yes I know I had to put the posts in backwards, but I thought it'd make more sense

Lots more photos on flicker (click on top left image of Tom foraging in Devon)

So where are we and why are we here?

Rather unexpectedly for late October 2007 we find ourselves not telling tales of northern Greece, Italy and Slovenia, but instead of village life in Bulgaria, and in particular our new little house. Within hours of arriving here in early August, we had already decided that Bulgaria definitely had the potential to be our favourite country of the trip. On a bit a whim and casual suggestion from Gemma, we decided to try a bit of WOOFing, save a bit of cash and hopefully meet some nice, interesting people. We picked a farm run by an english speaking lady (not wanting to make it too complicated for our first WOOF experience) and a quick call later and we were booked in for a week. Upon arrival, we happily got settled into our volunteers tasks and communal living and in no time at all it began to feel like home. The eco-friendly lifestyle and organic farming methods, both being principals we ourselves aspire to, an interest naturally developed in how Kathy, our host, came to live here (and maybe how we could too!). Realistically we both know that to ever have either the capital or luck to buy anything approaching this, in Ireland or England, is well beyond our reach. Renting, with perhaps a small outside space is the best we can hope for. Bulgaria however is a very different situation. Needless to say, following such revelations, many nights ensued of mulling over the pros and cons and discussing practically if and how it could ever work. Eventually we decided to go and look at a few houses we knew were for sale, just to see what your money can buy – of course we didn’t have any money and had no intention of buying at this time, but surely it can’t hurt to look… Of course as you’ve already guessed, we saw a house we loved and to cut a long rambling story short, we are now both highly indebted – both with thanks and finance – to our lovely respective sisters – and find ourselves the proud new owners of that said house.

How old d’you have to be before a bungalow is acceptable?

So this is our house, taken a few weeks before we bought it. Looks a bit imposing from this photo as we’re on a bit of a hill and so the foundations at the front are actually head-height and the cellar entrance is only just below ground level. Still a bungalow though, as are most houses here, partly because during the snowy winter months any upstairs rooms would be too cold to live in, and also the big earthquake in 1986 brought most of them down anyway. Since then a few 2-storey houses have been built in the village, but they nearly all have the staircases on the outside. Our house is in fact quite unusual in that you can access all the rooms in the house without going outside.

With every good house there comes a cowshed

As well the 4 main rooms in the house we also have a variety of outbuildings, for our currently fictitious farm yard friends. Presently we have few concrete plans for these spaces; one has become a tool room (though rather devoid of equipment at the moment owing to us being caught somewhat off guard in terms of restoration preparation); another is slowly gaining a reputation as a good place for “bits and pieces that might be useful in the future” to hang out; the big barn is full of old corn storks which are proving to be worth their weight in gold with regard to fire lighting potential; and one of the chicken houses is doing a marvellous job of pretending to be a garden shed, now that we’ve sawed a human size entrance in the side. The pig sty remains empty, but definitely has goat home written all over it. Pigs are a very popular animal to keep here, all our neighbours have a least one out the back, however as our ongoing quest to find any kind of meat that is NOT PORK for sale in this country, I currently feel a pig would be somewhat of a waste – unless of course we learnt how to butcher and could make rashers, another thing sorely missed on the supermarket shelves.

Welcome to the jungle

As the house has not really been lived in for at least 5 years, the garden and land is unsurprisingly in need of a little re-taming. This autumn our main aim is just to clear what we can so we can actually see what’s there, get the lie of the land so to speak. There is a small, rather neglected vineyard which needs some attention – although quite what, is a subject we must learn. To the side of this are 3 well established fruit trees (apple, plum and pear) and we have just planted 7 more saplings; cherry, 2 peach, nectarine, apricot and 2 apple, hopefully creating a sort of orchard area as they grow and mature. Behind this and running the whole length of the property is a wide semi-wooded gully. We expect this serves as a run-off for the spring snow melt and so there is little point trying to cultivate much here, at least until we are clearer as to the nature of the ground throughout the whole of the year. What might be both nice and feasible though is to encourage more tree coverage, in particular walnuts as they grow in abundance in Bulgaria, and just keep it as a wooded glen. Up behind the house is a good size meadowy field. It will take a good deal to prepare this land for growing veggies, and so at present it is not really on our priority list. The only work we’ve undertaken round here, and sometimes I’m sure Tom feels like it has become an all consuming task, is to cut down and dig out the 2 trees growing right up against the house. After lifting the rugs in the kitchen and finding roots growing along the floor(!) preventing further damage and damp from entering the house seemed a good place to start. One month on and one tree is totally out, for the other it’s days are numbered, only the recent spell of wet weather has delayed it’s extraction.

