One year ago today.....

We arrived here in Bulgria ONE YEAR AGO TODAY! WOW!!!!

I really don't think I have packed so much into a 12 month period, and when I think back it makes my head spin! Some highs, some very low, lows! But certainly a bloody adventure.

HORSES! We arrived with 4 horses, then in December we went down to 3 when Dooley sadly left us, then in the space of one week a few months later we went up to 6! Now we are down to only 4 again! Peggy Sue our Cob belongs to my amazing friend Sharon and we hope is here for the long haul! Leeloo is off with a friend keeping Mika company (she was short term foster)! At this moment in time we certainly dont want to take on any more, but I never say never!

Luna, Baby, Leeloo, Peggy, Indio and Mika....

DOGS! Well I think I could lose track of them all but I will try! Grigri, Minnie and Makita all still here. Pig is living up north with a friend and is having a fabby life! Oreo lives just around the corner and again has fallen on her little feet. Button who I always thought would be with me forever is now only around the corner and has the love of my amazing neighbours and their little puppy! I could not be happier although I do miss them.

My little angels in super amazing new homes! 

New kids on the block are Dude who came in September as a street dog, Winston the bulldog I managed to rehome within a few weeks is back for a holiday!

Dude, Grigri and Makita and sadly a rescue GS that developed health issues which meant we let her go! 

For those that follow me on facebook will know that I become involved with Lucy Irvine of Castaway fame, my hero when I was 18 and so happy to now call her a friend! How cool is that lol!

My hero, Lucy Irvine

Here are the links to the story with The Haven which is here in Bulgaria and has to close in a few months and we have to rehome over 70 dogs!

https://web.facebook.com/savelucysdogsfromdeath/?ref=bookmarks
https://twitter.com/SaveLucysDogs
https://www.instagram.com/savelucysdogs/
https://sites.google.com/view/streetdogrescue-bulgaria/        

My way to help has been starting off the facebook page and now I have taken 3 dogs into our home, Bella was first and bless her she is now rehomed to a good friend in Inverness. The 2 in the photo might be with me forever or someone will come and fall in love which is normally my way to rehome! No rush!

Clicking and sharing the links above could be the way one finds a new home or some funding to help to foster them so please friends have a wee look.

Moss now called Flossy and Rocky after his leg op!

SPAIN! Spain was still a main part of the last 12 months and Rich was super busy guiding and running courses most months. The British Army came to BG, but too early and we ended up with them playing in the snow and not the sun!

We went back over to finally try and finish the eco house and our new lovely tenants moved in. Here is a nice photo taken the morning I handed over the keys!

The last shot taken! 

Spring arrives and we then make another purchase and its another house! This time slightly different as we let our boys have the 2 small houses to do up over time as a project, also on the land are 2 giant stone barns. They will become the Orange House 2 here in BG! Long term project and one on hold for a wee while until we get this one and the main orange house just how we want them before the end of this year.

Dan and Ben on the steps of new house.

So one year later and we start ripping this one apart again! Rich not quite so happy but as always he trusts me and let me just get on with it.

We have super improved the horse area and we now have a fanastic new corral which makes it so much nicer to go riding! No Baby fighting to get out with you whilst you tack up!

New fencing around the garden, the chainlink did not last the 12 months due to due horses heads trying to eat the grass!

We then started this week to make some rather large holes all over the house on the same day! Poor Rich he really hates the change but we then moved downstairs into the old guest room.

Soon to be ensuite guest room with own entrance

Baby showing off the new fencing

Opened up the small barn as free stable, so they come and go as they like!

Fantastic new stone wall and corral

Hole number one for internal stairs

hello boys! 

metal removed from guest room before

hole number 2 for door way into bedroom 

hole number 3 for new windows in our room old guest room! 

Well who knows what the next 12 months will bring! One thing I do know it that I adore this house and the friends I have made and I do not plan on moving any time soon! Rich will be so happy to read that! lol

New Year, still happy with the decision to move here?

When back in Spain, just before the big drive over, as the time got closer to leave, I woke each morning with a sick feeling in my stomach! I even posted about it and many said it was a good sign and that everything would be fine.

