Blog
156. Snowy scenes
Don’t get me wrong, a mild winter is very welcome, especially as the previous winter was such a long one. But we were starting to feel a bit cheated by the lack of snow and brag-worthy cold temperatures. So you can imagine how pleased we were to finally get a...
155. More walkies
We did a lot of walking last summer and autumn, prepping hard for our Rhodope walking holiday. I mean, we’d always enjoyed a little trample in the mountains around us, but last year we started to take it really seriously. We became far too familiar with our nearest...
154. January funk. Cabbage
It’s been a really mild and easy January so far. We’ve only got about three inches of snow on the ground from yesterday’s snowfall, the first snow of 2018. The road is pretty clear. The temperature is hovering around zero when we get up in the mornings,...
153. Christmas and New Year in pictures
Food wanker I mean, I hate to be a dreadful food wanker, but just look at all the lovely things we ate and drank over the festive period. For the last 11 years, Christmas dinner has consisted of turkey and all the trimmings. This year we went all Scandi:...
152. The one where we go to a Bulgarian football match
We had family staying last week and their big wish was to go and see a Bulgarian football match. I’m not a football lover, as you might have guessed, but I’m up for anything that creates good blog fodder. And, as luck would have it, CSKA Sofia were playing...
151. Prepper’s delight
Greetings from the UK, where this image pretty much sums up the state of affairs: Vape shop?? Vape? Shop? Only two more days then I'll be back in the Bulg and hunkering down for winter. Which brings me to this epic post... Having got ourselves ready...
150. Cider and other stuff
Phwoar. Did someone say cider? Is there a better word to describe cider than ‘scrumptious’? If there is, I’m all ears. We’ve bottled this year’s bounty and have already started drinking it. It’s so … scrumptious. There is no other word, is there? Sadly, we’ve got...
149. Summer kitchen reveal
I just remembered I promised a summer kitchen reveal months ago. Better late than never… Before Our summer kitchen sits in the footprint of this crumbly old barn that we inherited in the corner of the garden. There was some lovely stone and a few salvageable old...
148. Vegetable-related OCD. Snow. The joy of rustic toilets
Excuse the incoherent ‘here’s some stuff we’ve done’ nature of this blog. It’s gone 5pm on a Friday and a large vodka awaits… As the nights are so cold now, I harvested all our butternut squashes the other week, then spent a happy 10 minutes arranging them in...
147. Very English concerns: Weather and booze
Brrrr As is typical in Bulgaria, the change in seasons has been marked with a huge temperature swing. After months of a pretty constant 25–30°C here in the mountains, we’ve dropped to 15°C in the blink of an eye. I realise that’s hardly arctic, and in deepest...
146. Autumn love, preserving like a boss, and a trip to the Rhodopes
Autumn is my favourite time of year – specifically that dreamy early September period when the evenings are cold enough for a sweater but the days are hot enough for shorts and flip flops, and the leaves are *just* starting to turn. And the food! Oh my, I love...
145. How not to be self-sufficient
It’s weird what we prioritise. We’ve never planned to be truly self-sufficient – we just don’t have the land or time for that – but we’re always looking to cut down what we have to buy from shops. However, rather than being self-sufficient in obvious things like...