Sunday 21st March 2021

Having been sunbathing in the garden in shorts and t-shirt a few weeks ago, I'm now lounging by a blazing log fire in my thermal undies, watching yet more snow fall. Should I be surprised? No, according to Bulgarian folklore, it's simply Baba Marta in a bad mood.

March is the only female month, in Bulgaria, and, politically incorrectly, is moody and unpredictable. The weather is under the control of Baba Marta (Grandma March): if she's happy and relaxed, the sun shines and temperatures rise. If she's angry, we can expect rain, snow and subzero conditions. Of course we can continue the sexist stereotypes by blaming Baba Marta's two brothers - Golyam Sechko (January) and Malak Sechko (February) as they are the ones who wind her up!

I love celebrating Baba Marta day (1st March) as, regardless of the weather, it heralds the not too distant arrival of spring. It's tradition here, on that day, to exchange Martenitsas with everyone. These are made of red and white threads, most commonly made into bracelets. You tie one on someone's wrist and say Chestita Baba Marta (Happy Baba Marta day). They are worn throughout March until you see a stork or blossom on a fruit tree, and then you take them off and tie them onto fruit trees.

I love wearing them, even though I spend much of the month with a soggy wrist after washing up. Some years the storks come back before March, but we still keep the Martenitsas on for a few weeks anyway.

Now I just know you're dying to hear the latest composting toilet news, right? Well, after two month's use it was time last week to empty the poopy container. You can tell when it needs emptying because the agitator handle on the side gets hard to turn.

I'd sorted out a plastic barrel with a screw top lid in which I plan to put the toilet waste so that it can rot down further over the year, it was just a matter of transferring it from the toilet to the barrel. Armed with a bin bag, dustpan and brush and various cleaning materials, I headed up to the bathroom.

To open the toilet you unlatch the clips on the side, and then slide the seat part to the left, to disconnect it from the hinges.

What the instructions fail to mention is that every time you turn the agitator handle, bits of coconut coir and composted poop flick up and stick to the top section, so as soon as I lifted it off, there were bits dropping on the floor. Gross, right? Well, not so much. It just looks and smells like wet garden compost, so it was no worse than bits of soil coming out of a pot plant.

The bottom section has two screws to release it from the floor, and then it was a matter of tipping it into the bin bag. It wasn't too heavy, just a bit bulky to handle, and after a bit of shaking, everything had been tipped into the bag. After that I cleaned round all the rubber seal areas, and refilled the bottom section with fresh coconut coir. The top section was reattached (not easy because I couldn't see where the hinge was because of being next to the wall) and then all the floor area cleaned up. I think next time I'll put some plastic sheeting on the floor to work on.

The bin bag has been emptied into the barrel which at this rate will take over a year to fill. That should give it a great time to decompose properly before scattering around the trees.

Remember the hedgehog cushion cover I started last time? Well it's finished and is looking very jazzy with the others.

The next cover I think will be a middle Eastern lantern design, but I'm having a break for a bit to tackle other jobs that need doing.

I've finished off the mesh fence in the orchard and am just making a gate leading to the soft fruit section. I concreted a wooden post in to attach the gate to, but now I'm worried it will rot too quickly. The wood is quite a few years old, and treated, so maybe it will be okay. I'll try and make sure the rain doesn't sit around the post, and maybe paint it with waterproofing a few more times. The gate is made and feels pretty strong, so once it's painted I'll have a go at fitting it with hinges. Once that's done, the dogs can have the run of the orchard without needing me there as they won't be able to nip over the wall into the street.

Yikes! Ten days have passed since I started writing this, the snow has melted, temperatures are on the up and it's seedling time! The window ledges in the front room are covered in yoghurt pots labelled with tomato, pepper, chilli, cucumber, courgette, aubergine and leek seeds. The raised beds have pea plants already climbing up strings, and I've done sections of lettuce, rocket, parsley, carrots, radishes and some parsnips in loo rolls (the third batch this year as the other two didn't germinate at all).

I'm also trying some new veggies this year, which arrived from the seed company a couple of days ago, namely pak choi, celeriac and kohlrabi. These have been sown in pots but are out on the raised bed under a plastic cover. I need to read up on them a bit more as I don't know much about them. To be honest, of the three I've only eaten celeriac and that was for the first time a few weeks ago.

While it was still cold and snowy I got to daydreaming about a greenhouse and sketching some ideas. Originally I was just going to buy one of those polytunnel type ones, but then I got to thinking that if I built one with a wooden frame I could also build in space for a small wood stove to have some heating in very cold conditions. I've thought about where in the veggie patch to put it, and I think I'll have to shift one of the raised beds to make space for it. It'll be excellent if it's done by say September as then I can have a late crop of things like courgettes as well as crops of winter veggies.

Guess what happened to me a few weeks ago! Kaufland are giving away scratchcard to celebrate 15 years of operation, with various prizes. The vast majority of them reveal a code which you register online to be in with a chance of the top prize, but this particular time I scratched off the little silver box and it said I'd won a fridge freezer and a 100 Lev voucher. I was so excited! The snag was, to claim the prize you had to phone a number. Uh oh, phonecalls... conversation... in Bulgarian...

I phoned the number and vaguely fathomed that the voucher would arrive by courier within ten days, and that the electrical store would be in touch to arrange delivery of the fridge freezer within 20 days.

Days past and still nothing. Even allowing for delays it was still well past the date the voucher should have come by, so I began to feel more and more certain that I'd messed up on the instructions. Maybe I was supposed to send in the scratchcard or something?

Eventually I decided to phone the claimline again. The lines were all busy at first which gave me hope. Perhaps lots of people were calling to chase up their missing prizes. Once I got through I explained the problem, and the woman said she'd check with her supervisor to see what was happening.

The next day they phoned back to check my details. Well it turns out the original person I spoke to thought I'd said Mezhdenik instead of Mezhdeni for my address. The courier, being unable to find any such village simply gave up. She altered the address on the system and told me that should sort the problem. Well later that very same day, Technopolis phoned to ask if I was home so they could deliver the fridge freezer!

It took help from a couple of neighbours to carry it in, but it's now installed in the kitchen and working wonderfully. It's worked out perfectly actually because I'd been thinking of buying a second fridge just to keep drinks and water in during summer to keep them cold. My old fridge will now be perfect for that. If the 100 Lev voucher also turns up, that would be awesome!

I've got so much more to tell you about some days out I've had lately, but I'll put that in the next blog entry otherwise I'll never actually post this!