Well, our/my decision to move to Bulgaria has certainly been fully tested since I last typed anything on here!

Life is a balance I know that, and some days are good and some are bad, I know that too! However, I have no idea what happened to my set of scales (I am a libran remember) when the Autumn set in and the days got shorter!

This next section is the Dooley story which will be boring so ignore if you like~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We started our life here with 4 horses, Indio was given to us by an amazing friend Emma, Luna and Baby who we adopted from a rescue centre in Alicante and Dooley an Irish pony that we had been given and we paid £500 for him from his previous owner Edwina.

Dooley was very much loved and cared for, however we did have some issues with him before we left Spain and he had caused some serious accidents. At first we had trouble finding a saddle that would not slip on him, and after a few trials we bought a great second hand one that fitted him great and didnt move. Even though he was not 100% great with the clients we didnt think twice about the finances involved in bringing him over with us.

We had a chilled summer here and didnt ride the horses too much, just letting them relax and settle into their new surroundings. Dooley suffered the worst and really didn't like the new bugs and flies. He would get very stressed and gallop around the paddock, bucking and going crazy when the ones went around his underbelly! One day trying to tack him up ready for a ride he went so mad we had to quickly remove his saddle and let him settled down for a while before we could even think about taking him out. We did keep him sprayed and special oil which did help.

I rode one day and made the mistake of handing a water bottle over to my friend, he did a full speed 360 spin and off I popped, thinking he would continue to eat the grass as he had been doing, I just sat and laughed! However, he had other ideas and galloped all the way home, breaking the tack on route.

A few weeks later my good friend Audrey said she would love to ride. She is such a confident lady I made the decision to put her on Dooley, I really shouldn't have and when I look back now how I wish I had put her on Indio. Audrey came off Dooley as he got over excited and wanted to canter which Audrey was not happy about. He galloped away again, Rich chased on Indio and got him back, swopped horses and they came back! I am sure Audrey was still in shock and on entering the gate Dooley spooked and made Indio come through the gate too fast and Audrey came off again!

I felt so ill for days and poor Audrey had some serious injuries. I decided that no matter how much we loved Dooley that we just could not use him for beginners. After asking the sister who lived here in BG if she could help us find him a more suitable home, maybe a small yard with just one person to love and grow a strong bond with him she agreed.

After a few weeks I then received a long facebook message saying basically we had caused the issues with the badly slipping saddle and that he was an amazing pony! This came as a shock and I decided I need to speak to Edwina and maybe get to the bottom of the problems we had encountered.

Edwina said she was surprised he liked me as he didnt like strangers! Should have rang alarm bells then! 

Edwina was a lovely lady and also loved Dooley, however after speaking on the phone for over an hour I soon heard the real side. He had the reputation on the yard as the most unpredictable, dangerous horse and no one else would ride him. Edwina had been thrown and he had bolted back through a busy street. He had been seen by someone to use oils to calm him down, he was on a supplement to try and keep him calm. Edwina is now disabled due to a broken shoulder. The picture became clear. I contacted the sister and said please come see us as I didn't want to type any of this on facebook.

Then it all went a little crazy and the other sister who had owned him and had moved to NZ contacted me, basically saying that the horse was on loan to us and was angry that she had kept out of any details about the issues etc. She had just had a baby and we had been told not to contact her from the sister here in BG. I asked her to show me anywhere in our conversations about a "loan" I had cut and pasted the whole lot and done a search for the word! Nothing!

We had been given 2 horses by friends and never, ever, would we have driven all the way to the UK costing us over £1000, then paid £500, then drive him all the way to BG, had he been on loan! We asked for £1000 if the sister wanted him back to allow us to purchase another horse more suitable.

We could of course not use Dooley now knowing his story. The sister got angry and so did I. Then our whole conversation then was cut and pasted all over facebook by BG sister. Her boyfriend in the UK jumped on the bandwagon and posted all over his page that we had stolen a pony and wanted to sell it to the gypsies! He even made fun of me having migraines! Shows what kind of person he is!

