What do you do with...

a forty-foot shipping container full of household goods, when your house isn't actually finished? You take 5.5 hours to put it in what will "someday" be a large livingroom and fill it up wall-to-wall and floor to ceiling with boxes and well-wrapped (and unidentifiable) furniture. The poor movers were horrified that they were unpacking our stuff into an unfinished house and the customs agent was bemused. Actually, the poor customs man was hoping he'd catch us with contraband, but all he found were countless boxes of books. He was not impressed!

Now that it's all here, there's even more impetus for the builders to finish their work. Pity it's going to take another 6 months at my current estimate for it to be really done.

Snow on the mountains!

The Rilas have the first snowcap for the winter after the weekend storms. I'm told this means it will be a hard winter. Given the winds tonight, I can believe the prediction. I've got photos on my phone, which I will try and upload in a bit!

It's odd how perceptions skew with a small change in locale. The old house was only eight km from here, but it was on the other side of the mountain. There in town it feels like autumn, but here on the windward side of the hills, winter is already in the air. The Hunter's Moon is on Wednesday morning, so we should be just finishing the end of harvest by the lore. If that were the case, folks around here would've lost a significant portion of their crops! The 14th will be Petkovden, the day that winter begins. On the money this year!

Stormy weather

I'm sitting in what will one day be my finished living room, watching a storm roll in across the Rila mountains. It feels really good to be in my own house, but it will be even better when the place is finally finished and I can sit in froont of a glowing fire and sneer at the rain and cold.

Earlier this week some friends brought me a 70 liter wine barrel and installed it in my cellar. It will soon be filled with a gift of Merlot, ready for the upcoming winter holidays. Good thing my family drinks red wine, since I don't!

Construction update

The scaffolding is all gone. Huzzah! The place looks huge,inside and out, without all the metal and wood around it. Good thing they are moving right along, since we may have our first snow on Monday...

Live on Bulgarian TV - Medieval Reenactors!

Here's a 30 minute show about the reenactor's hobby. In Bulgarian, but interesting to watch! It's the show at 16:00 in the playlist. We need to recruit some of them for the College!

Today's Excitement

is brought to you by the word "container". Our container of household goods is at the port of Thessaloniki. It will be here in one week. Hopefully, the roof will be finished by then! Argh!

Tired but happy

The Gala went very, very well and I am barely keeping my eyes open today. In fact, I think I will head home shortly! I saw lots of old friends, heard some great music and participated in the silent auction (a fundraiser for the Student Hardship Grants.). I had the winning bid on a pair of tickets to Lord of the Dance next month at the National Palace of Culture. It will be an excellent evening!

Gala!

I'm heading home to get changed and to wait for the driver who's taking me to Sofia. I'm looking forward to seeing old friends and praying that the program goes well. Fingers crossed! Pictures tomorrow, hopefully.

Quiet Sunday

Made it through the Board Meeting, now there's just the 20th Anniversary Gala tomorrow. I'm planning to take a day or two off this week so I can get ready for our stuff to arrive from the US. It's supposed to be in Thessaloniki tomorrow and here a week later. The shipper says it's the fastest arrival from the US they've ever heard of!

I'm hoping that I can actually find some of my embroidery materials in the packing and have enough time to take a break this week and sew. We'll see...

New Book!

I took a Board member out to see Blagoevgrad today and she wanted to go to a bookstore for souvenirs. Well, I never say no to a bookstore and look what I found!

I suspect scribes will really like the content of this one!

Two floors - count 'em!

So, bet you thought I left forever! Nope. It has just been hectic. The builders are working like mad to get the house weather-tight before the winter arrives and I think they'll have succeeded in another ten days or so. The second floor is up and they're pouring the final attic level earthquake wrap/reinforcement tomorrow. The roof will go on early next week as the windows will also go in. The footers for the fence are being poured tomorrow too, so that's another step forward. I'm trying not to think too much about the next potential problem. You see, the (large) shipment of household goods from the US was expedited, so it arrives in Thessaloniki in 9 days. Add 10 more days for customs and shipping to the village and that's a very tight schedule for my poor builders. I'm sure they will rise to the occasion but it's still nerve-wracking.

On the SCA side, we're preparing for our first visit by royalty in December for the Feast of Saint Nicholas. The collegians are more than a little nervous, since none of them has been to an event other than our local ones and they don't really know what to expect. It will be very "interesting", I'm sure. I think the most-anticipated part of the event is the feast and people are working on testing various recipes. I think we'll all be sick of them by the time it's all over!

We had a good recruiting event this week and I think all the participants enjoyed making their own cordials. Next up is a workday for prep for St. Nicholas Day.

