TRAVELS WITH MY MOTORBIKE AROUND TURKEY, EUROPE AND AFRICA

FREE TEA AND TOAST…

travelswithmymotorbike — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:57:36 +0000

We’ve had our first power cut for a year today, I don’t know why the power should be off, we’ve only had a little bit of snow, but like all power cuts they always seem to be just as you were going to boil the kettle for tea or coffee, or just as you were about to turn the computer on, they normally strike at the time of maximum inconvenience!!

This mornings power cut was just at breakfast time, now were seasoned country folk we don’t need any modern things like electricity to carry on with our day, a pot of tea placed a top the wood burner for ten minutes and a few slices of bread thrown on for just a couple of minutes. Then buttered and strawberry jam, 40 minutes later the electric came back on.

We were saying to each other, actually why don’t we do this all the time anyway, its free….Why do we use electric for tea and toast when we don’t have too, we’re still conditioned to modern ways I suppose!!

The dogs certainly like running about in the snow, not us though, feet up in front of the fire for Linda and I today.

FREE HEATING…

travelswithmymotorbike — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:48:37 +0000

Whilst staring into space the other day, I quite often have that facial expression when I’m thinking, I had one of those “Eureka” moments. If I cut a hole in the wall from the temporary fire place in the lounge through to the kitchen, then coupled up the metal pipes from the kitchens wood burning stove, I would then be heating up the kitchen for free.

The heat that is produced from the metal flu pipes even 4 meters away from the fire can still be too hot to touch by hand, that’s a lot of free heat that would otherwise have just gone up the chimney.

The flu pipe used to go off to the right and up the chimney.

I wasn’t able to find a “T” piece despite much searching about the local and large town hardware shops, so I had to kinda make my own “T” section with an angle grinder and bits and pieces from my little workshop/junk room.

Some fancy shmancy measuring to make it look like I know what I’m doing, then I drilled a circle of holes to make the job easier before cutting through the bricks with a hammer and chisel.

Kitchen side, the metal pipe now comes through the wall from the lounge, very hot, travels almost 2 meters along and then in to the chimney stack in the corner. This pipe throws out probably the equivalent of two 3 bar electric fires on full. The wood burning oven, although we’ve used it in the past, is mostly just for decoration now but I’ve coupled all the pipes together “Just in case” we ever want to fire it up again in the future.

Also a series of brass hooks have since been screwed into the beams adjacent the flu pipe where Linda hangs difficult to dry laundry, what used to take days to dry in winter now drys overnight!!

On the lounge side, the temporary fire place flu now goes straight through the back wall instead of off to the right, the temporary fire place is temporary because we couldn’t agree whether it should have a surround of old brick or stone, its therefore been left as is until a decision is made.

The lounge is 20m2 and the kitchen area is 35m2, so 55m2 is now heated by just one 14kw wood burner.

NEVER TOUCH ANOTHER MANS NUTS

travelswithmymotorbike — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 13:43:59 +0000

Never touch another man’s nuts, sage advice for walnut gathering here in Bulgaria. There is a Walnut etiquette here we’ve been learning, any tree on the outside/roadside boundary of a property is considered off-limits to Walnut pickers and belonging to that property. Communal land, of which there is plenty in villages, our village has about 50,000 m2 of Walnut plantation that any resident of the village can pick for themselves, outsiders would be chased away with specially bred Rabid dogs and Tetanus enriched pitch forks!!

The old fathers of my village planted many Walnut trees along the West and Southern edge of the village communal land some 20 or 30 years ago as well as inside the village. Also looking at satellite photos to find the old inter-village roads of yore that are seldom used today, these old disused roads were almost all lined with Walnut trees.

Today, whilst out Wombling (If you have to ask what a Womble is, then your far too old or “Grown-up” to read this blog.) we walked a little way along one of the old tree-lined roads.

The trees belong to the local Municipality, if you live in the local Municipality you are free to pick them, this particular old road is 4 miles (5KM) long.