I started to post my side of the story, however it soon became very clear that no matter what I said it was wrong so I went silent. The posts naming and shaming us continued. The boyfriend has 150 mutual friends, the Bulgarian horse owners kept seeing posts, the sister tagged many horse people here warning them about us stealing the horse and how we are con people!

The Police then came for a visit asking to see the passport, which we had had put in my name to leave the UK, the sister in NZ knew this. However, we read that we had forged this document. This visit from the police and the local mayor was the final straw for me and I said to Rich I give up. This made him super angry and he said he really didnt want Dooley to go to the sister here, as she does love her horses but they are kept in less than safe places as many people had confirmed to me. Mostly though, she had said she hated the bloody pony and didnt want him! Dilemma but Rich could see how ill this was making me. Jane my amazing friend helped and we drew up a contract to confirm that we had been his "whole" owner, we mentioned all this issues about him that had come to light and said that NO mention should be made on facebook about him in the future. The sister paid back £500 pounds and signed the contract.

Guess what? Photos of Dooley appeared very quickly saying he was out of condition and scruffy! we have heard rumours that he has escaped a few times and I am sure he will be not getting any special treatment, just what we expected really and so very sad. I am sure this side of my story will be twisted and made out to be lies, at least from what we can see none of our mutual friends cared too much for the nasty things said about us. One great thing to come from this however is the amazing support I got from the horse people here in BG.

END OF DOOLEY STORY!!!

Christmas was just around the corner, and I was ill, flu had got me, I think due to been low and fedup! Little did I know it was about to get much worse! The kids came and visited, the snow stayed on the ground, the house was cold, I spent most days in bed. I fell on the tarmac on my arse a few times which caused intense back pain! Then Rich needed to get to Bucharest to fly to Spain to work, heater went on the car and I drove back at minus 6 inside the car for 4 hours, crying a few times as felt so fed up! Then really spent the next 2 weeks in bed, snow came down hard so no driving around anyway. Chest more and more in pain and not able to breath properly the pipes froze inside the walls and the night temps dropped to minus 19! This was one hell of a test for me and one night I was panicked as I thought I was having a heart attack, who would feed the animals if I died in my sleep!

Friends gave me some natural tips to help me and after a few days of a hot compress on the chest I could breath a little easier, phew. Water was taken the horse in large buckets from upstairs and that really buggered the back even more! Had no energy to light the fire so stayed in bed most days the house just stayed colder and colder. Rich returned and so did a little energy, maybe just living on cornflakes would end and Rich could cook for me.

OK Bulgaria you have really given me a baptism of fire and do I want to stay here? I have just spent 3 weeks working back in Spain which was warm and I love my house on the hill and The Orange House has suffered since I left! What do we do, sell this place and drive back? I did think that was how I would feel when I returned and even that was an epic journey! You ready!

I cried at the airport with Rich leaving Spain! real tears I was so tired and felt awful leaving my business and him! I landed collected the large bag and Yordan my lovely BG friend collected me and took me to the car that Rich had left the week before! It didnt start, lets jump it! ok off we go, it broken down on the main highway leaving the city! Yordan to the rescue again, get some fuel just incase! No its not that we can see the shreaded belt from the alernator! Can we find another one on the Sunday no but we try! I am beginning to feel really ill! Hire a car and drive back, no I am in no state to drive so I get a lift to the bus station, no cash to buy a ticket bus doesnt take card! Find a card machine with a large bag I cant lift! Get on bus sit down in my seat number 34!

Another women gets on and says I am sat in her seat and shows me the number 34 on her ticket! WHAT THE FUCK!!! I cry again and I mean real sobs, I move my bags and find an empty seat at the back. No food, need a wee and phone about to die! Taxi from bus station, friend offered to get me but really am in no state to speak to anyone! Walk through the snow home to a cold house, even though Jane did light the fire that was hours ago! I eat more cornflakes and go to bed!

