Spring is here in Bulgaria it`s fruit tree blossom time here in Bulgaria.

Many of my early fruit trees have finished flowering , the Cornelian cherry ( Drenkie )and Apricot trees have now finished flowering, but most trees are now opening this week , some of the peaches started about 2 weeks ago but most only this week as I grow later flowering Saturn peach varieties as well as the normal ones. 

Victoria Rhubarb , going well had a crumble this week , the Stockbridge arrow , pink champagne and the Livingston Rhubarb are just starting to grow. 

And some Burdock plants getting going already

Citrus, I really need to pick the oranges from the Washington navel, have been ripe sitting on the tree since November last year , just hanging on the tree in one of the unheated  ( this year ) poly tunnels.

Some of last years potatoes , I think the varieties were Charlotte and Jersey Royal , I left in the ground are growing well with no frost damage from last weeks frost, they are about 6 inch high plants now, so I will now plant the big crop of them for this year.

Why is it when something is needed it hides so well, I have a few adaptors for camera sd cards for my old photos and videos , adaptors to fit them in a USB slot, I haven`t used one for years....they are here somewhere.....can I find them NO! , a trip into the big town 30km away is necessary anyway , so I will have a look but probably need to use Amazon or Ebay.

A quick walk with one of the dogs, this is Dougal he is about 2 and a half years old , weighing 65kg, a cross between a Kangal and an Ovcharka cross, his paws are about 3 inch wide!, great walk on the side of the Balkan mountains, ruined by the rubbish as you return close to the town.

 

Summer 2015.......what happened to spring!, Woooooah that was a long gap in posts!

Wow....time flies! , it was December 2014.....and now its July 2015......

Packing the van....

Quick version.....( longer version will be filled in over a few days at the bottom of this post! )

I returned here near the end of February , snow, ice, cold.........but nothing major, cold but no problems travelling in any way.

Driving over it was cold.....drove through the Dunkirk, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania, E74....over Vidin Bridge into Bulgaria, took 3 days due to stopping in hotels to get warm!

When we arrived we had been broken into, not much taken.....strimmer, chainsaw, Petchka, gas cooker, gas bottles and regulators etc, the window to room with citrus trees in was open and 50% had frozen to death covered with thick ice

We gradually tidied up, fitted some heating, fixed the doors and the upstairs window

Power from the solar was very low, obviously due to low sun hours, it was fine while the sun was out, I added another couple of solar panels to give more amps and then all was fine.

Quick work on the downstairs, surrounded by ice....-18C outside, heater on inside running from generator and I tiled the floors downstairs, never having done it before it took a little practiced to get them straight....but now they are straighter than the ones I took up fitted by a builder.....

I tiled the downstairs rooms and painted them as well, Gas cooker fitted, running from bottled gas after changing the jets to the ones supplied in the bag with the manual , all fine again, still have bathroom to tile and paint.....but it all works.....

Outside it was alternating between very cold in the night -15C to -35C and quite warm 15C to 20C some days, most days about 10C in the day, snowdrops out, bluebells growing, daffodils growing....even some tulips starting to grow, broccoli was growing great

Sprouting broccoli

I rotorvated the garden , dug out the weed roots, and started planting all the bare root fruit bushes, raspberries etc, pruning fruit trees, and vines, spraying the vines and trees, removing any old fruit still on the trees.

I planted many of the plants I brought with me.....50 new assorted raspberry canes, 3 gooseberry bushes, 3 Black current bushes, a Williams pear tree, a Peasgood Nonsuch apple tree

Trips to Baumax ( Homemax) and Praktis got me 3 peach trees, 3 apricot trees, 12 rose bushes, 2 rose standards

All planted by mid March











By Late March early April it was quite hot

So I bought 20 tomato plants and 4 cucumber plants from the Kazanlak market, the tomatoes were fine, but the cucumbers died within days ( in the house ) from mosaic virus

Petrol power back pack sprayer

Daffodils

Bluebells

Purple sprouting broccoli

Peach tree in flower

Rhubarb starting to grow again

Seed potatoes

More seed potatoes, dahlias, gladioli etc

I planted 750 seed potatoes, including Charlotte, Swift, Pentland Javelin, Pink Fir Apple, Anya, Salad Blue, Desere, Shetland Black, Highland Burgundy, Sarpo Axona, Sarpo Mira, KIng Edward, Maris Piper.....and many more....4 varieties of blue ones but cant remember them all I think 20 to 30 varieties, plus supermarket ones such as Bluebell

More things to plant

Roses, grape vines and more from Praktis this time

By this point I decided to remove the frame I fitted to use as a poly tunnel....and build a geodesic dome....it had to be a strange one with very few sides, only 15....as that way it was high enough for the citrus trees, it is about 4.5 meters high and 5.5 meters wide

Dome frame going up

Starting to cover the dome

I was just finishing the dome, deciding it was too hot, I needed to work on the water supply, quick think while drilling my finger while drilling the dome......

I needed some bits from Stara Zagora for the water , tanks, pumps, tubes etc....to get well water into the house from a tap.....

So.....out of the dome, elastoplast stop the blood.... 

lock the house....

Out of the gate and...........

Oh....What the F........is that!I had found a dog!......I thought it was a dog.....I thought it was dead....it smelt dead.....looked dead.....curled up on the step behind the gate, not moving at all, i gently poked it with a long stick to see if it would move at all, no movement at all but i saw a breath...., then....it opened an eye and fell off the step into the garden, and tried to get up, shaking......

and then it stood up and was alive again....just about!

No idea what to do about this......not an injury this was a zombie dog....looked like he should have been dead....with injuries like this, he has a hole that cant be fixed in his windpipe even...no skin around his neck...photos look better now the maggots removed, no flesh under the pulled back in place skin...!

After a couple of trips to the vets with help from Rachel ( from twichy noses ) who lives locally and runs an animal rescue so knew hot to find the vet.....

Back from the vets to 3 weeks cage rest....to stop his head falling off....

He started to heal a bit.....

Back in March ,Very under weight, hole in wind pipe, no skin joining head to body.... 

Was open underneath until the end of May

Starting to hold together, stitched half round, no stitches worked ever underneath

It took time, lots of time but it did heal up!

Late May 2015

Today he looks like this!, Early July 2015

Frankie July 2015

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