Its a long time since I have posted anything!

I'm writing this from memory...at the end of September 2013!

September 2013, I was going back to BG on the 5th, made a late decision to not go in the new van i bought to replace the one the Hungarian fuel killed, I decided to go in the car....
Problem....engine is in the factory, so I started work, new engine half into the car....engine slipped! , I caught engine and all seemed fine, the crack from my arm as it hit the gearbox didnt seem that bad so I kept going for a few minutes, then the pain set in....arm is fractured in 3 places!

So no fixing car, no driving to BG as its too far to go with a broken arm, next trip put off till November.

June to July 2013

I travelled over in a van this time, I needed to take some things over and bring some products back from the factory, no real problems this time, but as soon as I put Hungarian fuel in the van it never ran correctly again, it still worked but not well! , It did well enough though it got me to BG all over BG and back again

At least the Danube bridge 2 was finished, saved waiting for the boat, customs took a few minutes and we were through, much faster drive now due to the new motorway being open, just the bit near Vidin to Sofia thats slow now,  This trip we stopped in Germany ,Hungary, and in Bulgaria on the motorway, much better to do more stops on the way.

Ive found out why we don't have many slugs or snails, but lots of snail shells, these beetles eat snails, they are quite rare and quite large about 1.5 to 2 inch long! , its a Blue runner beetle ( Procerus Scabrosus )  its rare and a protected species

We also have a couple of these on the house, swallows nests, not so many insects around this year so maybe a good thing!

Quite hot again this month, measured with my new buy today.... a 1 Lev thermometer

Cherry plums from the garden, trees and trees of them

Cherries from the massive tree, takes a 5m ladder to get to the lowest branches

Figs from the tree

Its quite a large fig tree about 12 foot or more tall, growing against a wall, i have seen no real damage from the sub zero winters here , the trunk at the bottom is over 6 inch across. a few dead branches here and there ,but only small ones.

June to July 2013 I Spent about a month in BG renting the house in Yulievo, Painted one of the downstairs rooms in the house in Vetren, smashed some of the concrete kitchen sink out...I need a pickaxe....massive hammer for 30 lev from praktis,
I did some work on the garden,strimmed it all again,  I also planted some plants in the garden , a few mint plants, a pomegranate tree, some raspberries, a red currant, some rhubarb

Upstairs is now finished, needs some work on the front door, but its functional....I need to keep the old door, Its a traditional feature of the house no chance UPVC one is to be fitted, the roof is fine,the rendering still needs work on the front and one end wall but is waterproof so fine for now

Working on the garden I removed some more clematis vitalba, a great lump of it on what I thought was a fence, turns out I now have another gate!, right by the old mini market at the bottom of my garden, there is even a concrete driveway across the mini market and right out under the rest of the clematis it goes to the road, a concrete drive! something I didnt think I would see

I have hundreds of plants in pots to bring here from the UK to plant, the ones I brought this trip I kept them in pots a couple of weeks to get them used to the heat, in and out of the sun, the raspberries all shrivelled but then shoots came from the pots and the new shoots were fine in direct sun and 40C, Rhubarb plants were the same they old stalks never recovered but new stalks were fine , mint just loved the sun straight away, after a couple of weeks in pots I planted them in the garden.

Raspberry plants from Aldi , grown in pots since February

Mint plants, apple mint, spearmint and black peppermint

Rhubarb plants, I planted 3 of these

Mint in the garden, I hope it will fill this area

New pomegranate tree and red currant bush

Early 2013, I managed to get back to Bulgaria a few times for a week or two every month for work in Vidin, but no time to get to do anything else, holiday planned for June.

Christmas 2012 , I got back from the UK to Vidin for a week or so , took a day out to drive to Vetren to check it was still there, snow was not that bad, just a couple of inches in a few places round trees, not that cold either! , not like back in January!

Why i bought a house in rural Bulgaria.