I stay in bed for 2 days the house stays cold, I fed the animals and thats about it! What the bloody hell am I doing here? Then day 3 and the sun comes out, the snow looks like it could melt. But, the most important thing happened, I felt liked and understood by some facebook friends that I have not even met! I will not name the mad girls, they know who they are. I laughed on chat with them and a little light came on, I lit the fire and the house got super warm. I took the coats off the horses and had some good cuddles! I went shopping and bought chocolate that always helps! The car was fixed in Sofia and is waiting for Rich on Sunday!

I came back to the house and know I/we had done the right thing, its not Bulgaria's fault all this shit has happened, I have met the most amazing people since I have been here in a short space of time. I love this house (when its bloody warm) and I can work from here looking out at my little plot and look forward to what the Spring will bring.

Old things!

When we bought the house last year, each room had piles of what looked like rubbish in them! However, I never throw out my rubbish until I have thought hard about if I can still use it!

I told Charlie to not let the builders get rid of anything and actually when Rich and I visited again in Feb, we had a few days free and decided to go through it to decide what to keep and what they could burn!

The main room for piles of bags and clutter was the bathroom! I sat on the floor and carefully went through it all and soon realised that I had some "treasures".

Bathroom pile!

The first "treasure"

I had a strange feeling like I was been watched as I started to clean and make the things come back into the house! I do hope the lady/ladies that made the cloth in this house years ago do approve of what I am doing!

The wooden crates all had a coat of yacht varnis, dirt cheap and as soon as applied it changes the colour and makes a massive difference.

Loo roll holder in bathroom! 

Coffee table on wheels

The loft had a few surprises of loads of old suitcases and bags and bags of clothes! I will do another blog post about all that later as way too much to add to here!

I made the suitcases into a dog bed and a TV cabinet!

Dirty but still lovely! 

Perfect little bed.

Cleaned and a coat of varnish and new life!

One of the latest finds was hidden right down under the eaves outside the house! Almost missed it really! An old musket, someone told us it could be at least 300 years old, it has certainly seen better days and not sure I can restore this so will leave in its old rusty state!

Musket! maybe 300yrs old! 

Check out the metal!

Books in a bundle and old bottles!

Love this old tin! 

Rich should use this! 

Little plastic toys! 

Now the loft also had over 12 bags of old clothes! That will sort through and post later as way too many to show on here!

From nasty basement to super guest room!

The house has 2 rooms downstairs! quite dark and really nasty and horrible when first viewed! One we have turned into a super workshop and will be a gym for Rich and I when we bring over the equipment from Spain.

The other room had the most horrible chip board on the ceiling hiding the massive beams. A fireplace that was just full of bricks and rubble! Broken window and damp mud walls really made this a no go area!

However, we had family and friends due to stay for 2 weeks in the summer and we needed a spare room. I had bought a tent and we had the camper van but the temperatures had risen alot and at least the room below felt nice and cool! Could we do a basic fixup and get it at least livable for the kids!

Tall order but I like a challenge,so I bought a massive tin of white paint and a bag of plaster to fill the gaps made by the new wiring!

Day one and I started to plaster the walls, Radio 2 in the background keeping me happy until the battery died in the ipad! I decided to finish the wall I was working on so carried on. Rich was snoozing in the lounge above me and I then started to hear the running around of tiny feet!

Thinking it was the tiny dogs I ran upstairs to get them away so he could sleep! Hmmm no dogs in the room! So what was the bloody noise then?

Rich pulling and breaking the horrible wood! 

Back down I go and bang my brush on the ceiling! well I nearly pooed my pants as the noise above me was a tad scary and I was sure the little buggers would jump out of the wood and start to eat me! I could tell by the noise this was not little mice and not only one!

First hole made, what a nasty job! 

So down came the wooden ceiling! this job was nasty and dirty and the ceiling was full of maybe 30 years of walnut shells and rat poo! Yuch dropping all over us! Even worse than stripping chip wall paper and that is saying alot!

Ready for the attack of the rat! 

Well as you can see we both worked super hard and if I say so myself the room is lovely! Ivo the bear even brought me some lovely dishes to put in the little alcove next to the old fireplace.

Dirty horrible fireplace before!

Lovely feature of the room now and the old bread tool in place! 

yuch!

Very swish!

Where to start?

What a massive difference?