Contrasts

I had to run home to the village over lunch and the amazing contrasts between different parts of my life became so obvious. On the way home, I stopped at the local technology hypermarket for a new wireless router. It took about five minutes and I had a choice of dozens of models. After turning off the E79 (the main north-south highway in Bulgaria) onto my secondary road in my Landrover, I had to stop or pause for:

One large flock of sheep on the road
One slightly smaller herd of milk goats
Two donkey carts driven by little old men
Random loose chickens and ducks on the street
A large (two-horse) cart with a large dairy cow tied to the back
A flock of geese

And a group of young men were weighing and bagging their wheat harvest on the village square!

Keep in mind I was going home to meet the installers for my new high speed internet. I live in the land of contrast!

Progress, but slowly

It's been well over 100 F every day for the last week and it has slowed the builders a bit. The new floors are now all poured and the second floor should go up in short order. I love the idea of a fully solid house made of stone and brick. Despite having grown up in wood framed homes, this just seems more permanent.

The puppy (Hobgoblin, better known as Hobs), is still settling in. Little does he know that he starts doggie boot camp with a trainer on Monday! He's too big to ever let him be unruly.

I'm in the middle of first-year-student orientation at work and it makes my life very hectic. I'm still getting in a little time on the embroidery on Constanza's rust wool dress for the autumn, so that's my total A&S output right now. I need to step it up soon, since we're hosting an event here in December!

Miss me?

It's been just over three weeks since my last post and it has been frighteningly hectic. I have to give many thanks to my excellent boys for flying out and helping to pack. I would never have finished without you! And also many thanks to Constanza for being willing to listen to me whinge whnever I needed it. You are all the best. Now I just have to chivy the builders on so there's enough of the main house finished for me to live in when mom arrives in eleven days.....

And the move begins!

The first truckload of my possessions just left for the new house, including the freezer and contents and many, many boxes of books. Now I have floor space to pack the rest of my stuff!! And in 33 days my mother will also be moving into her little apartment behind my house. Whew!

As an aside, I cannot begin to describe how nasty the floor was under the freezer. It hadn't been moved for nine years and you could tell!!

A House Full of Puppy!

I had forgotten just what a handful a new puppy could be! That said, this young man is extremely well-behaved for 10 weeks and almost entirely housebroken. Accidents have only happened when we didn't listen to his noises at the door quickly enough. As you can see, he's settled in pretty well.

Puppy!

This little guy is coming to live at my house tomorrow!

Happy Independence Day!

I'm celebrating in the usual way, by grilling burgers. The grill is fired up with charcoal, which sound pretty normal. The thing is, here in Bulgaria, it's not briquettes - it's really charcoal. Awesome stuff! It makes things taste really nice. I'll add some potato salad, devilled eggs, baked beans (also the homemade kind), watermelon, and a cherry pie. Yum! Since I love old films, I think I'll watch Yankee Doodle Dandy or Meet Me in St. Louis to wrap up the day. Hope all my US friends plus famaily around the world have fun today!

Post Coronation wrap-up

So, there were good things and bad things about Coronation weekend. Bad first!

The bucketing rain for the bulk of the three days certainly put a damper on campers and activities. The late arrival of our ride from the station to the site wasn't great either, although our driver was a charming lady. Set-up was fairly awful, although Constanza and I did pretty well with our ingenious decision to do as much construction as possible under the shelter of a permanent pavillion on site, then dash out with the mostly assembled tent and stake it down. It would have been perfect, had I not gotten two of the poles backwards. We had to shift them in the rain, but even that went pretty smoothly. The tent (alas)did not survive to go home with us, because we decided it had just enough drips and leaks to not be worth trying to repair again. Amusingly, a new camper rescued it from the bin and carried it off!

The good over the weekend far outweighed the bad. First, Constanza and Guy both liked their new clothes and happily wore them for most of the event. I don't have photos due to the wet conditions, but they have promised to take and send a few so I can add them here. Seeing Lord Raphe Cuthbert become Master Raphe Cuthbert, OP at the Friday night Court was excellent. He was most deserving of the honor. Here's a picture of the court before it opened. Unfortunately, my other pictures are not worth posting.














Their Majesties Lief and Morrigan had a wonderful first Court on Saturday, brightened by many well-deserved awards, but even more so by the surprise birthday wishes brought to Countess Judith by a messenger from afar. The classes Saturday afternoon were quite good and I especially liked the Disputation on Courtly Love organized by Lady Lyonet de Covenham. Master Robert of Canterbury put the question and Countess Judith, Lady Lyonet, and Lady Dagny served as judges. It was most enlightening and I hope we will see additional disputations at future events.

