Well guess Being in Bulgaria I now belong in this section
 

Greetings all ................... from Bulgaria currently in the city of Ruse. Not sure city living is for us though and once we get transport will see what some of the smaller towns and villages are like and what is available property wise to buy.

Have a seen a few Rovers here 400's, 45's a 25 and I believe a 600 then Sunday saw my first 75 here.

So you changed your mind about France then ??

It was changed for us.............................. the French it seems do not want us poor Brits. WE tried to rent a house but of course the UK state pension is not enough to allow one to rent there. You need to prove 3x monthly rent in income. The French pension does this easily it seems but despite the Guberment in the UK saying how well off pensioners are the lowly UK state pension is less than 1/3 the French one.

Our idea was to rent while we explore and search for the area we like and then the place to buy. The other issue was being told to keep the dogs in the shed, garage or garden NOT in the house.

So we said no thanks to the French and France :devil: and have rented a house here no problems and we start our search for the place for us hopefully next week.

As I don't speak French and wold have to learn the fact that I don't speak Bulgarian is not really an issue as instead of French I will begin learning Bulgarian ........................ well try to at least.

We now have an English speaking Lawyer who is assisting us with forms and red tape stuff and made contact with several English speaking real estate agents. Our Bulgarian bank even has English speaking staff to help with our activities there.

Well spotted that Pale Blue 2.0 V6 Rover 75 again in the same spot. Also found a green 1.8 Rover 75 in the next street but cannot upload the photos from the puter for some reason.

Hmmm well that will have to wait until we move to teh new house and get the internet all set up there. Am on a temp pre paid contract using WiFi ATM.

Well things are certainly different that's for sure. As we moved into our own house and not a rented one now and it's in a different district even though our photo ID cards were new we have to change them but it's not just a change of address on the card Oh no you have t go through the whole application process again and as it's a different city and staf they have different ideas on how it works. However it's done now for 5 years.

Now buying a car is a whole differnt ball game as without ID (photo card) you cannot register it in your name and it means a trip to the notary for the sale contract which means fees and taxes then you ahve two weeks to regsiter it in your name which means a visit to the KAT offices....................... more fees and taxes. On paper at least I now own a RHD Nissan X Trail Sport 2.2 CDI.

The barn conversion work has thrown up some problems that are upping the cost to get around them. The floor in the main barn is down just over 200mm of reinforce concrete over most of it and 300mm where the lift/ramp will be bolted down. Due to the stone walls leaning a concrete ring beam is being installed with steel and concrete skeleton to stop the walls leaning any further and keep them standing with the weight of the new roof on top of them. The open sided barn in front has been stripped down to the main stone wall and the roof and wood support posts removed ready to break up andremove the rather thin poor concrete base it has ready for a new proper concrete floor the roof will be supported on new steel square tubular posts with steel I beams connecting those this will support the wooden roof structure. in all there is 220m2 of new roof going up.

Hopefully once this is all done life will be less crazy and less hectic and we can relax a bit. The weather is quite mild with temps up in the mid teens durign the day we ahve had a few light frosts and a bit of rain and fog but nothing to write home about. This mornign is a bit grey but it might brighten up as the day goes on.