Karen's Blog about her move to Bulgaria

Archive for October, 2009

First few months

Month 1 onwards

Began to build a garage / wood store.

We had 10 cubic metres of wood delivered for the fires.  It came in tree trunk sized logs.  Our neighbour Rumen cut it into slices with his chain saw, then a young local man came along with his axe and cut it up further into pieces that would fit into our wood burning stove.  It was all stacked very neatly, and the cutting and stacking took nearly a day.

We now want to keep the wood dry so we began construction of a garage.

Our friend John came to help and between them Ron and John dug out foundations.  The trenches then had to be filled with cement for the foundations.  As we didn’t have a cement mixer we had to mix the sand and cement by hand.  In one day we shovelled 2 ½ tons of sand and cement.

The garage /wood store is hand made by Ron & John from wood.  They even made the large double doors themselves.  The roof had to be felted which involved rolling on a layer of thick black material and then heating it with a flame thrower to melt the tar. 

The neighbours were horrified that I was on the roof helping with this – it’s not a job that females are usually seen tackling, but I enjoyed it.  We all had a great sense of achievement when it was finally finishes and varnished.

They were long hard days, but eventually it was finished, and I thought that I had seen the last spade full of cement.  How wrong I was!!!!!

Ron decided that a patio at the side and back of the house would be good.

This time I suggested buying a load of pre mix cement, but I was over ruled and so the mixing of another 3 tons of cement began.

Cement gets everywhere.  It made a mess in the road outside the house where we mixed it so every night the road had to be washed down, and all the equipment cleaned before the cement could dry on solid.  My clothes and shoes were splattered with dry cement and my hair looked like candyfloss at the end of the day.

We now have a lovely patio at the back of the house so next summer we can have a BBQ and a couple of tables.  Might even get myself a hammock – I deserve it after the hard work, and I now have a great aversion to concrete!

Bought a car………..and had it stolen

We had been renting a car from some friends who have a car hire business and they had done us a very good deal, but we thought it was time to buy a car of our own.

These friends have a Bulgarian friend who owns a car sales garage, and so we asked him to look out for a good car for us.  Left hand drive cars in Bulgaria are very expensive, and a second hand car costing £1000 in England would be double here.

The salesman has a secretary (who is also a close friend of his) the secretary’s brother-in-law wanted to sell his car we were told that he had serious financial difficulties and needed to raise some cash.  The car was a 2002 Passat estate nice condition and within the price range we were looking at (14000lev or about £6000).

We bought the car and the salesman’s secretary went with Ron to register it.  As with everything else in Bulgaria buying a car is not straightforward, and they had to re register it for Dobrich area as it was originally registered in Varna and cars must be registered locally.  This involves lots of paperwork a visit to the police station and new number plates with a Dobrich number made and fitted.  There were visits to other offices and a bank to pay the taxes due etc.  The secretary was meant to be sorting out the car insurance, but only insured it for the necessary legal purpose which allows the car to be driven on the roads, but does not insure for fire and theft (in effect 3^rd party only)

We were going to go and see to the proper insurance ourselves, but discovered there was no valid MOT.  We arranged to have this done.

The same day we got the car, the electricity was connected!!! We were so happy!  We decided to go to the local bar to celebrate.  It was the bar owner’s granddaughters birthday and we were invited to the party.  We don’t stay out beyond 9 or 10 pm usually, but the party lasted until about 11pm, then we went across the road to our friend’s house for a nightcap and some music.

We arrived home at 2am to find to our horror that our new car which we had never even driven had gone. Our friends called the police, our next door neighbour came to see what all the fuss was about – by this time it was 5am.

‘There has never been a car stolen from this village’ everyone would say, but ours was well and truly gone.  Because we had only had the car for 2 days, very few people knew that we had it, and because of the area we live in it is very unlikely that it was an opportunist theft.

