suddenly have loads of questions that need answering – like how do I perfect the distillation of alcohol, what’s the best natural insulation, some new chutney recipes, Newcastle’s scores, etc.

Another thing that’s changed around here is that Little Jackie is lost. She has been gone about a week now and I’m trying not to think about it too much but it’s very sad. Drago was not very helpful with his mime of how she probably died. Jess is a bit better lately – she has a weak heart and she’s just slowed down a lot. She’s 18 now which is a lot in dog years so she’s doing canny really. She just been to the vet for massive dose of vitamins and glucose – an hour on a drip but she was ok about it. While I was there I saw a dog’s spleen. The vet had just been removing one in an operation and it was sitting in a tray. Very interesting – not everyday you get to look at a dog’s spleen.

I have two books to read right now – Hot, Flat and Crowded by T. Friedman, and A World without Bees – Einstein reckoned we would survive for around 4 years without bees and they’re dying in massive numbers. The first book is trying to educate Americans about the reality of global warming – it’s very readable and the statistics are mind boggling but actually what the 2 books made me realise, was how much this place is, or could be a safety net. Nothing is exactly safe of course, but life here is so much about just what’s happening here and about growing things and not wasting stuff, it seems almost detached from the global economy. People around here don’t have credit and they’re not really consumers so although the price of bread has gone up and petrol is expensive, the vegetables are still growing, my well is full of water and if I had chickens, they’d be still laying eggs.

According to both these books, crunch time is coming now for the environment as well as for credit and the world economy and now I’ve started to move my attention to power and insulation. But that brings me back to the weather. Usually here, winter starts on the first week of November – the last 2 years it has snowed at that time. Right now, it’s about 20 degrees, the sun is shining and it’s going to be fine for at least the next week. In fact the weather has been so great the last 6-8 weeks; we’ve had a second spring. Things have grown again and the flowers have come out. Even in the couple of years I’ve been here, I’ve noticed a change in the climate and of course local people see it much more drastically. This is the other side of not being dependent on a global economy – we are very dependent on the weather and it’s easy to forget how very dry it is here. It hasn’t actually rained since mid September and before that, it was the beginning of July, so we need the snow to refill the water table.

Global warning aside, we are having the most glorious autumn – it seems to be going on and on and every time I look up, the colours are different – mostly all yellows now but loads of leaves still on the trees. Coming from the UK and especially from the North East, I am used to wind, in fact, like most Brits, I guess I used to take it for granted. When ever I am somewhere without wind, I find the stillness unsettling. That’s been the case here up to now but I have turned a corner – I’m suddenly quite tuned into stillness. I can feel it sometimes – the air is so still and everything is so calm that’s its almost palpable. And once you feel comfortable with the stillness, you can listen to the sounds – not noises, but sounds. There is no background drone of traffic or industry or anything like that. If you go and sit on the hill at the end of the field, you’ll maybe hear dogs, a donkey braying, cow bells, jackals and wolves howling at night, a saw, some metal banging and probably some noises that you cant identify – and in between and around the sounds, is silence and stillness.

I’ve had a few emails lately from people who want to give up life in the UK and start again here –it’s very exciting and this village could be an amazing place in few years – it is now of course but I mean in terms of energy and activity.

Its great when I meet innovative people around here and I’ve just had three inspiring conversations. In the last couple of days I’ve learned about heating water by dropping down a big height, like my well, and then through a few coils and back up by which time its hot! That’s the limit of my understanding of that technology but it sounds interesting. Also had some news ideas on compost toilets, irrigation systems, soil tonics and chimnies. The fun thing is that we’re all here trying to do things differently- we’re learning from our neighbours but then maybe adding extra bits to their traditional ways; some people have skills and knowledge about things like draught systems etc but for the most part, we’re making it up as we go along and sharing that learning. And I meet people who are coming here to really get into something that they love – like keeping horses – wonderful riding around here on all the common land and forests; keeping pigs and making first class sausage; making hard cheese (yes please hurry up!); biodynamic gardening; making furniture out of the wonderful local wood; water technolgy or whatever. There are lots of people where who have sold a house in the UK and now live a comforatble ex-pat life but there is a growing number of people who can see this place as a way to fullfil a dream about owning land and living more sustainably. Or maybe to put a plan into action in a way thats not possible in the UK or any developed country for that matter. I get escapees from all over Europe and of course the US.

A funny note to end on – I went to visit some friends in a nearby village last night, got home about 1am and realised that I didn’t have my house keys. I also lost a cake last night – another story but they could be connected. Anyway, the only way to get in was to get a ladder and climb thru a window – that was OK for me but getting Jess up and thru was quite a hassle. She wasn’t very impressed but I thought it was funny. This morning I was woken by Baba Penka rapping her stick on my window and then she couldn’t understand why I couldn’t come out and we had to talk out the window. Later Jorge saw me climbing out the window with Jess and when he stopped laughing, he reminded me that I had left a spare key at his house – saved.

PS on 13th Nov – special thanks to Lisa who send me the Obama Guardian. I have an American volunteer here right now and we’ve read the entire paper and I’ve learned loads about American politics. Lets just pray he comes up with the goods.

Also…winter is here. It was minus5 the other night but the sun is still warm for an hour or so around mid day then 4 o’clock the temperature plummets. No snow yet but the moon calendar says Dec 6th is the day and then the big snow on 29th. We’ll see. I’m very happy to be looking at the enormous pile of wood I’ve got and I was thinking about thermal vests today. Needless to say, all of my neighbours are already wearing 9 layers of everything and heating their kitchens to sauna proportions.
Lots of love from Voditsa.