Monday 19th April 2021

Success! My 100 Lev voucher from Kaufland did arrive and promptly got spent. I blame the special offers. I'm a sucker for the one off things which Kaufland and Lidl both advertise in their leaflets each week and probably spend more on them than I do on groceries. My latest exciting purchase has been a bench grinder. As soon as I got it home and set up, I went at it with half a dozen old kitchen knives. They're now all awesomely sharp if a little discoloured and gouged in places.

Today another much anticipated delivery arrived just in time for this year's veggie season. If you've been reading this blog for a while you might recall that this village, like so many in Bulgaria, suffers regular water shortages in summer. Last summer I think the mains water didn't come on for about a month at one point. That's why I had the big water storage tanks and pump installed when I got all the solar panel and plumbing sorted.

I've already got some small water butts for rainwater collection, but to be honest just watering the veggies and flowers twice pretty much uses up what they contain, so since moving here, my plan has been to get maybe half a dozen big IBC containers, which, if full, would probably give me enough water for the whole summer.

Looking online I found lots of supplies in Sofia, Plovdiv and other major cities, but they all require you to organise your own delivery, which I figured would be pretty expensive. Well lucky for me, one of the guys who worked on the big barn roof last year, told me he knew of someone in Gabrovo who can get hold of them sometimes. Today the phonecall came to say he'd managed to get hold of 3 containers if I'd like them. Heck yeah I do! Transport was organised and an hour or so later, they came.

Each one holds 1000 litres of water, and up close they're pretty huge. I need to order lots of extra guttering pipes now, so that I can divert water from the barn roofs into the tanks. I'll also fix up a bit of a filter system to clean the water as much as possible, and build wooden casings to keep the sunlight off, otherwise they'll be like green swamp water within a week. It'll be fantastic knowing I'll have enough water for the garden without having to scrimp, but also nice to have a bit of an emergency stash in case of fire. Being on the edge of the village surrounded by tinder dry scrub in summer bothers me a bit, so having some water on hand in case of disasters could be very handy.

I've started work on taming the big field, well, at least the bit of it which belongs to me. My ultimate plan out there is to plant a variety of trees - fir, birch, rowan etc - and just to keep the grass under control to allow wildflowers to flourish more. At the moment it's just really long grass and dozens of little scrubby saplings and brambles. So far I've cleared a section around the orchard and it's not been as hard as I thought it might.

I'm leaving the odd tree and rose bush here and there, not to mention giant ant mounds as seen on the left! In the background you can see lots more brown shrubs, those are next for the chop. In my mind I'm comparing it to the small plot behind the barns, which was similarly overgrown when I bought the house, but which is now lush and green, and one patch is smothered in little wild grape hyacinths.

Last time I said I'd tell you about a couple of days out I'd had lately. The first one was to the Stenoto nature reserve, just outside the village of Cherni Osam.

It's set in a valley, following the Cherni Osam river before turning up through the hills up on to the Stara Planina ridge. Some friends and I just wanted to check it out for a possible longer trip later in the year, mainly to see how clearly marked the path is. You can drive quite a long way into it, past a water authority building, provided you've got a decent car that is.

Once we'd parked up we headed off alongside the river, following the snow covered path. There are a couple of hole in the ground toilets along the way, situated inside doorless huts which directly face the path. Could be interesting on a busy day!

The river is bordered by steep forested hillside, and at one point we past a little hollowed out cave in the rockface where something was once mined.

Eventually we came to a picnic bench where the path then split: one track continued along the river and through some gates to another water authority place, the other headed up into the hills, presumably towards the Dermenka Hut on the ridge.

We stayed alongside the river where the rocky cliffs were strewn with huge icicles which began to drop off under the heat of the sun, shattering on the rocks as they fell. One cliff was covered in a frozen waterfall, but beneath it trickles of water were starting to melt. The looked weirdly like little tadpoles wriggling down the crevices, which you can see on this video:

https://youtube.com/shorts/RwU-pv-p7Gw?feature=share

Weird, right?

It's certainly a beautiful location, and when we go again we'll follow the uphill track to go deep into the heart of the reserve. Hope we don't come across any bears!

The other trip was more local, following the Winding Wall between Sevlievo and Gabrovo. It starts in the village of Yavorets, heading steeply upwards towards a hunting lodge before climbing more gently to the villages higher up the valley.

The first village you reach has a large poultry farm on the outskirts, and if you turn right here you'll come to a beautiful little pond set in a sheltered bowl surrounded by meadows and forests.

Maybe one day we'll have a little overnight camp up there. Can you imagine how clear the stars would be with zero light pollution around?