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Hi folks,
I said earlier I would tell you all about my experience in Bulgaria so here goes, first of all I won't bother you all with the buying process because I think you will have all heard various stories of good and bad, however I will mention that mine was a walk in the park. Anyway lets move on, once I had bought the house I returned to the uk for a short while which was back in the end of 2006, once back in the uk I thought oh well I've done it now so now what am I going to do with it ? The house was only 7 years old and at the end of the village and quite private but this wasn't intentional, I just happened to like everything about this house and the village it is in. After a few months I decided to return and see what I would like to do i.e what changes if any I would want bearing in mind I had only seen it in the winter. I decided to drive to BG as I loved driving and thought it was a great way to see a fair bit of Europe which I did. As I arrived into the village and was approaching my house the dear old lady who must be very close to 100 was sitting on a bench enjoying the sunshine as I got closer she got up and stopped me and started to go on about something ? and not speaking Bulgarian I hadn't got a clue what she was saying to me but I did detect the smiles which led me to perhaps believe that I wasn't in any trouble. Once I moved on, I came to my house which I have to say looked very different in the summer, in fact to me it was my worst nightmare, I unlocked the gate and my first thought was Oh my god !!! and this is what I was greeted with .

I could see Green stuff growing in the garden from the gate I thought I was in the Amazon Rain forest
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And as I got into the garden there was even more
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I wondered down the garden to investigate and to see how I could resolve this unwated growth
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For me, it was a problem there was all sorts of food growing in my garden because my neighbour had been looking after it for me and said he thought I would need as much as possible for the winter, he had even tended the beehives, well what could I say to him but thank you although inside I was thinking what do I do with all this veg ? On that first day, I spoke to Angel that's my neighbour and asked him if he could show me where to turn on the water and one or 2 other questions I had for him but he simply waved his hands at me in a nice way so it became obvious that he didn't know what I was asking him? Silly me, so I tried with hand signals to explain what I wanted to know and slowly after about 2 hours I found out how to turn the water on. This made me think I am in trouble here one of the things I hadn't considered was the language, anyway later that day I decided that I should do some shopping so I drove off to Yambol so I thought but found myself in Stara Zagora emmmmm don't know to this day how I did that? Well I found some shops there so now all I had to do was to get some shopping, well that was easier said than done ? You guessed I was back to the language barrier ? I eventually left with some tea milk and sugar but no food as I didn't know what I was buying, this was slowly turning out to be a bit of a challenge. I needed to get some food or I would go on a diet ? Anyway once I got back I thought I'm going to have a nice brew and just chill and gather my thoughts, but I couldn't do this as I didn't have a kettle so it was decision time. When I was looking for my house I stayed at the Murcury hotel near Yambol so that's where I went for a cup of tea as I knew that some of the staff did speak a little English and I might get some much needed information, all I had to do was make sure I went in the right direction because I knew that once I was almost in Yambol I would find the hotel easily, so I asked the neighbour who doesn't speak English how to get to Yambol and he phoned his daughter who is actually an English teacher wooooopppeeeeee I thought. Anyway Krassemera thats Angels daughters name gave me the directions after about a 25 minute chat welcoming me to Bulgaria which that was great. I then set off to Yambol and got to the hotel and got myself a much needed brew. After sitting there for a while, I decided to ask some questions and the waitress I chose didn't speak English so she fetched another waitress who did speak some English, anyway I asked her various questions and at the end of it I decided the best thing for me to do was to stay at the hotel until I get myself and my house sorted so I booked in.

To be continued ...........

Oh dear I missed it thanks Chris

sarah

The day went very well it was really very hot but all the guys that were working in the garden never stopped or moaned about how hot it was unlike me it was far too hot :Sunny:within a short time they had cleared all the garden and prepared it for the liner and the gravel, the following day again Chris arrived very early with all his gang ready to start adding the gravel, I can't remember how many trucks delivered all this gravel but it amounted to 65 tons :shocked1:anyway while they were doing that the chippie turned up to continue his work and so did the kitchen fitters who I was well impressed with If I remember correctly the kitchen fitters name was Todor? well they were all working like busy bees and I felt in the way so I decided to have a little trip into Yambol for a couple of hours which was something I wished I hadn't done because it was just so hot and nowhere to shade really :Sunny:anyway after a couple of hours I headed back to the house to discover about 50 people who were from my village and the next village Boyazik, I asked Chris "
Why are all these people here looking over the wall"
his reply was "
Well Colin they don't understand why you are putting all this gravel in your garden and why you are not growing food"
at this point I broke into a fit of laughter :LMHO:he had told then that I'm not interested in growing food and quite a few of them had offered to grow it for me :Great:which I though was a nice gesture, at this point I noticed that most of the garden was covered but there was still trucks loads of gravel arriving, I went into the house to see how things were going and the kitchen fitters were about finished and it looked so much better, the Chippie was working away with his work and it was all looking good, I was more than pleased with all of it, the guy who was doing all the woodwork was telling me in his own way that he was responsible for all the original woodwork in the house when it was built 6 years before :Great:that gave me great confidence since all the other woodwork around the house was to quite a high standard, at that point I was thinking that while I had him there I would get all I needed done because I felt once he had gone I wouldn't be able to get hold of him again, anyway he did quite a lot of work at the house for me but not via Chris I made my own arrangements with him although I couldn't speak Bulgarian and he couldn't speak English we managed somehow, I remember a day before he was to finish his work he came to me and was going on about something but I just didn't know what? anyway he grabbed my hand and indicated for me to get into his car which I did he then drove me to his house in Boyazik and introduced me to his wife and gave me a guided tour of his workshop and I have to say that for Bulgaria the workshop was second to none, although all the machinery was old it all worked and he had some very big equipment there I'd say the workshop was so big that you could have easily parked 12 cars in it :shocked1:well once the tour was over he then took me back into his house and we drank coffee well I did I think he had something a little stronger? as |I was about to leave his wife handed me a gift :Great:and to my shock it was a cooked chicken in a jar :shocked1:I didn't want to offend so I accepted it and we then went back to the house.

