chiteri

As you can probably tell from the last posting, my bulgarski is coming on a storm. I have almost mastered the first of what seem to be three ways of expressing the alphabet: capitals; which is most commonly used for signs, labels, menus etc. The other two ways of writing it are by hand and in lower case, both of which differ almost entirely from the capitals… for ease of learning I assume.

The language here is based on the cyrilic alphabet, devised by two bulgarian monks: St Methodius and St Cyril who, it seems, decided that the Slavic people needed an alphabet which responded to their native language rather than trying to use roman. Bulgarians celebrate the language this month on my birthday (that’s may 24^th for those who want to send money) which is just one of what appears to be 365 national holidays per year along with St Georges day, Liberation day (which is at least 3 times a year judging by the amount of times this country has been occupied) and national celebration of salt day. Personally, I will be celebrating st cyrils day by speaking only Bulgarian, which at present means I will be able to do a lot of eating and a lot of drinking and perhaps asking where the post office is if I feel especially brave.

As with most languages, we are finding that there are one or two words which sound similar to words in English. I seem to remember French lessons were always pretty dull affairs until one had the opportunity to slip out a “la bonque” or a “piscine”. Similarly, a game of battleships in german class was never a let down in a blockbusters, “can I have a “p” please bob” kind of a way. There was nothing quite as good as “can we have G6 (gay sechs) please sir” to make mr block start to look a bit uncomfortable; which, thinking about it, would have been particularly difficult for him knowing what I now know… he probably would have been up for it.

Anyway, the following words may come in handy if you feel the need to act like a 5 year old when in Bulgaria… which I often do:

Kak – how

Crap (tragically said star) – old

Pissmen – written

Knigga – book

Funt – pound

Mush – man

Brat – brother

Bint – bandage

Krak – leg

Tvat – hard

Urina – ok it means urine but that’s funny in any language

I will be listening out for some more and report back soon. I’m hoping to find something as good as shiteburger, which if I remember rightly is cheese in Hungarian.

House update:

We have a builder called Niki starting work on the new roof this week. We are going to restore the old stone roof which, unfortunately in modern day Bulgaria, means that we will need to replace much of the old construction, unless we are willing to put all of the stone tiles (plotches) back up ourselves, which we are not, as some are bigger than me and therefore weigh a ton. However, Niki has agreed to help us reconstruct the fallen chimney stacks with a mud/horse manure render, which will be really in keeping and most importantly very easy to build and cheap. He is also going to use a substance which we believe is similar to LECA (lightweight engineered clay aggregate) aka kiln baked clay balls, to insulate the roof, which is a pretty sustainable material, and unlike the other option here mud, will not create huge amounts of dust.

I’m going to need to do a lot more research into wall insulation/cob/lime plaster in the next few weeks and perhaps go on a course when I’m back in August to ensure we can avoid the plasterboard trap which so many other renovated houses here seem to have fallen into. Wonky old house from the outside – wilcon box inside… tragic really.

We are also hoping to go and see the water board in Dryanovo again this week to offer them a bribe to speed things along. Apparently this is “normal” and if we do not do this, “we for 6 months may be waiting”. Both Pete and I are a bit wary of this course of action, and feel a bit strange doing it. This information is obviously provided on a need to know basis – Sam does not need to know, nor the "chenge" (cops).

Otherwise, with the help of mr purple and his 50 year old wife, we are proceeding with digging out the ground floor and our brand new septic tank. We may be gone some time.

In other news…

…my hammock is up and running (thanks CP)

We have some good grapes growing whcih will be turned into wine in the autumn... see:

... and I ate a spade and then had to pull it out through my stomach:


Ciao Ciao, and lek den.