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.