Muscle Max

Much of the front garden was shoulder height weeds, living a rather care-free existence until our friend Max arrived. Wielding a freshly sharpened corsa (very similar to a scythe) he reduced the whole area down to ground level and made mincemeat of the very solid concrete fence, diagonally dissecting the garden. Now as you can see, we can actually see what we have and my head is full of plans and ideas of how we might use this space in the future. Thank you Max very much.

The heart of the home

The kitchen is supposed to be the heart of the home, and one day ours will be. At the moment unfortunately we cook outside of one door, have a sink area outside of another, and prepare food in the hallway somewhere in between. It can feel like we spend our days walking in circles, trying to be in 3 places at once, but hopefully not for too much longer. The need to gut our current kitchen exposed itself on the day we moved in and discovered an ant nest in and under the walls. We think they came in on the tree roots and had made a home in part of a rotting beam supporting one of the walls. With wood out, brick supports in and several trench excavations, we think we’ve got rid of them… but then we thought we’d got rid of them a few weeks ago too, so never say never. We also discovered a network of rat tunnels under the rugs and a few old nests complete with mummified past residents. The large sink unit was originally going to stay, but closer inspection revealed it was really rotten inside due to a bit of a bodge plumbing job and so we plan in time to reuse the sink in the outside kitchen. For now we are left with a shell. The mud floor needs digging out a good few inches down to a solid flat level, we then plan to lay a few inches of concrete (I can’t wait for that job) and then bricks, tarted up to give a cobble-stoney effect or something, see what turns out. It would be great to get this done before we leave this time, but we’ll see.

Sometimes you have to create chaos to achieve calm

We frequently wonder if a Bulgarian couple had bought this house, whether they would have made nearly so much work for themselves. Our neighbours think we’re bonkers catching dormice and driving them a couple of miles down the road before releasing them (well perhaps we are a little). No-one can understand all the effort we’ve gone to to exterminate the ants – funny how there seems to be different rules about what creatures are acceptable to kill, perhaps if the ants had cute fury faces we’d feel different, either way, neither is particularly welcome. We have taken up 6 pieces of what would probably be deemed perfectly suitable linoleum in the living room and are intending to lay wooden floor boards – and to complicate matters further we want to put in some kind of damp course – totally unnecessary according to any Bulgarian we’ve asked – in fact we might even have to lie about why we want the polythene so that they will sell it to us! Anyway, here is a picture of our hallway the day we moved in, and also one of it now. While certainly the house looks more lived in, I am looking forward to eventually returning to some kind of happy, tidy medium.

If it ain't on the list it's not a priority

After a little too long of us both referring to an imaginary priority list, i.e things we need to do to get the house safe and sound before winter, we decided to sit down and actually write one. Of course it’s a working document and some days it feels more is added than accomplished, but we’re getting there. The majority of the exterior jobs (not including gardening) are done or at least started. First job was to build a compost heap, so we had somewhere to empty our bucket –embracing the concept of human manure (and the pit toilet is full, enough said). Tom was an apprentice for a day replacing the broken tiles on the roof. We’ve put up guttering around the back where the trees and damp had been coming in. Most of the windows have been scraped and a form of putty put in – being made from sunflower oil it has a very different texture to what we’d be used to, more like play dough, but the biggest problem with it is that the birds love it, and we are on constant watch for their destructive attacks.