I’ve seen other old disused roads on the satellite photos and we shall explore those another day, we didn’t walk very far along this road because our pockets and Womble bag were soon full of Walnuts. Linda and I are new to Wombling, taking our inspiration from friends in other villages, we really should bring more bags with us, or the car!!

EDIT:

With so much interest in the Wombles from 40 years ago, they are still going and were this years hit at The Glastonbury Festival 2011, you just cant make this stuff up

WALNUTS

travelswithmymotorbike — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 12:55:04 +0000

Having never owned a tree before in my life, I now suddenly have 65 trees of various types to take care off. I have been learning from Youtube how one goes about pruning and taking care of fruit trees etc. The largest trees I have are the Walnuts, they must be 25m high and 12m wide, I have plenty of space for them but the issue is that some of them have branches to close to the barn roof and just need to be pruned back a little.

My other fruit trees, apple, cherry, peach, apricot, mulberry, plumb and pear just need a vicious assault with a chainsaw to get them back into shape but Walnuts are a little different, they are a protected tree in Bulgaria and your not allowed to fell them, only to trim them when they are near buildings, the wood from a Walnut tree is worth a small fortune as are the Walnuts themselves.

According to Youtube, winter is the best time for pruning trees, when the sap has fallen back, Walnuts are a very sappy tree and will bleed profusely if trimmed in summer, Linda was bonfire monitor whilst I played chainsaw massacre with the trees.

Because the Walnut tree are so tall and I “Dont do heights.” Another method of trimming the branches was needed…..Chainsaw on a stick!!

This method might not be suitable for some but worked great for me!!

The trigger on the saw was taped in the “On” position, the chainsaw (Which is very heavy) was then taped to two sticks with Linda being my “On – off” switch by plugging and unplugging the extension cables – simplicity itself!!

Walnuts are very sappy trees, after a few hours trimming it was as though it was raining around the tree.

Untill now we had been giving all our Walnuts away to friends and neighbours, feeding them to the dogs, burning them and just throwing them away in the rubbish bin. They are worth money, so we have started to pick some up from around the trees now, the price is per Kilo and they are sold in the shell, buyers drive around the villages here with loudspeakers on their cars asking for Walnuts.

The price of Walnuts depends on the time of year and the region, friends tell us, so putting all information together the Walnut price is between 1 to 3 Lev per kilo (0.50 to 1.50 Euro per kilo) with Springtime being the highest price and September being the lowest price.

NAKED CHICKS

travelswithmymotorbike — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:33:44 +0000

Well, what a week its been here in the village, the feathers have been falling off our chickens, coming away in hand fulls!! Linda scoured the internet for possible causes and thought our poor chickens had every disease on the Planet.

Convinced our chickens had Small pox, Beriberi and Legionnaires disease we called the village vet to attend to our poor chickens and possibly administer the last rights!! It turns out that there is nothing wrong with our chickens and they are just molting ready for winter, our chickens never did this last winter, but as the vet said,

“This winter is cold and started very early.”

We thought this was a silly time for our girls to be molting, a naked chicken is obviously going to be very cold now since its almost December, more internet research produced the “Chicken Jumper.”

Linda knitted a jumper for “Midget” first of all, since she was the most un-feathered of our birds at the moment, buttons fasten the two halves together under the wings, “V” necks at the front, “Polo” necks are so 80′s now

It was a bit of a struggle to fasten the side buttons, but “Midget” was soon running around showing the other girls this seasons farm fashions.

Next up was “Nora.”

Our girls can preserve their modesty now, and stay warm this winter!!

EASTENDERS in BULGARIA

travelswithmymotorbike — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:14:52 +0000

Life can become strange at times, reading the Sofia Echo the other night (English version) I came across a story about a new TV. show here in Bulgaria. The story is about a Brit who comes to retire here in Bulgaria, the only English actor in the show is none other than the once mega famous Leslie Grantham, “Dirty Den” from the BBC’s Eastenders.

