More Time To Write At Weekends In Bulgaria

I have found that weekends in the village farmhouse have become more relaxing right now. Not work on the land is needed and it is dark at just after 5:00 in the afternoon. Once the wood burner is lit and we have vacuumed and dusted the place there is nothing else to do other than chill out after a hard week of physical work. I forget sometimes how to wind down and now it is taking a bit of getting used to.

This is the festive season now approaching, not really with Christmas in mind at all, but for the village folk it is a time also to recover from the long growing season here which covers spring, summer and autumn, in fact in some parts harvesting is still going on, leeks, cabbages and even grapes are still lingering on. Only last week I helped a family member with their grape harvest. The distilling for rakia for which they are intended is booked for the 26th December!

So what does an active mind do for 5-6 hours in the dark winter evening at the weekend without Internet? I certainly am not into Bulgarian television, not because I don’t understand it, but because it is the worse form of television, it rubs me up the wrong way completely with Nestle adverts accounting for 50% of products on the interludes! I must admit I like the Bulgarian comedy and music programmes. We just the three main ‘free’ channels namely, BTV (who celebrated 50 years of broadcasting last week), Nova and Channel One. Everything else is mainly junk. We do not have cable or satellite due to the cost. Galia likes most that is on television, so it is on all evening and I just get more and more annoyed with the invasion of ‘bad’ products being washed into her head throughout! I certainly do not rule the roost in terms of what Galia wants to do in the evenings, and if she wants to watch television that’s fine. There isn’t anything else for to do and as we are both online with the Internet Sunday evenings through to Thursday evenings it is good that we both have a break from this. I have to add my most hated adverts apart from Nestle, that come from Coca Cola and Pepsi already doing their Christmas themes!

So what do I do now in the evenings at the farmhouse? It is a passion for writing that still begs to be done and that is now what I do. I have plans for another book to be written, this time on the recipes that I have tried and tasted in Bulgaria. It was touched on in my first book, but needs to be focussed on entirely in a book in it’s own right. I must have drawn up some 50 or so recipes already here and there, the only thing missing are the pictures that I have to work on, a bit difficult without a digital camera, but hopefully one will come to hand at some point. I’m sure it will sell better than my ‘Simple Treasures In Bulgaria’ as it is more geared towards a food loving public.

Finally, I don’t know why I was so hyped up and in a panic about not having the time to dedicate to writing a few weeks ago. This was of course during the most busy season of harvesting where there wasn’t enough hours in the day and then finding work which took up 45 hours a week just was a straw too much on the camel’s back (forgive me Kamila.) Right now I find myself having the time to post once a week, perhaps twice if I feel prolific enough and work on the new book planned in tandem.

Image by *Susie* via Flickr