After an exhausting and stressful day yesterday, we were ready for a bit of normality today!
B woke us up at 7:45am, which was pretty late by his standards, so he’d clearly been worn out from the day’s events too.
After a breakfast of cereal for the boys, and yogurt with some of the delicious honey that our next door neighbour gave us on our first visit, we were all set for whatever today brought 🙂
Despite the stress and hassle, it was still glorious to sit in our beautiful (if terribly overgrown) garden and eat in the sunshine, with nothing but the sounds of bees buzzing and birds singing.
It’s always so peaceful here that it feels like our little piece of paradise <3
Caroline messaged to say that she and Danny would be doing a mercy mission drop-off for us a little later, so we decided the best thing to do would be clearing the paths, so we could more easily carry things in from the road.
Ian had to do most of it though, as I was still physically in a fair bit of pain from the journey yesterday and the day before, but B and I did a little, just to make us feel useful 😉
The rescue service arrived at 9:45am (it gets very hot in Bulgaria in summer, so it’s sensible to get up and get chores done as early as possible in the morning before the sun gets too high, leaving the hotter hours of the day for relaxing and resting).
They had done a fantastic job of rustling up a wonderful makeshift kitchen for us:
- A mini freezer from some other friends of theirs
- Some refreezable ice packs
- A cool box
- A slow cooker
- A gas stove and gas bottle
- An old blanket that we were advised to keep wet and drape over the cool box to help keep it cooler
Ian made a drink for us all and they stayed and chatted in the car out on the road whilst we stayed behind our gate.
After they left, we got the new makeshift kitchen all set up (again!).
Then the rest of the day was spent pottering, keeping B entertained, clearing a bit more of the garden, sorting out the food, etc.
We explored the garden a bit and photographed the plants so we can identify them with a very useful app called Plantnet, to see if they were edible/useful.
Using the app, we actually discovered we had a walnut sapling, which we were thrilled about, as we all love walnuts and B had really enjoyed smashing open some shells last Autumn to eat them!
Poor B had lots of accidents today, as he was loving the freedom of running around the garden, but kept tripping over and hurting himself 🙁
For lunch, Ian fried a now defrosted frozen pizza in a frying pan on the makeshift firepit from yesterday, and we ate it on the steps again, as most of our chairs had been stolen.
One of our little lockdown traditions back home became joining in with the weekly quiz run by Alex and Dom’s school.
So to keep with the tradition, I had a video call with the boys at 5pm so I could still join in with them doing the quiz.
After it had finished, we had a general chat and I showed them around the garden in full bloom, as the last time they’d been here had been March the previous year, when things were only just starting to grow.
For dinner, we just ate bread and butter, as we needed to pace our food, seeing as we couldn’t go out to buy any more!
B was quite a filthy urchin after a day of playing in the garden so we strip washed him in the outside sink using water warmed in a bucket by the sun!
We’re nothing if not adaptable!
I read him a story then as it was Ian’s turn to settle him to sleep, I wandered down the garden to photograph more plants.
Once B was asleep, Ian came back out and we sat on the balcony together chatting until it got dark.
I rediscovered just how much mosquitoes love my blood and ended up bitten remorselessly, so had to go back indoors and put some more layers on to protect myself from being eaten alive!
They barely touched Ian!
As it got darker, Ian noticed a flashing light in the vicinity of our solar-powered LED lights that we’d strung up in the garden and wondered aloud if they were playing up.
But then we noticed another one near the barn!
And it was moving around!!
We realised what they were!
Fireflies!!!
Neither of us had ever seen any before and we were both pretty excited to see them 😀
We looked around and across the road in the hedges and trees, there were LOADS!
I grabbed my phone and tried to video them.
It didn’t come out as spectacularly as I’d hoped, but we did capture a couple.
As it got darker, we also walked down the garden a little to see if we could spot the comet that was currently visible in the sky.
Eventually we spotted it so that added another bit of excitement to the day!
Then finally, Ian was closing up the cottage before we went to bed and called me to come and look at what he’d found.
It was one of the biggest bugs I’d ever seen!
At first we actually thought it must be two mating or something.
But when I got closer, I realised it was just one, and remembered a nature program I’d watched with Chris Packham a few years ago, talking about mole crickets!
We realised that’s what we’d found!
More excitement LOL!
They are fascinating creatures, with paddle-like legs at the front to dig through earth, but are considered pests here because of the disruption to crops etc.
We got a video of him/her and then decided it really was time we went to bed as it was 10 to midnight!
It had been another memorable day 🙂
Photos from today…