The show is in Bulgarian apart from when Leslie speaks in English, but by episode 4 he is fluent in Bulgarian unlike most british ex-pats that live here, each episode is an hour long and is actually very much like village life here in Bulgaria, the show reminds me a little of Peter Mayles “A year in provence.” When you reach the end of the video you will see a grey box top left corner for the link to part 2 and so on..

The show is called “The English Neighbour.” and was broadcast in September 2011 Bulgaria.

VELIKO TARNOVO FORTRESS

travelswithmymotorbike — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:12:55 +0000

Veloko Tarnovo is the old capital city of Bulgaria, standing on a prominent hill is the fortress, constructed in the 5th Century.

We first had a slow wander around town, heading towards the fortress.

The fortress was destroyed by the invading Ottoman army in 1393, re-construction of the ruins began in 1930.

The outer stone perimeter wall took 51 years to re-construct.

Baldwin’s Tower, Baldwin was one of the more famous Crusaders of the time and Emperor of Constantinople (Istanbul) he died here in the tower in 1205.

We carried on up towards the chapel at the top of the hill.

Cathy was struggling with the heat, it was only 36c today!!

There was some nice views down the higher we climbed.

Inside the chapel.

The frescos on the walls depict the suffering of the Bulgarian people at the hands of the Ottamans.

Heading back down the hill towards the town.

ST. TRANSFIGURATION MONASTERY

travelswithmymotorbike — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 21:09:39 +0000

On the outskirts of Veliko Tarnovo, hidden away in the high wooded cliffs that surround the old city, is Bulgaria’s 3rd largest monastery. We havent had any time for exploring Bulgaria to date, but since Linda’s friend Cathy is here on holiday, we’ve taken some time off from renovating.

Originally built in the 13th. Century, but repeatedly plundered and burned by the Turks during Ottoman rule, the present monastery was finally re-built once again after Bulgaria gained its Independence from Turkey in 1878.

Once through the arched entrance you enter a courtyard.

The outer walls are painted in frescos and are in a remarkable state of preservation.

The inside was also in remarkably good condition.

Outside, the monks quarters.

One of the large fallen rocks from past Earthquakes.

THE JOY OF CONCRETE

travelswithmymotorbike — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 15:17:48 +0000

Ignore my previous posts about how cheap concrete and building materials are here in Bulgaria, because today I’ve just found it all even cheaper!! Concrete mix, and this time its British Standard stone chippings and not the illegal rounded stone and Sea shells stuff that is still widely used here….10 Lev = 4 GBP a ton, I will of course still carry on searching for cheaper suppliers since “Free” is my ultimate goal!!

With concrete now being even cheaper than in my original calculations, the driveway for the cars is going to grow to around 200m2, and I’m also going to add another double garage. Also this week I’ve learned that buying cement in bulk that I get a discount, so now a bag works out at about 1.85 GBP depending on exchange rates. The change in plans requires us to take down another building and some more trees, Maura came along to lend a hand.

We took the old loo down carefully so the bricks can be re-used in a courtyard that I’m going to build later.

My poor abused car was used to pull the tree stumps out of the ground, we did want to use a tractor but since its harvest time they were all busy in the fields.

We’re laying the concrete between 8 and 6 inches thick.

Tom, Bridie and Maura came the following day to share mixing duties.

Bridie was water slave.

Maura was Tea slave.

Linda and Tom were shoveling slaves, whilst yours truly was wheelbarrow slave.

First 8m2 section completed.

Today I took my first delivery of the new cheaper concrete mix, almost 12 tons.

The sand is also proper graded sand, I haven’t seen a single Sea shell.

BEFORE and AFTER

travelswithmymotorbike — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 20:18:00 +0000

Just a quick selection of “Before and after” photos of the work we have been doing on the old place.

The ceiling was a particular challenge, but got there in the end.

Linda has spent the evening making all the “Before and after” photos.

The next job on the list (At long last.) is the garage, the property came with a double garage that you can’t get a car into, hope to start to remedy that little problem on Monday