While I took Banjo for his walk (same route as yesterday, but minus any deer), David set about cleaning the kitchen. Mindful, probably, that the evening meal wasn’t going to happen if the surfaces on which to prepare food weren’t cleared, the cooking utensils scraped of left over food and we had crockery and cutlery to eat off. The contract is: I prepare and cook it, he clears up and washes the pots afterwards. In past years we have HAD to ‘eat out’ as there has been nowhere in the house suitable or hygienic enough to consider taking food out of the fridge or larder. This year has been quite different as all the work done has been outside and we have rarely ventured upstairs to scatter any constructional debri. And, he has mostly kept on top of the cleaning, even hoovering up kerlinka! I suspect this unusual and fastidious approach to cleanliness is having an adverse effect on his digestive system, unfamiliar with food not liberally laced with cement dust, sawdust and plaster, his alimentary canal has given up. Obviously deeming that food, which is no challenge to break down, is not worth the effort. After last weeks successful sorte into the Ruhre Valley, it looks like Bomber Command will soon be planning another mission.

It was another hot day and our work took us in a new direction. Last year, my last task on the last day was to fell one walnut tree and three plum trees. We had chopped up, logged and barrowed the walnut to the woodstore, but not the plums. This was our task for the day. Pulling the fallen trees from the undergrowth that now covered and strangled them was hardwork and required further cutting and lots of heaving. Eventually, after quite a few stops for a refreshing drink of brown stuff we had all three in the yard. Skipping lunch we set about chopping them into logs, the small branches went through the chop saw, but the larger, meatier ones went through the large professional log cutter in the barn. The sections of tree trunk were split by David’s impressive 8 tonne log splitter and then fed through the cutter. By sunset we were done and admiring a large pile of cut wood ready for the fire.

We had shower in preparation for tomorrows proposed outing to the mountains to see a mountain.

The evening meal was a fine dish of pasta with smoked sausage and two types of cheese (the only ones available in Bulgaria) cooked in a tomato sauce and tossed with apple cider. A side dish of fresh garden salad didn’t happen as last weeks frost put paid to that and the following desert also failed to appear as I don’t eat desert. Most of the pasta disappeared from the serving bowl and that which did not ended up in the dog.

The film that night was from the earlyn 90’s and very long, it must have been close to midnight before the pillow was pressed.