Best of all was the Saturday night feast. Due to the wet conditions, the planned outside feast was not possible, so everything was relocated inside to the two biggest rooms. There was a dining room for the King and Queen and another for the Prince and Princess of Insulae Draconis. We were in the Principality room and had the best of times. Our table was "below the salt" and we behaved accordingly. We sang, told riddles, read poetry, and told stories, much to the amusement of all. We also had a fine selection of various home brews, which we shared happily. We even drew in the king at one point, just because he wanted to know what was generating all the music and laughter in our room. After each course was cleared, we shifted every other person at our table down a seat and thus were able to talk with almost everyone throughout the course of the evening. This was Lady Lyonet's cunning plan and it was excellent! Interestingly, we even managed to keep Constanza out of the kitchen during feast. And she had a good time! Amazing! She was in there at other times and so was I. Seems a little skill at rolling pastry can make you quite popular with the cooks.

Breakdown and the trip home were uneventful and we spent the evening unpacking and washing clothes and watching DVDs. I spent the next two days around London (Spending money at the Handweaver's Studio, various bookshops, and clothing stores) and headed back to Bulgaria on Tuesday night. All in all it was a good trip!

Sewing update

Over the weekend I finished a new linen dress for Constanza in a nice indigo blue 100% linen fabric. I hope she likes it and that it wil be comfy for Coronation. Since I was on a roll, I made a matching tunic for Guy! I'll upload pictures after I get back from England so we can see if they fit. Constanza had also requested a new white linen cap a la the Medieval Tailor's Assistant and that's done and packed too.

I think I'll have an empty suitcase on my way home, since half of what I'm taking to the UK will be staying there. This time I'm bringing my empty cordial bottles home, though. On my last trip I left them with Guy, thinking I could easily get more olive oil bottles here. Unfortunately, the supplier closed and I haven't found more. Argh! I think these bottles from IKEA may do the trick, but that means a run to Greece in the future.

Hats! Well, one hat anyway.

In an earlier post, I mentioned a crazy hat that I want to duplicate. Well, here it is. This ia a mural which was commissioned in 1493 by a local ruler for the Kremitkovski Monastery near Sofia, Bulgaria. It is a portrait of a local noble, Radivoy, and his family. I love the wife's outfit, not just her headdress, and would like to re-create the whole thing. This is just the best - multiple colors and patterns and multiple layers. And she's got yellow shoes. You can't ask for more!

Speaking of hats, though, what is Radivoy holding? Is it a platter? a black bowler hat? I just can't tell.

Signs of summer

You know summer in Bulgaria is upon us when the roadside vendors all have sweet cherries for sale and the roses are in full bloom. Guess it's really here!

Random book for my collection!

For the first time in two weeks, I was well enough to walk home after work today. My route goes past a bookshop, which is a dangerous proposition at the best of times!

Imagine my delight in seeing a new window display that included a large, heavily illustrated book entitled Представи си, че си рицар.












I know that doesn't mean a lot to you (Hi Mom!), but it translates as Imagine You're a Knight. You can see an English version here. The publisher's description says:

This heavily illustrated book takes children on an imaginary journey to medieval Europe, where knights swore oaths of loyalty to their lords and lived according to the rules of chivalry. Dramatic full-color spreads on every page show and describe the typical knight--his armor, his weapons, his helmet, his horse, and his activities. Young readers learn about--

* The Making of a Knight: his training for battle and horsemanship skill
* The Knight's Armor: chain mail, plate armor, and helmets
* Weapons: the sword, the mace, and the lance
* Chivalry: the code of conduct that emphasized loyalty and courtesy
* Jousting Tournaments: the main sporting events of medieval Europe
* Heraldry: the history, art, and study of coats of arms

This fascinating volume's added features include illustrated flaps and three gatefold pockets containing cardboard press-out models for kids to assemble. One is a knight's helmet, the second is a standing knight in armor, and the third is a knight on horseback. The book's front cover shows a knight's helmet-covered face. When kids push a tab to lift the helmet's visor, they uncover the knight's face.

I think I am still a kid, because I find it fascinating! It also doesn't hurt that it's useful reference book for the College. I now know the Bulgarian words for a lot of SCA terminology. It's a win-win purchase!

The heraldry section is certainly interesting!

The semester is over and remodeling continues

I have to say this is the first year in a long time that I was very happy to see the back of some new graduates. Must have just been something about the class of 2011. The graduation ceremonies are over and alumni reunion season starts tomorrow. That's usually fun!

