Bulgarian Village Life Some Best Bits....Winter

Wow where to start....... The first year we lived here we were so busy enjoying life, working on the garden & bathroom that nothing was blogged.. Such a shame as 2009 was an amazing year for us. The newness of exploring a new culture, country & people along with enjoying a fab new lease of life & the amazing weather! I then got the blog up & running but unfortunately in one of my worst ever years. So now I have decided it's never too late so I am going to try & share some of it with you!

This is our first ever snow in Bulgaria,  it arrived while we slept!

 Bulgaria, land of beauty, Green lush countryside, fascinating culture & history. The weather has the best summers & the worst winters. Well I say worst I was amazed at how I coped as I hate UK winters & especially snow. Glad to say that here this is a completely different form of snow, it's dry! & the cold winter, well mainly its dry & sunny!!! We do have the occasional foggy damp couple of days but its not the norm. So winter is an adventure, sometimes a hard adventure but nevertheless it can be wonderful. We get through the winter here by knowing its spring soon there is no slow build up to spring it just suddenly is! Summer is the same although to begin with we can have a lot of thunder & lightening as the heat rolls in but it eventually settles & we have a very dry few months. Spring temps here are like UK summer temps in fact I have sat in a sheltered position in April & it has reached 40c in sun! Love it!!!! As we arrived in the winter I will start with  photo blog from there.




The Beast

When we first arrived we only had a Luton box van, I call her the beast! So we were driving around in her when the snows arrived.

Now it can be snow free one minuet then within 15 mins you can be stuck which happened to us! The problem was we were in Veliko Tarnovo. We had a day of shopping & decided to have dinner in our fav restaurant when it started to snow very lightly. We had gotten into a couple of sticky situations before, like getting stuck halfway up a hill but had gotten out of them ok, so we decided we should leave but would be ok. Well Ok we were all the way along the main road, the fear set in as we turned off into the country lanes that lead us home! Now by this time it was midnight, my husband had refused to put the snow chains on & in fact had never had them out of the bag since we purchased them in England! The snow was growing alarmingly all around us as we drove through the forests that house wild boar. Now Nigel is not a man of many words but sometimes his silence speaks volumes & at this time it was screaming at me! Eventually we came to a slow halt as poor Beast could plough through no longer. Now I am a purveyor of horror films & every single bloody stranded in the middle of nowhere at gone midnight with no help film came back to haunt me! Nigel then decides its time for the snow chains & breaks out the bag, & without reading the instructions (he's an engineer, they don't read instruction) tries to put them on! This in pitch blackness took him an hour!!!! He even threw a wobbly which was hilarious :):):):) I was trying to get him to read how to, which eventually he did & it still took forever. Eventually after freezing solid, being scared to death & having the only two vehicles to pass by, stop to see we were ok waved on their way, we were able to limp onwards. After a short while there was a very bad noise which turned out to be a mud guard which had gotten caught in the chain & ripped & twisted but we were able to continue home. I have never been so pleased to see my house so much in my life & believe me there has been a few occasions here!!! Now we never drive the Beast in the winter with a possibility of snow, she I am afraid is just not built for it!

My frozen snow covered Pine

Winter in Bulgaria when the snow arrives is the hibernation period. Its rarely you see any neighbours.

 First thing in the morning the skies start to fill with smoke from the wood burners & you will see the odd person traipsing to the local shop for fresh bread & whatever else they may need for the day, then only the hardiest of people venture out.

The dogs love it, Sophie is a bit wary of cows so she likes to go run around in safety, scaredy cat :)

Fresh bread being delivered to our shop

I love walking round the village in the snow its lovely

Our Church its now minus its bell tower as lightening struck it

I love my village in the snow

This Christmas there was no snow as even though we had a reasonable amount to warrant being snowed in by Christmas eve it had dissapeared so this is Christmas morning :(

Christmas day temps reached 24c

So this year has been a pretty good winter so far, we have had snow & we have been snowed in but lots of sunshine & warmth too which keeps the spirits lifted. When it snows for one day we are stuck in the village for two weeks. So winter is for hunkering down & battening the hatches, intermingled with sunny & warm days out.

So now we hope the rest of this year passes with none of this!

Poor Beast, she really went through it that year!!!

Today we still have snow on the ground but only a little as the sun has been glorious these past few days. We have wind but even that is warm. The spring bulbs are throwing up their greenery which lifts our spirits even more as spring is just around the corner!