Am I working him too hard?

Inside the house we now have light in the dark room, thanks again to Max and a very long drill bit. Unfortunately rats and mice are still able to get into this room, so we’re currently operating a keep the door shut policy and we’ll deal with it when we have time. Eventually this long wide cupboard will be our bathroom, but that is a good few years off, this autumn we only hope to seal floor, walls and ceiling and take some measurements so we can start to plan. Two rooms and the hallway are quite habitable, so one is very full of all the furniture from the kitchen, living room and a bedroom, the other is where we eat, sleep and sit by the fire in the evenings. Not a whole lot different to living in the van! We’ve found two great second hand shops in Popovo, and I think we’re probably their best customers, now all on first name terms we are greeted warmly every time we drop in, because more than likely we’ll see something we need or want – slightly different things, good job the money goes a great deal further

Not quite Picasso

As the weather is turning cooler so our focus is turning more to the kitchen and living room. The later now plastered and had its first coat of whitewash today, definitely not quite mastered the professional finish, but it will be a talking point in the years to come, I think the style is called rustic, but it’ll hopefully look passable with low level lighting. The kitchen is still just a store for sand, cement, plaster and a whole host of other materials I knew nothing about 6 weeks ago.

We also built a small fence today from the trees we’ve cut down from the vegetable-garden-to-be. They’re not much good as fire wood as they’ve huge thorns, but perfect fence material - except while you’re making the fence, ouch

err.... surprise!

Just to let you know we are still alive! We've actually stopped our travelling at the moment, rather unexpectedly. In short we arrived in a village in northern Bulgaria just over a month ago to do a week's volunteering on an organic small holding, one week became two, and before we knew it we decided to try to buy a house here - very abridged version. Essentially though, we're hoping, all being well, to be the proud owners of a nice little bungalow sometime next week. It needs a little work, but we plan to stay here till early November, so if anyone fancies a visit.....? you'd be most welcome (particularly if you have any plumbing, building or electrical skills). Will be able to give more details once all is final. Still planning move to Dublin this side of Christmas and getting proper jobs again, longer term beyond that it's all a bit grey, we'll see what pans out. exciting times though. Hope everyone's well, looking forward to seeing you again soon.

Ride on, Willie

While driving from the Danube Delta down towards Constanta, we were hailed by the Police. “Here we go” I thought and got myself ready for some fine for some rule just made up. Perhaps I was a little hasty in my judgement. It transpired that the police were attempting to help a German cyclist who was no longer able to cycle his bike. As I greeted the police with a Buna Zeau they assumed I was a local, so I then had to communicate that I could not understand him!!…thought the steering wheel would have given it away.
The cyclist had a trailer with his bike and was doing a world tour, he was also due to do a tv interview in Constanta the next day as he was famous for his cycles. I then remembered about Heinz Stucke, but could not recall his name at the time. This cyclist called himself Willie. I kept asking him if he had had his bike stolen in UK, but he misunderstood my English. After measuring the van, he said his bike and trailer would not fit. By then the police had hailed a bigger van, so we are optimistic that Willie made it to the next town.
Finally we made it to our campsite between Constanta and the border. It is a resort campsite…..with the pleasure of squat toilets whose doors don’t lock!! Nice. Still we are making the most of wifi and communicating and researching the next bit of our trip. We are hopeful of spending one week in a small village in Bulgaria helping out on an organic farm/campsite and getting to meet some local village folk.
To all who would like to visit Romania, I advise you to do so before it is homogenised into the EU empire. The cottage food industry is still alive here, but it wont be for long. The traditional peasant life continues in the north of the country, but who knows for how long if it no longer is necessary. As the roads get better, more people from the west will surely come here in greater numbers and so the prices will rise and rise…

On Thursday we cross the border and say hello to Bulgaria and attempt to get to grips with its fine language and alphabet.

