Our last day on the build

This will be the last post here now until next year, but if you have any questions feel free to comment and we will reply to you.
It's Tuesday now and we only have one day left on the build, it wasn't planned that way but these things happen.
We where up this morning at 6am and within 30 minutes on our way to Sofia, we had arranged to meet Maria and go through all the paperwork to close down our company and transfer the property in it into our own names.
The property in question is an old village house at the very back of Drenov village in the Lovech region.
It is a regulated plot of land with water, electricity and its own well, upon the 2000sqm of land is a house and a barn which both need rebuilding.
Drenov village is in a nice location and the plot has views of the Balkan Range.
We purchased this in 2006 and have only been back twice to see what condition it is in.
Anyway we arrived in Sofia at about 8.30am and found somewhere to park the car just off the green zone in a side street near Eagles Bridge, our appointment was in fact 10am but its better to arrive in Sofia early and park because the traffic wardens are like vultures within the green and blue zone.
On a positive note it was cool but a nice morning and the coffee shops where calling us.
Arriving dead on 10am we met Maria and waited for our appointment with the solicitor in Sofia.
Its quite a process dissolving a company ( you don't need one now, but used to have one to own land) especially when you haven't got the company stamp or the original title deeds with you.
There are lots of pieces of paper and every one needs signing at least twice which is OK for Sally as she is ultra consistent, whereas I change my signature every time.
Once back at the office we instructed the estate agent to start digging into the possibility of buying our neighbouring property as it is empty now and the porch has cracked and is starting to fall down, but that doesn't scare me and it has about 1000 metres of land.
We will only have to remove the fence to have ourselves a nice little complex that in total will sleep eight people in comfort.

Only a small house needs knocking down

has possibilities

The house is only small and will require to be demolished and the barn if it even has permission for residency will only become bedrooms without any bathrooms in the building, also it has a limited view because it is behind our barn, but if it is combined with ours will makes it a viable plot.
Once we had completed our business we decided to grab another coffee and head back to Lovech with the intention of making a call at Drenov to see what's changed.
We stuck to our plan and when we visited our house in Drenov we were met by the neighbours who are quite inquisitive but also very friendly.
It's hard now to actually see the barn for small trees and the house although still standing is getting slowly reclaimed by mother nature.
I had a chat with Hristo though last night and we will spend one day next year with a chainsaw and rediscover the barn and house. This will still make a nice property with a courtyard style front garden.
Fast forward through a nice meal at the hotel and a good breakfast and you will find us back on site
in our wellies and overalls, its our last day on the build till May 2107.
Sally busies herself tidying the house and doing womany things whilst I start to get the barn floor dug out with Bobby and fill in the holes left by the tree removal process.
Before this I take five minutes out to have a look at my barn find a 1971 chainsaw, proper old school boy toy.

We start digging and take the floor level down as much as we can in the time allowed and its hard work. The holes slowly get filled in and the first fire pit is raked away.

fire pit gone tree holes filled in 

We have saved any nice barrels or whatever and secured them in our barn, all of the tools have been removed from sight and safely stored with our friend Hristo.

Goodies we want to keep but have no real value

We receive news that the owner of our neighbouring property has now been located but the paperwork is a problem. Discussions are now underway and time will tell what happens next, the estate agents contact turned out to be one of our good friends in the village.
You can't leave without saying goodbye and we had some small thank you gifts for our neighbours for the help they had given us but this only resulted in  us receiving gifts from our neighbours none of which we can take home in hand luggage.

How the animal store used to look

How it looks now

Ready for its new floor this will be a bedroom.

Bobby and I finish the "dig dig dig"

 This is how we leave our project, I have made loose plans to get a JCB for next time and our friend Hristo is going to locate a firm for ready mix concrete.
We spent some time today to visit Aprilitsi in the mountains and now we are sat on a balcony in the old capital Veliko Tarnovo with a bottle of wine.
We have had a rather liquid lunch and are planning on a meal in our favourite cliff-top restaurant.
We will spend all day tomorrow here in Tarnovo and be up bright and early on Saturday to return to the UK.
Leaving just our wellies and a little piece of our hearts here in Bulgaria.

Ciao for now.