19 Jan 2008

The weather this week has improved marginally. Monday saw the temperature rise a little causing a slight thaw in my area and we had some rain. This seemed like a good omen until later on that night when it got cold again. This caused all the wet roads to freeze and become like glass. My guys were only able to free the works van at 10.30am on Tuesday morning. My van lives with my Foreman 'Jonny' in his village called Lesovo.

Lesovo is a large village in the south east of Bulgaria 4km from the Turkish border. It sits at a much higher elevation than most of the surrounding areas. This means it always has worse weather.

Once the van was freed attempts where made on the roads. These too where sheet ice and dangerous to drive on. I made the call not abandon work for the day which displeased my client. However, the safety of my employees always comes first and 'its not worth dying for' springs to mind.

By lunch time the ice had melted in most areas and the possibility of half a days work presented itself. Economically this didn't make sense for the client, so the guys will have to work Saturday to catch up.

Work in the apartment is going well, plastering, sanding, painting all at full swing. Monday finally saw the airconditing being installed. At long last the chill of the apartment can be taken off, the places can be aired and dried out. It also makes working at lot easier as paint and plaster dries out quicker. Oh, and not having to wear multiple hats and jumper helps.

So work was OK inside but not outside. The client brief was to build a retaining wall to lower the ground level at the rear of the property to attempt the reduce damp problems in the basement apartment. This was fine when it was cold. It can be dug out (slowly because its rock hard) and concrete can be poured (with admixtures and wrapping it up under 30cm of straw and plastic sheeting) but the thaw has been a major stress.

The ground has turned into the Somme. Not only all the melted snow and ice but water from the apartment block roof (which has no guttering) and all the airconditioners constantly dripping has made work impossible. 'Ascen' valiantly worked most of Wednesday and part of thursday before throwing in the towel. Even with full waterproofs, the constant dripping left him soaking wet. He has been sniffing, coughing and wheezing ever since.......

One of the interesting parts of the week was another visit to the Yambol municipal dump. This is 6 km outside of Yambol on the Sliven Road. I last visited here in early summer and it left a lasting impression. Try to imagine the end of the world and you are sort of close. In summer it was a post apocalypse wasteland, strewn with plastic and burning tires, inhabited by bands of children rooting through the rubbish to scratch a living and hards of pigs feeding on the waste of society. When i pulled up in my van i was chased by bands of children and when i stopped, they threw open the back doors and dived in, fighting and screaming over cardboard, plastic bottles and odds of metals. Thankfully i had two workers with me but they seemed as phased as i did. Anyhow, they dived out and beat pack the children to prevent any thievery of tools and other materials i had in the back as well as the rubbish. I found the entire thing really upsetting and it left me downcast for a couple of days afterwards.



Anyhow, back to now and a winter visit to the dump. It looked better than before. Mainly because all the rubbish was hidden under a blanket of snow and the pigs were not there. I later found out that it is against the law for them to be there, so they are only brought out at night. Think twice when you by cheap pork products, you may be eating part Yambol dump pig meat...

The main problem this time around was the tracks had turned to mush and driving was difficult. Our load of earth, rock and bricks was used in places to patch up the holes in the road. What however was highly amusing was having to rally drive an old Mercedes van in order to not get stuck. i believed i even managed to drift the back end of the van at one stage..

The rest of the week went smoothly and lots of work was completed on Saturday. things are looking good to complete all the internals on Monday but the externals will have to wait until the weather allows. When the apartment is completed you will be able to rent it at www.yambol-apartments-bg.com