A Weekend Retreat

Galia is now making good steps on her road to recovery from her first operation before having to endure another operation in a few weeks. I really to feel for her as she has been in pain throughout the ordeal, sometime you can't see the benefits ahead with this upon you. Reassured, time will see her through and the pain will have been a forgotten history in due course.

This weekend, we relaxed in Skalitsa at the farmhouse, we both love it there and if it wasn't so far away from town we would both be living there full-time. It just takes too long and is far too expensive to commute to Yambol and back on a daily basis. I used to do this and know it is not practical, and Bulgaria is all about being practical.

So two days in the Skalitsa farmhouse what did we do?

The answer is quite simply, Galia did nothing, I wouldn't let her. She wanted to cook clean and all the usual things that Bulgarian women are brought up to do. She knew it was wrong right now to exert herself with these chores so she just lay down on the sofa bed and watched television, while I did my English thing of not being able to relax.

While Galia was engrossing herself with Bulgarian television, I was drawn to the farm and land, big ideas again on the horizon about what to produce on this fertile land this year, I was almost in a trance as I walked around the grounds planning away. There wasn't much I could do outside right now, the ground was sodden and we all know there will be another major bout of snow and sub-zero temperatures before April, which is when work takes off here. I do have plans to start another blog about managing a farm in April when the new season starts, there will be a lot of work involved, but then who's scared of work? Back to today, there was one chore that could be done right now, that was to prune the fruit trees and a walnut tree that was impinging onto the summer house, so it was cutting and sawing branches for a couple of hours.

When I went back into the farmhouse to check up on Galia, she had dusted, vacuumed and mopped the whole house while my back was turned. I could never be angry with Galia, but just had to accept that not allowing, or trusting in my case, men to do housework is something that has been bred into women here for generations, so why be any different today? Galia also knew that when I did get back in the house after the pruning, I would have been doing these household chores instead of her despite her unwillingness to allow me. Well it was now all done and dusted and Galia was none the worse for it, seemingly. I was now in the house for the remainder of the day and was allowed to cook dinner that evening, something that I haven't done for a while.

Having now both completed necessary work inside and outside the farmhouse respectively, we relaxed in our own company. Well actually relaxing with our laptops with no work other than top up the wood burner ever few hours, but that's not a chore that's a pleasure. There is the story about the supermarket chicken this weekend, but that will keep until the next post.

Stressing Out Over Garden Roses

For the last 5 weeks all I can think about is pruning the roses in the farmhouse garden. There are a few reasons for this; the first is going back two winters ago. I was living full time in the farmhouse then and in the winter the roses were pruned and buried well in time for the cold winter ahead. This is the Bulgarian way and it works very well. The following spring right though to December there was a single rose picked for Galia every single morning we were there.

Then there was last winter, I was working away from the farmhouse and didn't get to prepared the roses for winter, no pruning no covering them up with earth as they are left to face the elements throughout winter. This spring and all through the year right up to now the roses were very poor, in fact hardly any worthy of picking for a Bulgarian princess.

The thought of going through three Bulgarian seasons without vibrant perfumed Bulgarian roses in the garden is something that I never want to happen again. It was my intention to prune and bury some five weeks ago, but we had guest in the farmhouse and for the last week I have slipped a disc in my back, so it still hasn’t been done. We have been very lucky there has only been one or two night that the temperatures have fallen below zero, so no damage done so far. There is however the forecast of a cold break in the weather and snow on its way for Christmas Day. We do not plan to go to the farmhouse initial after Christmas what with family festivities and my bad back.

Throughout Christmas the roses will be playing on my mind and frustration not being able to physically do what needs to be done. We just hope that there is a speedy recovery and this garden chore can be done within the next week, even is it means clearing the snow out of the way to do it.

Does anyone else have such a strong urge to do garden to the point of getting stressed out about it?