Welcome to my blog about my renovation of this traditional style Bulgarian village house, this photo is the one that made me buy it, taken by the seller some years ago

When people find out I have property in Bulgaria the question usually is.... Why and how I decided to buy a house in Bulgaria

So here we go....why i bought in Bulgaria!

Around 15 years ago I started to believe the UK was not the place for me, so I started looking around to see what was available in places that were fairly easy to get to.

I wanted somewhere rural, some places were suggested by estate agents, Scotland looked nice, North Wales another very nice place, while viewing some properties near Llanwrst I ran into a man in the estate agents selling his house , he was moving to Bulgaria..... I looked at the photos of some houses he was looking at, instantly I liked what I was looking at, nothing else had been so close to what I wanted!

Time went by...my business was growing and I decided a move like that was too difficult and at that point the factory could not be moved so the idea was forgotten about.

2005 

In 2005 my dog was diagnosed as having CDRM, he was virtually paralysed from the middle back, over a period of a month his fur fell out and he started falling over, soon he was unable to walk at all, a trip to the vets said he had a few months left they could find nothing wrong, i would not have that as a diagnosis and started searching the net, loads of info was available about diets, and supplements to diets , we decided on a treatment regime and very soon he was able to walk again, I started thinking how much better he would be if he had a large garden to play in instead of going out to parks for long walks, his legs could conk out at any time and it wasnt easy to carry 25kg of muddy dog back from the park. 

With taking so much time off work I had managed to sort out someone to run things for me so i  didn't need to do so much work, meaning i had more spare time in between looking after the dog, One day browsing ebay i found houses for sale, and then Bulgarian houses.

Some years went by.......I had to travel for the business , most times my dog would travel with me but occasionally i left my dog with family ( with a complete instruction manual...)  but most times he traveled with us as he needed constant care, we started to travel Europe a lot , about 10 days a month were in Europe, mainly Germany, Czech Republic and France , I decided more business was over there than in the UK so we could move to somewhere warm, with a larger garden .

2010...how it all happened!

I was having a bad day, the car was broken into in the night , my dog was getting ill again , so I decided I would move , I logged onto ebay and put some bids on a house, I lost the auction.... Suddenly it was easier to buy one as it could have already happened, I looked at the companies website and found lots more properties, so a few emails later I had arranged to buy a small factory, and a house.....Near Vidin , why Vidin....its close to the crossing meaning i had less distance to drive.

   A few days later I popped over by plane ( the only time uptil now i have travelled to Bulgaria by plane ) , I paid the deposit and arranged an agent and a solicitor to sort it all out, luckily i was not ripped off...as I had no clue as to what i was doing, I had a translator but they worked with the solicitor....

   I only went back another few times in 2010 to sign things and pay the rest of the money, My view of this transaction now is I was very lucky not to be ripped off, The factory is great ( and will be covered in another blog for the company ), needed some work but is still fine now, the house i have stayed in a few times, its quite nice and does not need much work as for Bulgarian property it is quite new being made in the early 1990s.

In June 2010 my dog died at 14 years old, he had been on wheels to help him walk for 2 years, this had a strange effect on me , overnight I cared little about the business , I couldn't have cared less if it had closed down at that point, luckily i had someone step in to run it.  

I decided to get over to Bulgaria full time I wanted to get away from the UK.....Having not completely lost my mind....but once realising I no longer needed or wanted to work , (I decided I would need food!) ,so I needed a much larger garden....something the Vidin house didn't have so the search started for a better house for growing food!

2011...Another ebay purchase

Back in the UK for most of the time, I made another random purchase, I bought a traditional style mud brick house near Maglizh ,StaraZagora in a village / small town in the rose valley called Vetren , this house i liked a lot, there was a video of around the garden and in the house, the seller looked trustworthy...( OK,  many sellers do look trustworthy.... ) but i checked there history and they had been round some time on forums and lots of people knew them, so i decided as it was only very cheap (due to being a village house in the center of rural Bulgaria) i had nothing to loose.

The house on ebay had a buy it now....so i bought it! paid the deposit,  completed the sale within a few months and then it was mine just before Christmas