An Impromptu Holiday

I'd expected the kids to be fit to go back to school this week and they are, unfortunately for me all bulgarian schools have been closed for a week due to outbreaks of flu in certain areas.....oh well.

The kids knew that when we moved here they would get various jobs to do daily and would have to help out with certain things. All great in planning but not quite the same in practice! They do feed the animals morning and night and also do the dishes but getting them to do anything else is a pain to say the least. They argue, throw tantrums and mumble and moan about having to do small things that they're capable of doing in a small amount of time. Now that our oldest is a teenager (she'll be 14 this friday) her mood swings can be awful too and the youngest has always been moody lol

We spent the weekend making sure the animals had clean bedding and housing, did some housework and also watched a few films. David has had a couple of days off but has been working on various jobs around the house that needed doing and I've pottered about as usual, even managing to spend some time with our young horse introducing her to a bit and bridle.

Our young chickens have been moved into the barn so it's almost peaceful in the house now and we've made ready space for 2 piglets that we're hoping will arrive soon, one for us and the other for a friend who is hoping to move over soon. Our piglet will provide meat for Christmas as our big pig is hopefully pregnant and due mid January. The turkeys and chickens have been allowed out of their respective houses and are happily roaming around the garden for the day since there isn't much growing now.

I say there isn't much growing now as I've only got a small winter vegetable patch. But while wandering around earlier today I found there's a fair few things growing that weren't planned! Onions that have self seeded, garlic that I didn't dig up as it was too small is growing again and doing well and there's also some peas sprouted up the garden that must have self seeded. So more work than I'd expected but free food for us!

Soon I'll have to plan the spring garden and decide what I'd like to plant next year and where. The growing season here is much longer than the UK but does get much hotter in the summer so some things don't do wonderfully while others flourish. Maybe I'll write another post about what we grew this year and how well it did before I post my next year plans.