To be continued.......

Thank you for the update nets its been a while coming but better late than not at all, tell me what do you do with the Chicken in a jar I'm looking ahead for the next installment

Well done Colin

We have also had a great time since being here re-constructing our house as well. I think we are about a year ahead of you. We only have two more doors to be fitted and the Fibran to be put on which is being done in mid October then we are there, finished at long last. The outside is also to be painted a quite vivid orange (my Jacqui's choice). If you knew her you would say that the colour doesn't match her at all, but it does.

Good luck with it all. I know tradesmen around Yambol so if required give me a shout.

Great story nets I love the way you seem to have taken to the Bulgarian people and it almost seems you don't let anything bother you? I too would like to know did you eat the chicken? great post and thanks

Thank you again netsniper I love all this I find that reading something like this gives me great inspiration to move forward

sarah

Nice one I can't wait to hear more and see how you get on with more Bulgarian stuff

this is an awesome thread!!!!!
(however can you right in paragraphs? it's easier to read [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] )

Time to continue with this thread or I won't get it finished :shocked1:As you can imagine all the carpentry was done to a satisfactory level and I was more than pleased not only with the guy that did it but also myself for being able to communicate well enough with my new Bulgarian friend who did the work for me so all in all it had all taken shape just as I wanted it to and more importantly my wife was over the moon with it all who then spent the next 2 weeks turning the house into a home which was another story since trying to find all the things we (SHE) wanted was not as easy as we thought? One of the first things I looked for was curtain wire which after about 2 days I gave up all we knew is that the Bulgarians use string or drawing pins which is something we wasn't prepared to try? so I came up with the idea of using very thin curtain poles which we had seen a lot of it just meant that all the curtains would have to be made to suit the thin poles instead which was going to be a mammoth task because there were so many windows in the house, anyway we went to a shop in Yambol and found what we thought we could use and bought all they had which pleased the owner of the shop. A week later all the curtains were adjusted and were all in place so it was starting slowly to look like home, I'm one of these men who really can't be bothered with all this home making it’s not the sort of thing I have ever had any interest in but my wife loves it and I have to say she does do a great job of it but it does drive me mad when she's constantly buying things like bedding, curtains ,towels, etc it seems she has a fetish for fabric perhaps this a woman thing ? Although we had bought some of our own furniture from the uk we need to buy more so that was another daunting prospect!! Where were we going to find furniture shops? I didn't recall seeing any in Yambol town centre so I asked some of the staff at the estate agent where we bought the house who gladly escorted us to various places which I wouldn't have found if I spent a week looking for them some of them were in the most obscure places yet the Bulgarians seemed to know where to find them, we spent about a week looking round at all sorts of furniture some good and some not so good but also very limited to choice! I remember thinking I wished we had bought all our furniture with us because the quality I found in Bulgaria wasn’t very good and neither was the choice this could have just been in Yambol and maybe other places offered something better? But this was our local town so we decided that this is where we will buy from. Can I just say to anyone moving over if at all possible bring your own furniture with you, no matter what you read on forums as I did it’s not true that you can get as good as in the uk ? Well at least not in my case but I did tend to believe a lot of what I was told on a certain other forum big mistake for me!!


To be continued ................

Nice to see you carrying on with this and to answer a question I think a lot of us woman have a thing about fabric I think if you look back you will see that you are the hunter gatherers and we are the home makers. Its great to think that you and your carpenter are now friends I say this because you referred to him in that way, I had the same problem with curtain wire but in the end I got some sent over from England which made things a bit easier . You will find that in the bigger towns and cities there are huge furniture shops and some of them are very expensive but I quite agree with you when you say the quality is poor. Looking forward to more in the future.

:Thank you:Nets Fab read and excellent advice well done! awaiting next chapter

Oddy

Nice top up nets and brilliant advice and thanks for the tip of the poles

Thank you nets can't wait to read more about you experience of which I can relate to

But where did all the bees go? As a keen gardener and lover of home grown produce I can't help viewing the demise of your bountiful garden with regret, and sympathy for the neighbour who lovingly planted it all for you! Never mind, plenty of others approve so that's OK.

fruitlover wrote:

But where did all the bees go? As a keen gardener and lover of home grown produce I can't help viewing the demise of your bountiful garden with regret, and sympathy for the neighbour who lovingly planted it all for you! Never mind, plenty of others approve so that's OK.

Hi Fruitlover I think you may have misunderstood what I wrote? The neighbor didn't plant all the garden out for me this is how I bought it and since I have a serious heart condition I wasn't prepared to take the risk of possibly getting stung by Bees in addition to this I needed to make the garden as maintenance free as possible because there was no way I was able to take care of it with the problems I have with my health. I hope this clears it up a little but as you can see from the pictures it would have probably killed me if I had left it as it was.