To swelter in the Delta

Our trip to Romania could not be complete without visiting the Danube Delta. It was a fair distance out of the way, but well worth it. After a very long hot drive, where we left the slightly cooler mountains and crossed the scorching plains, we eventually arrived in the arid delta region. So much of the land looked parched beyond belief. Crops were totally wilted and grass was quickly turning to dust. It seems the devastation we’ve read about occurring in England due to the floods, is equally matched over here due to draught. On arrival in the village of Murghiol we were approached by Serghei Condrat, a local man who offered accommodation and boat trips. As we were in search of both, we struck a deal (in my school girl French) and were soon parked up in his farm yard. Serghei and his wife have a small plot of land where he’s built a house from local resources and traditional methods. There were lots of examples of items being reused, and lots of things stored, awaiting a new purpose. They had dozens of chickens, a pig, cats, dogs, vegetable plot and small vineyard. The kitchen was outside, there was no running water and all the heat came from an enormous wood burning stove.

When he first said “donc demain, cinq heure et demi?” (excuse poor spelling) I thought ha ha very funny, then I realised he wasn’t joking. So at 5am our alarm clock sounded, not that we would have needed one as the cockerel was equally punctual and we would have been awake from then on, boat trip or no boat trip. By 6am we were on the water. The sun was just about to rise and not another sole was in sight. The next 5 hours were spent cruising the river, canals and lakes of a very small part of the great Danube Delta. In no particular order we saw, pelicans, cormorants, glossy ibis, egrits and little egrits, a bittern, various unidentified terns, gulls and waders. A few lapwings, lots of white storks, herons – purple, grey, squacco and night – and some ducks, coots and mute swans. Down a narrow tributary we chased several kingfishers for almost half an hour. We also saw a small mammal which looked a bit like a beaver, our guide could only tell us what it was called in Romanian, but said they make nice hats and ladies coats from its fur, nice! In parts of the delta we had to punt along as the plants growing on the bottom just got caught in the motor every few meters. Serghei said that normally the water level is between 3-4m at present it is only 50cm. This is having a big effect on the whole ecosystem. The most obvious example was the giant shell fish that normally live on the bottom. The water temperature has increased substantially due to the level being so low, and so many of these creatures are dying, the surface being littered with floating shells. As we came back to shore most boats seemed to be just leaving for the day, packed with tourists, but we were very glad to be missing the heat of the day.

Bucegi Camping for Free

De Wilderness and de Bears

After reading about the Transfagarasan mountain pass being only opened in the summer months, we decided Napoleon was up for the challenge. Great road to drive, never got into fourth gear at all, mainly second and third with full lock on some of the hairpin bends. We had planned to park at the cable car car-park (park n’ ride essentially) and take the easy way up to 2100m. It was thronged with lots of people and cars who had made the effort to get up early, unlike us. So we battled on up the hills, my forearms shifting up and down the gears like mad. Then after 1km we saw a space where we decided to park up and maybe camp for FREE. The Budget Master was very happy with this idea. So with map, food and a trail in mind, we lazily meandered back to the cable car and flew up to. At the top there was a small glacial lake, with lots of folk having bbqs and picnics, admiring the vistas of the highest ridges in the Carpathian mountains. We ate our hang sandwiches and made for the ridge. We picked a walk that was arduous at the start but which descended the last two thirds of the route. After ten minutes we lost the trail, slightly ominous, but found it again by that great invention of stealth and espionage – binoculars. We continued to make our way up to the heady heights of 2400m with magnificent views all around. Then we again lost the trail on our descent, so perhaps slightly foolishly we split up, one with the camera, the other with the binoculars in search of the elusive trail mark. After 3 minutes I began to imagine the wolves, lynx, brown bear nibbling at one of us. So I scuttled back over the ridge and found Laura. Then next minute I saw the trail mark several hundred metres away from where we were. I had to take a photo to make sure. Alas eventually this trail lead to nowhere helpful. It became clear that the trail was no longer in use as we came across 2m high pine trees densely packed together!! So began the exercise and possible new sport of tree walking!! Essentially we were walking roughly 10m per min max, and that was with full throttle on the adrenaline tanks. I still had half a mind on the local carnivores and the setting sun. Looking at the map only served to increase our anxiety about getting back in one piece. Finally we made it into a larger forest with no tree walking required. I hurriedly found a stick to fight the Bears with! and so began the task of persuading our exhausted muscles to run and dash through the forest. We made up our own trail at this stage, which ended with a view of the road from 20 m above, so I scouted the ridge, lost the torch, found the torch and then found a safe route down!! We kept imagining wolves watching us from the forest edges, a trick of the imagination that never transpired into reality.
We stayed at our spot with the company of others, for some nights, and on the last night we saw a Brown Bear! He was scavenging from the bin in front of our van. As it was about 4am we were unable to make out much definition, but it was an exciting 15 minutes. It was difficult to resist the temptation of turning on the van’s headlights or taking a photo as that would have scared him off, but also offered a better view of what he looked like. But we didn’t.
We continued our journey over the mountain pass and into Wallachia – S.Romania and then back towards Brasov.

