Monday 26th October 2020

Autumn has officially arrived, the clocks have gone back an hour and I'm lighting the wood fire in the evenings sometimes. That's how I define the changing seasons; by the temperatures and the amount of time the fire is lit for. Winter will start on the day the fire is lit as soon as I get up.

There are lots of more universally accepted signs of Autumn; the leaves are turning all imaginable shades of yellow, orange and red; the swallows have all left for warmer climes; the pumpkins are sitting fat and orange amidst the dying foliage; and there's been the first hint of frost some mornings.

It always comes as a bit of a shock, after the long months of summer. One minute it's April and I'm thinking about all the lovely months I've got for finishing projects, and suddenly we're nearing the end of October and I'm thinking this isn't done, that's not finished, why haven't I done everything? I have to keep reminding myself that I've taken on a pretty big project with this house, and remarkable amounts have been achieved already. Most exciting of all... drum roll please... I've been able to take an indoor shower for the first time in over a year! Yes, the bathroom is nearing completion, and, although not finished, the shower cubicle is all tiled and grouted, and when it's been sunny enough to heat the water, I can stand under a blissful deluge of hot water, revelling in the immediacy of it all.

I know I've told you about the installation of the solar panel for the hot water, but I don't think I've mentioned much about the actual bathroom itself, so here's a little run through of the developments.

I chose a small room at the top of the stairs to be the bathroom because of its location. It's directly over the pantry which is next to the old bar room, and that's where the mains water supply will come into the storage tanks, and where it would be easy to channel waste water away. Unfortunately, this also happened to be the room most packed with belongings; it was so full, in fact, that you couldn't even step inside without climbing over bundles of things.

Luckily, Gabrovo is quite well stocked with recycling bins, including one for clothing and materials. You would be amazed at the number of full sacks of old clothes I took down there during the clearing out process - it must have been at least 20 - plus numerous sacks of just rubbish which went in the normal bins. That's not to say that everything in the room was for throwing away. You must know what a little squirrel I am by now, and it was exciting to open chests and bags and to uncover some amazing treasures. Amongst the goodies were several sheep skins which I hope to use as wall decorations, and a whole stack of rugs and throws which are always useful. Well it took about three weeks but finally the room was empty and ready to be converted to a bathroom.

I contacted Ruse, the same guy who did all the re-wiring, as I know he's installed bathrooms before, and quite frankly the guy is an amazing fount of knowledge on all things plumbing and electrical, and is a cheerful laid back person to have around. That's always important to me, having a workman I feel comfortable around and who I can depend on to just crack on and do the job properly without stopping every two seconds to point out problems or tell me the price is going to sky rocket due to unforeseen issues.

The first stage was to take up all the old floorboards and to dig out all the dirt and crud between the beams. I asked Ruse if they'd found any treasure and he laughed and said if I could still hear them working then they'd not found anything valuable. Once the floor space was all cleaned up, they reinforced some of the beams and then put down a huge sheet of plastic. On top of this they made a grid from metal rebar, inserting the ends into the walls and fastening them all together with thin wire. After that it was time to pour bucket after bucket of cement to make a nice solid, level base for the bathroom floor. I'd been pottering in the garden whilst this was going on, and was shocked to see a deluge of mucky brown water coming down into the pantry through the ceiling. Before pouring the concrete, they'd cut holes for the various drainage points in the bathroom and roughly packed them with polystyrene. As the water drained out of the concrete it was flooding down through these holes. So that was me for the next hour, frantically mopping and putting bowls and buckets everywhere to try and catch the drips. Not my happiest moment, but I think it was because I was going down with a bit of a virus, because that evening I was suddenly hit by aches and chills which knocked me out for a week. Luckily the workers were off for a couple of weeks on holiday whilst the cement fully set, so I was able to have a quiet time curled under the duvet until the fever passed.

Over the next couple of months the room took shape. Waterpipes were brought in via the pantry (which is where the boiler is) and drainage pipes went down that way too. It was a fantastic day when the water was connected to the boiler and, after sorting a couple of leaks, I could fill a bucket of solar heated water to take out to the barn for washing. A big step up from boiling saucepans of water.

