19th November 2023

Late yesterday afternoon, the temperature dropped noticeably, and Mark, with a gleam in his eye and a tone of foreboding, declared that we would have snow overnight. We did not.

David and I eventually emerged from beneath the warm bedclothes at 9 a.m., relieved and rather pleased to find a cloudless, sunny morning greeting us.

After coffee and muesli, we turned our attention to the day’s tasks. I set about hacking back the rampant growth of once-treasured plants, which, after four years of unchecked freedom, had thrown themselves into a wild, jungle-like revelry. Meanwhile, David stayed indoors, dusting, cleaning, and hoovering away the small, lifeless insects that had met their end on every available surface.

Partway through the morning, Milen turned up. He wanted David to help carry a washing machine from his van into the house and assist with the plumbing. In the spirit of good neighbourliness, David obliged. Shortly afterwards, a large plate of excellent, warm, cheesy banitsa appeared in the kitchen, freshly made by Milen’s wife.

We saw little of each other during the day as we got on with our respective tasks, stopping only for coffee and the occasional call of nature. With much of the area in front of the house now cleared, I made a bonfire of the brambles and weeds that had invaded the garden, along with plenty of severe prunings, adding, no doubt, considerably to global warming.

After a late meal of cheesy omelette, Bulgarian sausage, and leftover banitsa, we settled in the lounge and watched two episodes of The Squid Game on Netflix. Though we had both seen the series before, we didn’t feel like watching anything that required any real concentration. The evenings are getting chilly, so we kept the wood burner well-fed with oak, cut from the old roof beams salvaged when the property was re-roofed five years ago. They burn beautifully and last far longer than wood from the local trees.

We ended the evening with a few music videos on YouTube by a remarkably talented young man from North Wales called Ren Gill. David thought I might like his music, and he was right. We watched The Tale of Jenny and Screech, a harrowing yet compelling blend of lyrics, music, and acting. As we explored more of his work, I concluded that he is an exceptionally gifted artist: he writes his own music, plays several instruments, produces his videos, choreographs them, and is very much a wordsmith. The subjects he tackles are often difficult and uncomfortable, yet he somehow holds the listener’s attention through his masterful use of language.

We took to our beds early, at 11 p.m.

20th November 2023

We didn’t wake until 9.40 a.m. The sun was already high in the sky, and the air was pleasantly warm. David opted to skip breakfast, but I wolfed down a large bowl of muesli before we headed outside to continue the garden clearance.

The morning was spent tackling a border thick with vicious brambles, followed by trimming a hedge of conifers that had grown so tall they were on their way to becoming full-fledged trees. We postponed burning the resulting debris until late afternoon, as David had managed to get the washing machine going and had thrown in a load of towels and tea towels, long-forgotten relics that had been languishing in drawers for the past four years.

We broke for lunch at 1 p.m., simple cheese and onion sandwiches, before returning to finish the hedge. By nightfall, we had thoroughly tamed it, reducing it to head height, and cleared the small quadrangle it enclosed of its choking tangle of brambles. The bonfire we had lit the previous day was still glowing and eager for more fuel, and we were happy to oblige, feeding it everything our hedge trimmer and loppers could conquer. It burned cheerfully all day, sending dense plumes of smoke into the cloudless sky and, when the breeze picked up, wafting it gently through the village.

Evenings in this remote, semi-derelict Bulgarian village are guaranteed to be peaceful. The only sounds are the distant howls of wild dogs and, now and again, the faint drone of an aircraft high above, heading eastward at 32,000 feet. Since my last visit, three new lampposts have been installed, though not on our stretch of lane, so the night sky remains gloriously unspoiled. The Milky Way is clearly visible, a hazy ribbon of light stretching from horizon to horizon.

David has a television but no aerial to receive terrestrial channels, so any entertainment depends on streaming and a reliable internet connection. Thankfully, the small device he brought from the UK, fitted with a Bulgarian SIM card, offers solid coverage throughout the upstairs rooms and is fast enough to stream Netflix and make video calls back to the UK.

As usual, we passed the evening chatting, feeding the wood burner, and enjoying a simple meal I cobbled together from our Sevlievo provisions and whatever I could unearth in the kitchen cupboards.

21st November 2023

We woke at 9 a.m. and were pleased to find the weather still in our favour;  it felt warmer than the previous day.

The morning began lazily. David had promised to take an elderly Bulgarian couple from the village to Dryanovo for some shopping, and he left at 10 a.m. While he was gone, I video-called Sue, then braved the heat and set about clearing some of yesterday’s mess in the garden. I had just finished by the time David returned, bringing with him another supply of cheesy banitsa for an easy lunch and, more importantly, two large bottles of beer. We’d run out of this vital nutrient a couple of days earlier and had sorely missed its comforting lubrication during our long evening chats.

