This has been one of the coldest weeks of my life that i have ever had to work in! I don't think the temperature got above freezing the entire week and i haven't seen the sun all week too!
The first trial this week was actually getting to work. I am currently working in Yambol and traveling from Elhovo. Monday was written off due to the roads being sheet ice. Sunday night had hail and rain and the roads just turned to glass.
The roads looked clear enough to travel on Tuesday. In fact the roads around Elhovo were in great condition. The snowplows had been out and they had been gritted and salted. This completely changed half way to Yambol when we entered a different municipality. The roads were appalling. There was thick ice covering all the roads (thick as in 5cm at least), the wind had blown the snow into ridges along the road creating kilometer after kilometer of treacherous sleeping policemen. The only thought that kept gong through my head was 'this is not worth dying for!'. Here is a little video to show you what i mean:
However, my foreman 'Jonny' had been a long distance lorry driver for a number of years and has a lot of experience driving on BG roads. Because i have never had to drive in these conditions in the UK (last time it snowed the UK and i was living there, i crashed my transit into a lamp post.....) and tell the truth, was slightly scared, i was more than happy to let Jonny drive.
The center of Yambol was just as bad as the roads leading to it. For a large city in Bulgaria i was very disappointed but the state of the roads. Thick ice everywhere and no signs of snowplows. For some reason all the traffic lights were not working as well. They just blinked amber and everyone had to rely on the signposts right of way info. My guys said this is normal in winter but at icy junctions, at 5 o'clock after working trying to get out takes ages and is quite scary again.
In fact the only snow plough i saw all week was one cleaning the new Technopolis car park. Glad to see my road tax money hard at work.....
Wednesday was again much the same weather, as was Thursday and Friday. Icy roads, freezing fog and driving everywhere really slowly. The most scary is driving at night. I have another video for you lucky people:
In the UK the country would grind to a halt. The trains wouldn't run, schools would be closed, pensioners would be freezing to death but life goes on here as normal. A great sign of the resilience of the Bulgarian people who have to live and work in extreme conditions.
The work in Yambol was for a friend of mine, Mr Phil Rose (check out his website www.ourbulgarianworld.com ). The bulk of the work was lowering the outside ground level at the back of a block of flats. Thankfully the when the work started the ground was not frozen due to a 40cm thick insulating blanket of snow. However, as the week went on the ground got harder and harder. This made digging the earth out hard on the men and machinery.
The weather has made all of this difficult. Getting metal from the merchants was slow because all the steel has frozen together and the cranes were having problems separating it. The water in the entire city was off on Friday making plastering and concreting impossible. The mini dumper truck that was hired to remove the excavated was couldn't get any grip to drive its bucket into the mounds of earth and many other time consuming things.
But work went on as usual and progress has been made. The guys worked in harsh conditions that most people would refuse to go outside in and the client is happy. Well, as happy as Phil can ever be!
Next weeks weather is expected to be much the same. Lets hope it doesn't get any worse because i don't like the idea of having to use snow chains everyday to get to work!
Jerico
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