Part of the drainage system

In the bathroom itself, metal batons were fixed to the ceiling and where the shower and sink would go, ready to take the plasterboard. A concrete rim was built to outline the shower cubicle, and the end wall built out of plasterboard. The connections were fitted to the pipes ready for hot and cold taps, and then the tiling began.

As I'm typing this at nearly 10pm, Ruse and his workmate are still beavering away upstairs fitting the thermostat to the infrared heated mirror panel. The window and shower doors are ordered and will be fitted in November, and I've seen some little fittings - towel hoop, loo roll holder, toiletry shelf - which will be put in too. With a little bit of plastering over cracks and a lick of paint it will be done; my first completed, fully functioning room.

The constant renovating is pretty wearing, even when you're not necessarily doing the work yourself, so having the odd break totally away from the house has been very welcome. One such break was a trip to the Eastern Rhodopes in the south of Bulgaria, not far from the Greek/Turkish border. I went there with four friends to a small town on the Arda river, completely surrounded by the rim of a volcanic crator.

It's honestly one of the most beautiful settings I've seen and I'll definitely be going back there again. The craggy brown peaks of the crator tower up alongside the river, and huge griffon vultures soar and wheel from the many ledges where they nest. This area is famous for its birds of prey, including three species of vulture, and golden eagles. The river meanders along and has numerous rocky and sandy beach areas. At the end of summer, when we were there, the water was flowing steadily and smoothly, but I imagine in spring it would be flowing quite fiercely, making it very popular with kayakers.

The town is called Madzharovo and developed as a mining town because of the lead and zinc deposits in the surrounding hills. We visited a local museum and saw photos of the camels which were used to carry things in the old days, before the mining process became more mechanised. Unfortunately , after the fall of communism, the mining industry diminished and in 1999 the last mine was closed when no individual company was willing to take it on. Consequently the population is much smaller now, and many of the flats in the numerous apartment blocks stand empty.

Because of its volcanic origins, the region is famous for the huge variety of minerals and gems which are found in the hills and, importantly for us, get washed into the river Arda each year. This brings us to the main purpose of our trip - treasure!

Click the link for a view of the area https://youtu.be/h3Mm0wplYlg

We stayed in a guest house called The Old Nest, which is run by Sergei from Varna. He bought and did up the old place just over a year ago and is in the proces of converting an outbuilding into further accommodation. From here, with its stunning views of the surrounding hills, it was a short walk into the town centre for an evening meal.

There are several tracks from the main road where you can turn off and drive right down to the river itself, so the first afternoon we headed off with our homemade rock sieves and bowls to see what we could find. I brought some wellies to go in the river, but the water was surprisingly warm, and in fact it was lovely to paddle in the shallows to cool off under the hot autumn sun. As soon as you approach the river you can see the vultures circling around overhead, absolutely magnificent huge creatures, which seemed to be mostly active in the late afternoon. I imagine they nest up on the crags too, so maybe some of the birds were from this year's hatchlings.

Over the next few days we spent our time sifting through stones in the river, on the banks and even wandering up steep hills to root about in the mounds of loose rock dug out from the mines. The result for me is a huge collection of treasured stones which caught my eye. Some of them are chunks of quartz covered in crystal formations; there are several chunks of amethyst; a couple of them are large pieces of fossilised palm tree and coral; but the vast majority are just pretty colours and patterns.

They've all been carefully washed and studied under a bright light - I must admit, they fascinate me! Oh, I forgot, there are quite a few which are scattered with sparkles of silver and gold from the mica in them. The colourful ones I plan to varnish and then use for decorations, some in the garden and no doubt hundreds of others on every available ledge around the house. All of us are inspired to seek out other areas of Bulgaria to go and forage in for more rocky deliciousness.

Another clip, this time of yours truly on the hunt for gold! https://youtu.be/h5pAbmz4TpY