A productive day

Today we've all worked together and managed to get most of the roof finished off, well the tiles are on anyway. We formed a chain and passed tiles to each other with me on the ground as I'm scared of heights! It's great to see the kids helping and not whining about having to do some work, I think they've enjoyed it really lol. And it's wonderful to see the roof almost done.

Any work that needs done on our house has to take a back seat when there is work for other people on, the need to make a living here is strong as we haven't a pot of money to rely on or any other income coming in from another source.We did toy with the idea of buying my sister out of the house in the UK and then renting it out to give us an income but there's no guarantee that we'd have had a tenant or that any tenant would actually pay the rent!

Of all the houses I've lived in during my life I don't think I've ever felt a bond or longing to stay there, apart from  here. I love this house whether it's finished or not, our neighbours are mostly good and not too close, the garden is just waiting for something wonderful done with it and we also have plenty of opportunity to alter/build/extend or whatever should we feel the need to or even have the money to do so!

Update on the smoking thing - Hubby is smoking again but only a couple a day, he was so miserable without the fags and is happier now but realises that cutting down is a step towards another attempt at cutting them out completely. I gave in and tried a couple of cigarettes to see how it made me feel and to be brutally honest it was awful, I didn't enjoy them at all and have no urge to go back to smoking, I feel happier knowing that I've given up and hopefully beaten it. The best part is that by not smoking we have saved enough money to pay the monthly electric, water and phone/internet bills for the month!!!

Willpower

So far my willpower and determination to succeed at quitting smoking has been enough to get me through, today though feels a bit different. I find I really want a cigarette and I think it's a comfort thing to be honest. I sold our young horse this morning and found it quite upsetting - so I think that's the reason behind today's craving.

David is also still off the cigarettes but mainly because I am, I think if I'd had a cigarette he'd have been back on them like a shot. I often wonder if I just had one cigarette would it put me off more or encourage me to start smoking again? The latter probably and then it would be harder to stop again.

Selling the horse today was something I've been putting off for ages but something that needed to be done. Trying to look after all of the animals here, plus kids and hubby and also sort out the garden etc is quite time consuming and in reality I just didn't have enough time to keep 3 horses and spend quality time with them individually. The young horse has gone off with the benefit of having an extra year to grow and mature compared to other bulgarian horses - they are usually broken in at a year old and I personally don't think they're mature enough or strong enough at that age.

Having one less horse to look after also means one less mouth to feed over winter, which is not cheap. Although the saving we make not feeding a horse will probably be swallowed up by the fact that our pig is hopefully due to give birth mid january, so we'll have to feed piglets and a lactating sow.

I'll feel better over the next day or so about selling the horse. It's one thing I've never been any good at and I cried for days after parting with our horses in the UK even though I knew I was doing the right thing. Hopefully the want for a cigarette will drop off again too and I'll get back to feeling more positive about now being an ex-smoker.

Ahh Country Life

One of our lovely neighbours has been around today with his 50 year old Russian tractor and plowed our garden. The same happened last year and we're ever so grateful. Because none of our land had been worked for at least 5 years it's mainly gone to weed and needed a lot of work and will continue to do so.

There are some fantastic gardens here, everything has a place and they look so well tended - barely a weed in sight, ours on the other hand is a bit more of a handful! Our garden is actually 10 gardens - we have 9 separate deeds, originally there were more buildings on the land and they are still shown on the "Skitza's", Still standing are the main house (that we live in) and a small bungalow that is almost renovated, plus barns beside both of them. At the top of the gardens we have another 2 bungalows but they're in a derelict state and cannot be repaired so we've removed any materials we could re-use (roof tiles and timbers for the fire) and hopefully nature will take it's course and the old mud brick walls will collapse in.

I'd love our garden  to look like some I've seen in the village and to produce most of our vegetables and fruit, hopefully one day it will. The soil here is a fantastic dark brown colour and the garden looks amazing after being plowed. We're so lucky to have neighbours who are willing to help and try to teach us things, even if some of the things I don't agree with, like using chemical pesticides etc. Maybe one day my bulgarian will be good enough so that I can explain why I don't want to use any chemicals etc and how companion planting works!

So far we've only managed to work the main house garden but do hope to plant some lucerne on a double plot and also some maize or sweetcorn on half of another. We also have a lovely mature orchard with lots of apple, quince and plum trees. One thing we're never short on here is fruit as it's in such abundance.

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!