Less Posts but Zero Nicotine!

I've not posted as much lately here, which is probably not a bad thing! My nicotine cravings are at their worst late evenings when everyone else is asleep and I'm on the lap top, but still another day has gone past and it's another non-smoking day here. I'm starting to feel much more confident about giving up smoking although I don't think David shares the same opinion.

The weather today has been fantastic, sunny, warm and dry with a tiny breeze. I've been promising some friends of ours that I'd pop over and harness their donkey up to see what she's like on a cart, so off I went this afternoon. After sorting the harness out, fitting it, checking all of the parts were there and making changes for some small missing bits we managed to get the donkey all ready and on the cart. I jumped on, sat down, shouted "Hi-De" and off we went at a brisk trot down the road, nothing like I'd expected!

I must explain that our donkey - the lovely "Maggie" has an aversion to work lol and therefore only has 2 speeds when hitched in the cart, slow and stop! I'd presumed that most donkeys would be similar and was totally wrong in the case of Pat and Nev's donkey, Daisy. She was a joy to take out and I had to slow her down instead of urging her to go faster. As she's very unfit we did only have a short trip out today but it was a good start and very enjoyable.

Actually makes me want to do something more with our lot so tomorrow I may get Milka out on our cart and even ride Maya if there's time.

Day 2.5

We're still not smoking, 2.5 days so far and I'm already feeling the benefit. For the first time in weeks I'm not coughing all of the time and can breathe a lot deeper already. I've found there are some triggers to wanting to smoke and being on the laptop/PC is one of them.

I guess it's just a case of reconditioning my body not to want to smoke, I still don't actually think I'm craving nicotine more the physical side of lighting up and having something to do with your hands. Let's hope that over the next few weeks things will get a little easier as my mind starts to forget about cigarettes. I must admit to not feeling as "Tetchy" as I thought I would but then again we're spending a fair amount of time chilling out lately due to colds and the weather.

By the way the weather here today is awful, cold and very foggy, damp too. I put the horses and donkey out this morning and hope they're still there cos I can't see them for the fog! It's the sort of weather that makes your joints ache and the wood burner seems a great idea too. Ours has been lit since just before lunchtime and will stay on until late this evening. A  nice soup is planned for tea and I may even make a dessert too.

Time to Quit

Well we've hit a small money problem (or lack of money problem) and have decided to quit smoking as we A) can't afford it and B) it's not good health wise.Neither of us (or the kids) want to have to go back to the UK so we need to lower our outgoings in hope that things pick up a bit over the next months.

Renovation work on our house is really slow at the moment and there's lots of jobs need finishing off but not the spare cash to do it. The credit crunch is affecting us now and prices of things continue to rise here in Bulgaria. But it won't put us off staying here, in fact it's made me even more determined that we will succeed, we'll never be rich but that's not what we moved here for anyway.

We have over the years been through some rough times (as most people have) and I believe the bad times have made us stronger. Certainly the determination to improve things doesn't lessen and I'm holding onto that thought now.

Quitting smoking is not the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with and I'm sure over the course of the next few days things will improve. I think I need to prove to myself that I can stop and just have to take a deep breath and think rationally when the urge to smoke comes.......the mood swings could well be a different matter Lol!

Well I'll let you know how we get on as soon to be confirmed ex-smokers hopefully, wish us luck!

Other Ex-pats

To be honest there aren't many other ex-pats living full time in our village. Only 2 families so far and another planning to move over soon. Some villages tend to attract ex-pats and they flock there in hordes, which is fine if you want to live where there are plenty of English speaking neighbours and people to socialise with.

We're not anti-social but wanted to live in a village where we could find real, rural Bulgaria. The ex-pats we've met so far seem a nice bunch of people. A fair amount have retired early and are enjoying their free time in Bulgaria. Some, like us are younger families hoping for a better lifestyle and working hard to achieve this.

We have a few english friends in  Bulgaria and it's always lovely to see them. As everyone is busy working or renovating we don't get to see them as often as we'd like to. Yesterday I popped round to see some friends who live in the village to borrow some paracetamols and while I was there another couple popped by from a neighbouring village. We spent an hour or so chatting about life in general and having a cup of tea!

Whilst we do miss friends back in the UK at least we can now keep in touch with them via e-mail and facebook etc. We've all changed a lot since living here and maybe that has altered some friendships but we are lucky to have some good friends still.

One problem with a minority of the ex-pats here is the fact that alcohol is cheap, a few turn to the drink and give the rest of us a bad name......it's easy to get tarred with the same brush all because a few individuals can't behave. Then again it's the same in the UK. If anything I'd say that our alcohol consumption has dropped since moving here but we were never big drinkers, more social only and although we brewed our own wine in the UK we usually ended up giving it away!