Lovely view onto the garden!

Ivo and Ani pot gift! 

Not a bed place to rest your head! 

Mums hearts xxx

Mum here is the perfect place for the hearts you have bought me over the years! Next summer I think we will move down here as its the coolest and quietest place in the whole house.

The People! WOW what a surprise!

I am going to sound like a complete snob now and am so very happy to be proved wrong. It was about a preconceived idea I had about the expats I would find living here in Bulgaria!

Now, as you know we have lived on the Costa Blanca for nearly 17 yrs. Don't get me wrong it has been a great place to be and we have some amazing friends there, that we miss loads.

The one thing we didn't do was to mix with a certain type of expat. We did in the early days get invited to pool parties where the drinking went on into the wee small hours and we did love our local bar in the village to watch from the outer circle so to speak! But the true friends we can count on one hand, the ones who we had many other things in common with, not just cheap vino!

As Bulgaria is even cheaper to live in than Spain, I really did expect this place to be full of that type of person. I did not expect to actually find so many amazing, educated, artistic, friendly, kind, helpful people, you get the idea!

I am going to change the name of some of the people as they are shy! lol But they will know who they are and I hope they find the funny side!

"Demi Moore"lives a stones throw from me the village, she makes me laugh as she says she also does not mix much with outsiders and was quite upset when I said I wanted to encourage my friends to come and buy houses in the village! She is a petrol head like me and is well traveled! Great friends from the off and rushed straight over the first night with free cutlery as we only had plastic from the van.

Demi's super wheels called Brian! 

We love to swop stuff instead of making exchanges of cash, mountain bike for white wine! Sounds good to me. Really glad she is on the doorstop and I hope she is not too pissed off that we are in "her" village! Her partner in crime is cool too and we have already enjoyed some very chilled evenings on our porch! Oh and they have a dog with a silent bark! just my kind of dog!

Ivo the Bear! Charlie introduced us to this gentle giant as someone to come and help us in the garden. He is like a bloody machine and has done all the horrible heavy duty work getting the garden more livable! One day he did tell Rich off though. He had gone food shopping and I was moving really heavy stones around the place, he has given off telling me to put stuff down as I think he now knows I will not listen to him! No English spoken and our Bulgarian is zero, so drawing on paper works wonders!

Ivo "the bear""

I was going to rename Sue Hagan but she is way too cool to care! I have been following Sue on facebook for years now as she is a Cob guru and Natural Home Builder. What I did not know at the time, was that she is also a Bowen Therapist. I had my first treatment this week and although I was not expecting it to do anything to help my neck and back issues, I am happy to report that I do feel better! Watch this space.

Queen Sue

Next person to mention is Blake, now do I change his name and if I did what would I call him! Steve Mcqueen, yeh I think he will like that! He is the "man who can" and was a super star when it came to the rescue of the horses even though we didn't know him from Adam! He is a really lovely bloke with a facebook persona that is nothing like the gentle soul he really is!

Blake the "man that can"

Without meeting Blake, we would not have met the amazing Evelina, she was so funny dragging me around the village to chat to the locals about the internet! At the moment she lives in the UK but cant wait until she comes here very soon!

Last one to give a special mention to is Audrey who is a genuine angel! Living in the next village she is like a little "ever ready bunny"! I am helping her with the media for her really lovely guest houses that she rents out and she is also a Bowen therapist. So happy to call her a friend and looking forward to spending more time getting to know her!

So, what is the point of this thread,apart from saying a massive thank you to the people that have a special mention!

The point is I don't think, no I know, I have never lived anywhere with such a concentration of interesting people. One of them said you had to be a little mad to come to Bulgaria, that was Barb, who if I didn't have a mum I would ask her to adopt me!

So many creative souls all in one place is a super nice surprise. I am thinking it has something to do with the country itself and why we are here, not because its super cheap and has great weather but because it is a country that to me feels like it is breathing! Sounds daft but who cares! Come and visit us and see what you think!!!!

So many problems with the 3/4 legged animals!

We do love living here and I am sure all the animals do too! BUT we have had a few dramas and my vet Momchil is certainly kept busy since we arrived!