Sorin the Magnificent

Ahhh Sorin, our genial host and owner of Mioritica gave us a fine welcome to his cavernous home. Sorin, a history teacher leads a double life as a tour guide during the summer holidays. He gives tours of the local saxon lands, but also conducts tours abroad? A big man who at times seemed to be suffering from the effects of marijuana smoking, was able to give us a low down on the new Romania. It made the stay a lot more colourful. Sorin managed to acquire his land for almost nothing and has composed a very aesthetically pleasing complex of huts and wooden buildings which he rents out. Traditional Romanian food is also available. Scattered around the garden and sheds are vestiges of romania’s distant and more recent past. There is even a nostalgic room devoted to Nicolaui Ceaucescu. Met some Austrian lads doing a mad whistle stop tour of Romania, Bulgaria, and the Balkan countries in 3 weeks. Made us feel like we were going at snails pace.
Although this was one of the big expenses of our Romanian trip, we got a better sense of how the locals lived. There is still a real community spirit of giving lifts to those walking on the road, buying or borrowing some eggs off the neighbours and giving Tuica brandy to the neighbours in return.
We have managed to spot Bee Eaters…very colourful with bat like wings and long beaks. They nest in burrows in the hills. Very acrobatic to watch. We also finally got to see a bird of prey up close, but not close enough to firmly identify it. I think it was a Buzzard, but Laura thinks it was a Black Kite. Say no more, other than we wont be on the Ornithologists shortlist for best bird watcher!

The Eyes can see you

One of the big attractions in Transylvania is Sibiu. Recently appointed as EU capital of culture, the square and many of the streets have a certain western European gleam to them. An old Saxon town, it is very walkable, with plenty of cobbled stones and 3 main squares. It is also a student town, but when we visited in July they were on their summer holidays, so the vibe wasn’t studenty per se. We happily meandered for several hours in the heat until our feet began to melt into our shoes! The houses are adorned with tiled roofs, which also have eyelet shapes in them, which give the sense of being watched. Managed to pick up some maps of the Fagaras Mountains and Bucegi Mountains with hiking trails marked. Which meant we could at last go safely into the mountains. Or so we thought.

Hunadora

Our plan was to visit the earliest settled part of Romania and see some of the Neolithic remains in the vicinity of Hunadora and Hateg. Unfortunately we didn’t really know any more than this, the area was not mentioned at all in our guide book and tourist information offices are rather scares in all but the most major towns. We found Hunadora easily enough, but with little idea of what we were actually looking for within the town our aimless wander brought us to a grand Hapsburg empire dating castle. While not quite what we had intended, it was an interesting site (and not a ruin which made a refreshing change from other castles of similar age). Not too many tour groups but plenty of information signs in English gave a happy balance. The castle had its share of legends – bear pits where they would toss enemy captives – a well dug by 3 Turkish slaves promised freedom if completed. 28 years later they hit ground water, but by then the king had died and his word was not honoured, so they were killed anyway, maybe even fed to the bears, very sad story.

