(Latest news from the UK, for those who are
interested. It rained every day. There’s yet another election going on.
Something about Brexit. All female teenagers have terrifyingly thick eyebrows.
And I saw a grown man vaping in a garden centre. Inside a garden centre. A
grown man. Puffing on his e-cigarette and emitting a disgusting sherbet smell, oblivious
to the fact he was the world’s biggest wanker. That’s pretty much it. Thanks
UK, see you next time.)
Back to Bulgaria and Rob’s been busy making
this year’s batch of cider. We’ve tried a bottle already and it’s the usual delicious,
dynamite-strength nectar – definitely strong enough to send us into a sofa stupor
over the Christmas/New Year period. There’s homemade red wine, too, as if our
livers weren’t in enough danger. The white wine is refusing to clear for some
reason, so we’re not sure if that’s going to work out.
Our store of cloudy cider, red wine, and cider vinegar (a happy accident from a previous year's batch). |
The weather is glorious here – misty and
chilly in the mornings, then burning off to reveal warm sunshine. We’ve hardly
had the heating on. It’s far too warm to even consider putting the winter tyres
on the car or stocking up for winter. And yet we must, because we know winter
comes like the flicking of a switch here. One day we’ll be gardening in short
sleeves, the next it’ll be snowing…
Thanks to the warmth, the garden is still
offering us plenty of tomatoes and chillies. And we’ve harvested the first of our
giant Bulgarian leeks, using them to make these Glamorgan sausages. The rest of
the leeks will stay in the ground over winter, and we’ll pick as and when we
need them. Being able to get fresh produce from the garden in, say, February always
brings a bit of cheer. I wonder what else we could grow that would stand in the
ground through winter? Purple sprouting broccoli? Thoughts?
Harvested mid-November. |
Big leeks. |
Exciting developments in our nearest town,
Etropole: we finally have a supermarket! True, it’s only a T-Market, it’s not even
that big, and it’s unbelievably crowded (novelty factor), but it’s better than nothing.
We no longer have to do a 50-mile round trip to the nearest Kaufland or Lidl.
(I mean, we’ll probably still trek there occasionally. Lidl is often the
highlight of my week. But we don’t have to, that’s the point.)
That pretty much brings you up to date. Anyone
else noticed the eyebrow and vaping thing in England? What do you struggle to
adjust to when you travel in either direction? And what’s good to buy in
T-Market?