The village is a small hamlet on one of the ridges of Sredna Gora Mountain, with no sewerage system and no proper road, a few houses, most of them old and made of sun-dried bricks, nearest shop 2 km away, less than ten permanent residents, drinking water from a well in the woods, electricity that often stops. The beauty of the hamlet is incredible; there is a forest of century-old oak and beech trees around it, which look like huge trolls. The nature has remained intact because the place is of no interest to tourists.

In the month of June we pick wild strawberries, thyme, St. John’s wort, wild mint – these are the herbs that we know so far. Twice a week we go to the main village, which the locals call Cherkovna, to buy bread and for the kids to have some ice-cream from the shop, which is also a pub, a fruit and vegetable market and a grocery store all at the same time. The locals are of short stature and appear quite like hobbits because of the old half-destroyed mud houses they live in, the names of the neighborhoods – Shiroki Rat, Gorubiyte, Parandovtsi, Barata and because of the family names, with which they still refer to each other – Motiovtsi, Totovtsi, Tashovtsi…

This is the place where my family of six – three kids and a dog, has been spending each summer for the past two years and where we live outside of the city between two and three months every year. For now. The other thing, which we are known for and which makes us intriguing to people around here is that we are building our house on our own. We are making big plans for the future that include moving out and having a permanent life in the countryside. 

But this is how a very looong day in the countryside goes by. 

8-9 AM.

Getting up. The two young kids, my husband and I sleep in one room with an old wood-burning stove in the middle. The house was built around 200 years ago from sun-dried bricks. We get woken up by the whispers and giggling of the kids who are instructed not to wake us up, but they always do. We are a little bit angry and for this reason we snap at them to get up, get dressed and go out. 

The wooden door creeks a little and the kids continue their quarrel outside, but we still hear everything and after a few stretches we have crawled out of the hut. As angry as you may be at the early awakening, an incredibly beautiful and fresh morning awaits you outside. Usually I take my coffee and hide in my little vegetable garden with a view of the mountains, so that I can have some private time. I love watching the bees with their wonderful plush bodies and their hanging back legs, which briskly open the blossoms of the cucumbers and tomatoes and slip inside. I learned to walk barefoot early in the morning because it is the safest then – there are no snakes, the dew washes and freshens up my village feet, the grass is a fluffy carpet. I make breakfast for the children.

10 am-12 pm. 

My husband and I work on the new house or as we call it – the site. At the moment we are in the process of making the walls airtight. The kids play with other children or on their own – usually they dig holes, construct wooden cupboards, make workshops, climb trees, go to the forest for firewood and then cut, gather and paint little stones, pick fruit, often they come to the site, so that they can complain about one another, tell us something or simply observe us with curiosity.

During one of our brakes I put the small pot on the stove and cook some made-up dishes with the products that I have – a few red peppers, some potatoes, a zucchini, onion, then peas and tomatoes, paprika and salt, at the end I pick a bit of pennyroyal and parsley and it turns out delicious.

12-2 pm.

Lunch is in the shade under the old plum-tree. Always long, with a cold drink and home-made wild plum juice. Then there is the afternoon nap with the kids in the cool house with book reading.

5-8 pm. 

I water the vegetables, give dictation exercises to the kids, shower them with sunny water, warmed up in beer bottles in the sun, I write, read, write, take pictures, fill up water from the well, browse the internet if I manage to get a connection. We meet those arriving from Sofia with the village bus at 8 PM. We light a fire and cook dinner. Some nights we play a movie for the children on my computer. 

10 pm.

Crickets, stars, fire, silence. Reading a book, the kids go out in their pajamas to pee in the dark yard.

One day in the countryside accommodates a whole lot of dynamics – in our relations to each other – from hugs to quarrels, being cross with each other, times of solitude, as well as with respect to the things that we manage to do – eat, communicate, build, take walks, swim in the river, light fires, water the vegetables, prepare winter supplies, learn something new about the nature around us or from the people around us. 

One day in the countryside is like a whole week in the city – somehow one dissolves into the everyday natural order of the work they do. And one does this work just because one has nothing else to do and discovers how well one feels about this. The village also has its traps for townsfolk – one of them is that it is somehow difficult to defend your private life and territory. In some mysterious way everyone knows everything about everyone here. It is difficult to keep one’s clothes and shoes clean. Numerous bites and scratches are born.

I miss the city sometimes in those months – friends, restaurants, ice-cream, the cinema, streets, scents, being anonymous – but when I go home I’m still in a hurry to catch the bus back. There are no ideal places, there are no recipes and models. I love the countryside because here I try and do things which the city takes away and considers pointless –making yogurt, sewing pillows, planting, hammering a nail, pouring myself water from the well, being alone in the forest, being with my family all day long, getting bored.