A more careful study of the map suggested that there might be ‘ancient sites’ amongst the villages to the east of the town, so we set off again in pursuit. On the map, red roads are usually main roads – either newly surfaced and fantastic, awaiting resurfacing and fairly bumpy having been patched and re-patched, or currently undergoing resurfacing and to be avoided if at all possible. Half the road is usually closed and both sets of traffic lights on green, but then its not like anyone actually adheres to the traffic light system over here anyway, so general chaos prevails. Anyway, red, orange and yellow roads are generally tarmac. White roads however on the whole tend to be gravel, often with more potholes than actual road surface testing Napoleons suspension to the limit. As the only way to reach these villages was along said white roads progress was slow. The temperature gauge on the van having broken we had one eye always on the warning light, Napoleon is not a massive fan of long-term 2nd gear. Finally we reached a village, but having taken several wrong turns (there are also no signposts on these white roads) and as the village was not on the map (an all to common occurrence) we pulled over to assess the situation. Continue along the gravel track, up the very steep hill that stood before us in the hope that we are still heading in the right direction, or turn around and take a very long route back to camp. As we sat and pondered over cheese sandwiches, appreciating the peace and tranquillity of the place, a distant bell grew ever closer, and after a while, over the ridge appeared 3 lumbering cows, closely pursued by their lady owner. As the cows grazed in the ditch she took a seat on a near by log all the time chatting away to her small heard and occasionally waving her stick at them. Being the only person we had seen for some time, we decided she was our best bet for trying to determine our location and route. As I approached I received the biggest smile I have possible ever witnessed, it almost looked painful to achieve. It was accompanied by a native American Indian style hand gesture, and for a long moment I wondered if she was expecting a high five. I showed her our map and attempted to pronounce where we wanted to go. Fortunately she understood immediately and confirmed we had to go up and over the hill, “drum, drum, drum”, drive, drive, drive we were instructed. So with sincere thanks we set off. After 10 minutes Napoleon inevitable over heated, but by that time we were over the worst and so just sat back and enjoyed the amazing views while we waited for him to cool down. The scenery was spectacular as the landscape was bathed in warm evening sun. By the time we made it down and into the villages near the ‘ancient sites’ it was fairly late and with still no signage to indicate where these might be, we finally decided to give up, perhaps some things are just not meant to be found.

Maramures and Bucovina

Our first week in Romania saw us cover a great number of miles. For one reason or another we seemed to be travelling most days. Unlike previous countries we had visited, most of the places we wanted to see involved a drive and were fairly well spread out. We therefore spent large amounts of time in the van, putting Napoleon through his paces and Tom’s newly acquired driving skills to the test. The north of Romania seems to be considerably cooler than further south, so it was a welcome break from the high temperatures we had begun to acclimatise to. Our first stop was in the village of Sapanta, famous for its merry cemetery, just 4 km south of the Ukraine boarder. On paper it could be considered a bit tasteless, as rather than conventional headstones, the graves are marked by colourful wooden pictures, illustrating the deceased – sometimes in a rather comical pose and accompanied by a short humorous poem about their life. It felt more of a celebration of life and gave visitors a stronger sense of the people who had lived in the village.

The village itself was fascinating to walk through. Having recently visited a Hungarian ethnographic museum and wandered around the medieval homesteads (with a slight romantic yearning) we now found ourselves wandering round a much more authentic village, complete with the sounds and smells of simple country life. The roadsides were lined with chickens, geese and sheep. Cows came meandering down the road at dusk and horses and carts trundled past. Every house had a well stocked vegetable plot and hay stack or two. The older generation seemed to be dressed in a fairly traditional uniform and hat or head scarf, the younger people however were all kitted out in jeans and t-shirts. It is said that their lifestyle has barely changed in 500 years, but it will be interesting to see if it remains the same for much longer, I doubt it.

Photo is of painted Bucovina Monastery, painted top to toe both outside and in. Very popular pilgrimage for Greek Orthodox Christians.