Ganchovets Bulgaria

             The village my brother lives in is small it has a corner shop a train station (well a train platform) and that is about it, this is on the outskirts of Ganchovets a bigger town also with a train station- platform, Ganchovets has an ancient town square and a town hall shops restaurants and bars its getting more modernized every time i visit the first time i came here there was nowhere near as many good places to go for food and drinks, on previous visits i had to go to valiko tornovo if i wanted to go for a night out

               I woke late it was great to sleep longer than nine AM for only the second time in three month, I unloaded all my stuff out the car including the auld dear who was now placed in the woodstore poolside shelter (possibly retired!)
             

     I stripped off stuff that would suffer in a Bulgarian winter and asked Bryan if he could manage to get it oiled and sprayed at some point in someway to stop it getting damp, that was the auld dear and the old gear packed away, new brakes required a new back wheel also as the broken spoke had fell off and with the brakes being down to the metal the rim was well worn, at least a new back Tyre will be needed also the handlebar tape is needing renewed or done over, the handlebar secondary brake cables had rubbed a hole in my favorite bar bag! easy repaired though, the skip on my cycle helmet was broke I had to tape that up it will do as a spare out there, the bike seat was fine after its two layers of ductape but doesn't look good it would probably look fine with black tape, one day while cycling I felt the back panniers were squintly loaded and the bike didn't handle well on further inspection a holding nut and bolt was missing from the pannier rack, I repaired that with a nut and bolt I took off a cheap aldi mobile phone stem box that was a waste of cash, the frame is scratched but fine and she has a lovely new set of pedals! they are probably worth more than the bike now lol I have no idea at present what future lies for the auld dear, after our thousands of miles together she has done me well but her replacement has been built to my order bought and paid for - Kenny`s daunder is the future the auld dear is the past along with two cycle shirts shimano shoes and shorts plus a set of waterproofs the cheap panniers that I also had to repair a bit while on route all left, hand luggage only for the flight home had been booked

              my sister Karen and bro in law Allen have a house just along the street from Bryan but they were away back to Scotland, we went by their house and up to visit Bryan`s friends eve and Ian I love how their house still gets its water from an old well, we then went into town for dog food and had a few beers Bret and Ian joined us for a while and Bryan showed me round a few of the new places in ganchovet`s. I was impressed by the difference in the place, when i first went i am sure there was only three of four places you could sit down for a beer, now there was a posh looking hotel restaurant, a palystation bar with bean bags for the young team and one of the old places has had a revamp with late eating and drinking and a singer/guitarist setting the scene 
   

  the next day we set off at lunch time to the monastery which is nearby its also in a national park very touristic place even though its still a functioning monastery, I wasn't there for the religious stuff I was there to go up into the bat caves behind it, which were a great visit to get inside its four Bulgarian LEV roughly two pounds the currency is rising rapidly since my first visit to Bulgaria in 2010. loved my quick walk round these are big caves with a lit walkway the bats are small and hang high up you need to strain to see them I wish I had brought a set of binoculars, Bryan says the best time to visit here is spring when there is much more water and the frogs are singing
       

     Bryan had waited for me down at the restaurant as he had obviously been here before a few times,  he had said he would have a beer waiting for me coming back, but he had been distracted as he was wearing flip flops and by some freak of bad luck a wasp had stung him on the sole of his foot! apparently that`s a sore thing so I had a beer and a bowl of soup while he healed, the monastery and bat caves is growing all the time with tourists they will need to build a bigger visitors car park, i had been only to the restaurant previously Ian had bought me and Cameron dinner there but it was at night and i had no idea where we were that night,

        the caves get locked up at night and the monastery where the monks or friars go back to there monastic duties

            we dumped the car at the house then walked up to the office to await a lift into town, again we went round the bars of Ganchovets and had dinner in the the new hotel again, its handy there for the train platform, we still had to run for the train but made it the guard was helping two mountain bikers as its a bit of a hoist up onto the train for bikes, there is no platform machine for tickets the guard writes you one out by hand, which he done easily in our three to four mile train journey back to straight across from Karen and Al`s house

         I had bought a good bottle of whisky for Bryan in Scotland which i had carried on the back of the bike for weeks waiting to gift him it, I was thinking it would end up like the night i brought him whisky in Jordan and we tanned in our apartment talking about old times, he doesn't drink spirits in the house these days and we had plenty beer, we put on a film thou shalt not grow old followed by free solo and i fell asleep on his couch, the whisky was left untouched which was probably a wise thing! I should have thought it through as it was added weight to my cycle I really wasn't needing and a luxury I could possibly just as easily have bought once I arrived?