On Xmas morning I had my first good walk in the countryside. The snow that had been keeping me housebound had melted, leaving the landscape relatively dry but tired and bedraggled. With the temperature on the thermometer outside reading minus five degrees and a nacreous, almost white sky overhead, I set off into the wooded hills that enfold this end of the valley in an attractive amphitheatre-like arrangement. Cold air bit at my cheeks and my breath formed clouds before my eyes as I toiled upwards, winding around tree trunks and dodging slender oak saplings to which crinkled brown leaves miraculously adhered and fearsome rosehip coiled like barbed wire across the uneven leaf-strewn ground. After ten minutes or so I came to a ridge where smooth round boulders lay beneath caps of shaggy green moss, which looked surprisingly vivid amidst the washed-out greys and golds and russets of the forest.
Dropping down off the ridge I entered a lonely, primeval world. All around me stood enormous beech trees, their smooth, grey, astonishingly straight trunks soaring to dizzying heights before opening canopies of leafless branches which, intermeshing, all but blocked out the sky. There was no wind and a breathless stillness reigned among the trees, which awed me slightly as I followed an opening between them that led steadily upwards into crowded blue-shadowed heights. Here and there, prone on the ground, lay enormous trees that storms had, quite literally, uprooted. Then the ground levelled out suddenly and I found myself skirting a narrow creek which, winding down from above, unfurled between steep embankments of rich black earth littered with fallen branches.
Soon I turned away from the creek and began climbing again, the way showing itself as not quite a track but rather a barely perceptible unfolding among the trees, a hint rather than the complete message. It was good enough and I ascended swiftly past more mossy boulders, a sombre emerald colour in the gloaming light, and some massive oaks standing in a cluster where the ridge resumed. Somewhere far off a bird suddenly shrieked, the sound harsh and alarming somehow in the otherworldly stillness. Apart from the thud of my boot soles on the leaves, it was the only sound I had heard all morning.
The way continued to climb and gradually I began to feel disorientated, uncertain of my position in relation to the cottage. Unfazed, I went with it, enjoying the sensation of being slightly lost, and in general feeling quite elated by my situation. Here I am, I thought, on a cold Xmas morning, wandering all alone in the middle of a brooding Bulgarian wilderness. It really did feel rather special.
I was enjoying myself so much that I didn’t want the experience to end. This was somewhat awkward because at some point that day I was required to fulfil a number of social engagements arranged by my new friends who, in the manner of Bulgarians, seemed determined to kill me with kindness. The day he drove me up here Radoslav, my landlord, had invited me to celebrate Xmas with him and his family at his mother’s house in the neighbouring village of Radilovo. Then yesterday evening, returning late from Dobra Voda, I bumped into Lazar doing something mysterious in the woods and he invited me to celebrate Xmas with him and Jana. At least I think that’s what he was saying, although the only words I could understand were ‘skara’, ‘grill’, ‘vino’, ‘wine’ and ‘rakija’, or ‘raki’. He also had that louche grin on his face, which I’m slowly learning means he’s got something vaguely disreputable in mind.
At some stage, too, I had to confront the issue of the chimney. A few days ago this infernal metal pipe which spans the living room, reaching just beneath the ceiling from the woodstove on one side to the outlet in the wall on the other, began emitting smoke from its joints and ugly black tar. It took me awhile to work out what was going on, because although I’d had a woodstove in Greece with exactly the same sort of chimney, I’d never seen anything so curiously odd happen before.
Once I’d identified the leaks I placed a couple of jars on the floor to catch the fallout. This fixed the immediate problem but that night the situation escalated alarmingly with the leaks proliferating from one end of the chimney to the other, including above the stove itself. From the latter the tar dripped straight onto the hotplate, landing with an angry hiss and forming little black mounds from which trickled upwards evil tendrils of ill-smelling smoke. The upshot was that in no time at all the room filled with clouds of noxious grey smog, leaving me, perched at my table, as comprehensively embowered as the oracle at Delphi.
I must admit I’d had a few wines by then so was slow to grasp the serious nature of the situation. Consequently I initially failed to notice the spitting tar staining the walls and dripping onto the floor where it burned a series of unsightly holes in the tiles. When at last this did come to my attention I raced outside into the annex beside the house, where, by the flimsy light of the headtorch with which Radoslav had provided me, I gathered up an armful of dusty jars and battered coffee tins from the masses of junk assembled there. Back inside I placed these receptacles at strategic intervals on the floor, underneath the leaks, then took a mop and bucket and hastily cleaned away the puddles of horrid brown goo. Sadly, there was nothing I could do about the hotplate, on which the falling tar continued to merrily hiss and smoke.
As I performed these tasks I congratulated myself on the fact that the previous day the water had at last unfrozen itself in the pipes. Not only that, but I also had a decent stock of wine, including a couple of good bottles of mavrud from the town of Asenovgrad, that I’d bought especially for Xmas. It really is true what people say, to the effect that, even in the direst moments, things can always be worse. There’s also a lot to be said for maintaining a positive outlook, much like the Greek hoplite of yore who, upon being told before going into battle that the enemy was so numerous that their arrows would block the sun from the sky, calmly remarked that they should be grateful for this because it meant they could fight in the shade.
Not that I was feeling too upbeat yesterday when I emailed Radoslav to tell him what had happened, being tired and cranky from lack of sleep and smelling strongly of smoke. My landlord, however, far from being alarmed by the news, seemed remarkably sanguine, which made me wonder whether minor disasters like this occurred in his life all the time. According to him the leaks were due to condensation forming in the chimney due to a change in atmospheric pressure, which was caused in turn by the stove heating up and then cooling down again. The answer, he said, was simple: all I had to do was keep the stove burning around the clock.
His explanation sounded a bit far-fetched to me, while keeping the stove going 24/7 was more easily said than done, but I nonetheless agreed to give it a try. This morning, accordingly, I got up twice in the early hours and threw more wood on the fire, but only succeeded in filling the house with smoke, almost asphyxiating myself in the process. Somewhat discouraged by this result, I let the fire burn itself out and didn’t even think of relighting it this morning, knowing what would happen and feeling strongly disinclined to have to deal with more drama. It was, after all, Xmas morning, a time of gifts, even if only to oneself. Thus I resolved to wait for Radoslav who was due to arrive later that afternoon and would, I hoped, when faced with the stark reality of the problem, offer some kind of solution. In the meantime I would go for a walk.
This eventually led, after many a twist and turn, to a scooped out hollow of ground where a quartet of horses stood idly grazing. A big, heavy bronze bell clanked as one of the animals, an enormous grey, raised his large and noble head and fixed me with an imperious glare. I in turn gazed back at him, rooted to the spot in surprise and wonder.
Indeed the unexpected nature of the encounter endowed it with the aura of a blessing from the gods who oversee such things, ensuring that, when I finally turned for home, I was fairly humming with gratitude.
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