I spoke to the Passat engineers via email, and they say that it is extremely difficult to steal that type of car without either a key or specialist equipment in experienced hands.   They said that these experts would be more likely to use their skills to steal a Farrari rather than a 7 year old Passat.  As we were only given one key when we bought the car, it is assumed by virtually all that there was a second key perhaps sold to a third party along with our details of our address.

  It does sometimes happen in parts of Bulgaria that cars are stolen then a few weeks arer the owner is called to say that they can have the car back for a certain amount of monet (essentially ransom money) We waited a couple of weeks but no news, so we had no choice but to look for another car.

This time we went to a garage in Dobrich and the poor salesman was given the third degree. Luckily he spoke English and could understand our caution when buying another car when we had just lost ours (without insurance)  It would not have been so bad if the thief had waited until we had the opportunity to insure it, but as it is we lost all the money including most annoying a full tank of fuel.

The car we bought is a Pergeot 405 a nice looking car blue/grey metallic immaculate on the inside and hardly a mark in the outside, but it is not as good as the Passat, and it has none of the gadgets including the 6^th gear which Ron was so excited about.

So, here we were once again – back to the police station re register the car call to the bank to pay the tax, have the plates fitted….  The salesman was very helpful.  He came with us to arrange all the paperwork and even arranged full insurance cover before we drove it away.

HEATING

We have had a large wood burning fire with a back boiler fitted.  Our friend Graham plumbed it in, then professional fireplace fitters came and measured up for a fireplace.  It took a day to install the fireplace in a corner of the kitchen and it looks lovely.  It has a set of granite for the base and top which extends to the side as a little seat with shelving above for ornaments.  I was worried that it would look cumbersome in the kitchen / diner but it is such a large room that the fire fits in perfectly.  We bought a little leather sofa (very similar to the one we had to leave behind in Dover), and it is really cosy sitting there watching the flames dance as the wood and coal burn.  

The house is so large and open plan that we decided to have a second smaller log burning in our smaller living room where we watch T.V.  It isn’t as elegant as the one in the kitchen, and we will take it out in spring until next winter, but it gives out a lot of heat, and it’s good to boil a pan of water for a ‘free’ cup of tea!

CAT

The night the car was stolen we adopted a 5 month old kitten from the friends we were with. He is all black – even his paw pads- and his name is Harry Potter.  We didn’t name him but we were asked not to change his name, and ‘Harry’ does suit him.

He didn’t choose a good day to come and live with us as he was trying his best to bond with us doing all that ‘kneeding’ that cats do.  I am ashamed to say that I didn’t have much patience with him and as he was very clingy I was beginning to have second thoughts about keeping him.  We had to keep him in for 2 weeks so that if he went out he would come back to us and not to his previous home.

I am so pleased now that we kept him as he is a joy.  He has his own little ways and each meow means something different.  He is a truly expert climber as Ron discovered when he was putting up the fairy lights on the apex of the roof ready for Christmas.  Suddenly a little black paw appeared over the edge of the roof playing with the hammer as Ron nailed on the wire holder.  I think he nearly dropped the hammer in shock as the last thing he was expecting to see was Harry’s paw taking a swipe at the hammer.

His expert climbing can be a bit of a pain as he has discovered which bedroom we sleep in and he regularly appears at 3 in the morning on the balcony crying to come in.  Trouble is he then wants feeding and won’t rest until he has eaten and had a cuddle.

He acts like a proper cat and loves to sleep in his basket (complete with his own furry hot water bottle) by the fire.  If he is staying in at night he sleeps in a basket outside our bedroom door and just waits there until we get up.

He is a great mouser and he has brought us ‘presents’ of dead mice and one nearly dead.  It is difficult to believe he is a killer when he is so cute and gentle in the house.  The first time he did it we were shocked, and for a while we saw him in a different light – our baby murdering things.  Then we got a grip – he is a cat and that’s what cats do.

We bought him a pretend mouse on an elastic thread which he loves paying with, and he is ace at catching flies – we just wish that he wouldn’t eat them after he has caught them!!

When I was ill he seemed to know, and came to sit on my knees doing his Kneeding thing and purring loudly.

Can’t imagine life without him now.