First drama was Luna my mare who I adore above all the others, which I know is stupid but she really is a very special girl!

The journey from France to here did not go to plan and the transport people let us down and sent none horse people. We did actually try to cancel, but then get told they had left already (which we then found out was a lie!) They did send one guy that was so scared of horses he refused to get out of the car! Once both her and Baby had been put onto the trailer we know that they did not come out again for 48hrs and had no stops! This means that they more or less walked and stood in horrible conditions and on terrible roads for way too long! Weight loss is normal but I think the whole thing scared Luna and she stayed stressed way after the journey had stopped!

We then had to launch a rescue mission to get them back to me as the transport people demanded more money than agreed and I sent some heavies down with the money I believed to be the correct amount and Luna was loaded again!

Once at my friend Kates house, she then, we have no idea what on, cut a large gash in her bum! Momchil (Vet) to the rescue for the first time and stitches put in! Over to box rest and dont ask how but she then cut her knee! Poor horse in the wars and stuck at Kates house as we cant load her again to get her to my house!

The Unicorn looking skinny and sad!

After a few weeks with Kate looking after her brilliantly we walked her to my house. We thought that was the last of the drama and all scars started to heal nicely until last Saturday! She was put in the large field as we had hay come and she must have jumped into a hole or over a log and she has torn her suspensory ligament on her front leg! Momchil again with a scan machine to check her over and put her on rest for 6 months!

All I want is to have my little girl healthy and go ride with her through the fields but that is not going to happen yet!

Ok dog drama! Kate was about to look after all dogs whilst I head to Spain for a week, bless her she came around and Oreo got over excited and fell through the steps onto the concrete underneath! Momchil visit at his home and he thinks its ok as she is running around like a loony apart from holding it in the air! Home we go and the next day it looks swollen so we head back again, xray machine away for repair so he looks again and thinks maybe she does have a problem so asked Kate to bring her back in a few days!

I will get a photo of the xray as its awesome (well not really for her) but she has a clean break through both bones! He spends hrs doing an op on her tiny little leg and inserts a pin! Strong pin he told me! Well I treated her like it was all normal and she was allowed some time to go and play with the big dogs and you guessed it she broke the pin! He has no idea how as its super tough! But another vet visit and next Tuesday she heads under the knife again to try and remove the broken pin and do something else instead!

Damage after op and broken pin!

Pig next, while we are away, as Kate finds her hiding behind a box shivering and in pain! Vet visit, another xray, no brake but in pain and pees all over everyone! She is healing well and just been a bit slower. Maybe a larger dog playing too rough!

Then of course we have little Button the wonder dog with 3 legs! Jenny my best friend in Spain noticed that when she ran she lifted up her back leg on the opposite side from the missing one! I had someone say it was due to the weight shift and that she did it so she didnt fall over! I wanted this to be true but guessed otherwise. So now we are spending soooo much time at the vets I thought it best to have an xray and check!

Well the poor little baby has her knee caps in the wrong place! I will also get the xray as how she walks at the moment is a wonder, she is certainly not slow! Button goes in for surgery on Tuesday with Oreo so keep your fingers crossed all is well!

sleeping after her swim in the river today and long walk! 

The dog number also grew this week and I blame Kate for this one as she picked up a dog in the middle of nowhere, probably dumped as she is quite old and is super skinny and a few issues with back legs as she is an Alsatian! I will talk about Emma the lady who then had her spayed and looked after her for a week, She needs funding for the work she does out here and I need to see if she has a website! the link is her facebook for the neutering!

We cant believe how well she has settled in and loves all the others, sleeps at my feet and is super soft and gentle. Momchil thinks she is maybe 10 but when possibly a street dog that eats rubbish you cant tell!

We have called her Ali (the Alsatian)

Ali

To end on a happy note! The 3 other horses have found the tiny barn and spend all day hiding inside from the heat and the flies! its like the smallest space ever but I guess they love it!

Yes Dooley is hiding at the back! 

Rich is out there as I type building new steps into the new outdoor dining room! He is super brilliant with timber, watch this space for more photos soon.....