On the remodeling side, I now have a roofless house. It's not permanent, of course, but it looks quite odd. For the last two days, the workers have been climbing all over the old roof, removing the terracotta tiles and the rotten roof joists. The nice part is that they save the old roof tiles and re-use all the whole ones. The next step is to raise the walls to make a full second floor out of what was just an attic.

I'm working on two dresses for Constanza and a tunic for Guy right now, which I expect to complete over the upcoming four-day holiday for Sts. Cyril and Methodius Day. After that, I want to start work on recreating a dress worn by a noble's wife in a 1493 mural in the Kremikovtsi Monastery of Saint George the Victor. She's wearing the most amazing headdress, which looks like an embroidered veil covered with a giant white platter. Her dress is red, figured in gold and she's wearing what looks to be a check or plaid underdress. Oh, and don't forget the green, obi-style sash! I've got a scanned picture, but my blog doesn't seem to want to upload it, so for now, you'll just have to use your imagination!

Happy Easter and a finished project!

I had not realized just how much time buying and renovating a house can take. By the time I've worked a full day, checked on house progress, and had dinner, I'm generally too tired to do anything but sit and watch a video or go to bed early. My creativity seems to all be going into the house, which looks like a construction site, not somewhere I hope to be living at the end of next month. >sigh<

With the Easter holiday, construction was at a standstill, so I had several days to sew, which makes me very happy. I've finished Constanza's hood, so she'll have it for Midsummer Coronation. And I have even taken pictures. It's hard to believe! The color is more accurate on the first two shots. This is wool lined in linen, 100% handsewn. The couched work is all wool. The thicker wool is part of what I dyed in a class at Raglan Faire last summer, using weld, while the thinner lambswool used to couch it down is from Renaissance Dyeing. The cast metal buttons were purchased at Winchester last summer. This is all from things I had at home - nothing purchased especially for the project. The wool was left from my cloak and the linen is a remnant from a dress. When I make my next dagged hood, I will either leave the dags unlined and full the wool really well or go with a geometric shape like these. I cannot imagine lining leaf shapes!

A day off

I actually had a whole day off today and in addition to getting caught up on housework, I went to see Red Riding Hood with a friend from the College. It was just as cheesey and silly as we expected and we kept annoying the teenaged girls around us by laughing at the angst. (Which was fun in and of itself!) It was also fun to critique the costumes, which were very silly. The cloak that grew to epic proportions in the "vision" scenes was the best.

I also started some embroidery on Constanza's hood today. It was too plain for me without anything, so I'm using some new lambswool embroidery thread from Renaissance Dyeing and working something heraldic for her. I hope it turns out well.

Chestit Prolet!

Happy spring to everyone! I have not disappeared from the face of the earth. It's just that renovation planning/works at the new house and my job have eaten up every minute of my days (and sometimes nights) lately.

On the sewing front, I have made some progress on the new hood for Constanza. The dags are all lined and looking pretty. It needs a little more top-stitching, buttonholes, and buttons and it will be finished, so she should have it in time for Winchester Pilgrimage this year. I'll post some pictures when I get my computer back from being serviced. I'm also working on a dress for her, but it is on the back burner for now.

I've got to get through Easter, then things will slow down at work and I can get back to fun stuff on a more regular basis!

Mine!

The closing is over and I am now the proud owner of a nice little house in the village of Kocherinovo. Since I was on a roll, I went ahead and bought a car too. Go me! Now I'm set for driving back and forth to work on snowy roads - it's a Land Rover Freelander!

Closing!

Thursday, 9am! Woo hoo!!

Class update

The cordials class went well, despite a number of no-shows due to the local flu epidemic. Mixed berries and pears were the hands-down favorites for ingredients and the spiced pear cordial I brought as a sample was a big hit.

We'll be tasting the class's work in March at the Todorovden Revel in Bachevo. It will be the College's first overnight event and I am really looking forward to both the horse races during the day and the feast that evening.

A new time-sink

I am within days of closing on a new (to me) house in a neighboring village, so my posts are going to be pretty sporadic in the forseeable future. I've spent the last three weeks filling out a myriad of forms and signing things but the finish line is in sight. I visited the University bookstore today and got my first load of packing boxes. They won't be nearly enough, but even nested together they completely filled Plamen's car.

After closing, I'll have to wait for better weather to start the repairs before I more in (Mostly new windows and insulation). As it's currently -9 C, I can understand that standing on a scaffolding in the wind isn't a preferred job just now.

I did manage to bottle up 2 liters of pear cordial and another of plum today and start a new batch of blackberry on its way. I'm teaching a cordial and mead class at tomorrow's revel, so it seemed like a good thing to get on with today.