Our main task for the day was to fell a huge tree by the side of the pool. When David first bought the place, the seller had assured him it would grow no taller than a couple of metres. I estimate it now stands at over twelve. It took a while to coax the chainsaw into action, but once it was running smoothly, we got to work tackling the now-not-so-young sapling.

We worked hard, cutting, dragging, and burning the branches, pausing only briefly for lunch. We toiled on until the light faded and we could see no more. Two large trunks remain standing, but they will have to wait until tomorrow.

Dinner was a pizza that David had picked up during his morning mercy run, accompanied by chips from the freezer. Afterwards, we watched a couple more episodes of The Squid Game before turning in for the night.

22nd November 2023

It was an 8 a.m. start today, and the weather forecast was less than encouraging, with showers expected throughout the day! Although it was spitting with rain as we began, it soon cleared, and the few showers that passed over us were light, never enough to force us indoors or interrupt our work.

Our first task of the morning was to bring down what remained of the monster tree that had been dominating the garden and pool area. After much discussion, and with the help of a guide rope, we carefully cut and dropped the last large side branch and the main trunk safely to the ground, thankfully avoiding the power cable, garden shed, and pool tiles.

Genya had requested that we leave part of the trunk intact so that it might regrow, so we obliged, leaving a 1.5-metre stump. With that done, we quickly stripped the remaining side branches and added them to our now three-day-old bonfire. The more substantial sections of the trunk were set aside to fuel the wood burner next year.

The tree appears to be a variety of willow, although it’s quite unlike any I’ve encountered before. Despite still being full of sap and leaves, it burns ferociously, flaring up like eucalyptus. Fortunately, no forest fires swept through this area over the past four years; this tree would’ve gone up like a torch.

With the tree felled and logged, we paused for a lunch of cheese and ham salad. The afternoon began by clearing the ground around the tree, then moving on to a large gravelled area nearby that had gone completely wild. All the debris was added to the bonfire before we turned our attention to a patch beside the house. This plot was thick with fruit bushes, cherry, gooseberry, and goji berries. The goji had sprawled over much of the ground in vine-like tendrils, but, thankfully, succumbed easily to the hedge trimmer.

As darkness fell, we gave the flames their final meal of the day and rewarded ourselves with a quiet beer. Sitting on plastic chairs in the woodstore, we chatted in the gloom, watching the smoke spiral upward into a rapidly thickening fog. Sensing it would be a chilly night, we eventually moved into the lounge and lit a fire.

We had seen and heard no one in the village all day, just the distant barking of a dog and the occasional squabble of some geese hidden in a neighbouring garden. If peace and quiet are what you seek, Ritya is the place to be.

23rd November 2023

An 8 a.m. start on a foggy morning. David and I have now been wearing the same work clothes for a week, and they reek of bonfire smoke. We don’t notice it while we’re busy chopping, dragging, and burning our way through the garden wilderness since we both smell like a barbecue, but putting on those clothes first thing in the morning is a pungent reminder.

Today, we tackled the plot between the house and the pool, a space filled with overgrown fruit trees and also the site of our bonfire. We strimmed and hacked our way around the bases of the trees, then used chainsaw and loppers to prune back the dead and overreaching branches into something resembling order.

By lunchtime, we were satisfied we had tamed the rampant flora, though we’d also built up a huge pile of wood. Unfortunately, the still air refused to fan the flames properly, so instead of blazing into ash, our bonfire sent up thick, choking columns of smoke that drifted lazily around the property.

We devoured our cheese and onion sandwiches, sadly without a vital cup of beer, having finished our supply the night before. Instead, we quenched our smoky thirst with coffee.

By mid-afternoon, the fog had lifted, and we moved on to a small alleyway beside the open barn where the jacuzzi lives. The path leads to a large wild field at the rear of the property. We also began emptying the pool by opening a valve in the pump pit, allowing the water to disappear down a pipe to somewhere unknown, and frankly, we don’t care. It will take several days to drain fully, and neither of us looks forward to discovering what lurks at the bottom of this murky, green pond. Four years of neglect is bound to hide some surprises!

Before the light failed, we made a start on the vegetable garden. Progress halted when David managed to cut through the hedge trimmer cable, prompting a well-earned break while he repaired the damage. Coffee in hand, we watched twilight slowly descend.

Later, we took a stroll around the village. We passed a Bulgarian couple, possibly renovating one of the dilapidated houses, who acknowledged us with a nod and a grunt as they got into their car and drove away. When I first visited Ritya, all but five of its homes were in an advanced state of decay, their owners either dead or having moved to the cities for work. But this evening’s walk was heartening, evidence of considerable renovation underway across many abandoned properties. EU membership seems to have brought prosperity to many Bulgarians and a renewed interest in rural homes. The future of Ritya looks promising.

The weather forecast warns of a sharp cold spell this weekend, so we’ll need to press on with all remaining outdoor work.