Bulgaria with Noodles

Yes, we are now back in Veliko Tarnovo and we will be staying here until March. (I am hoping that it will be the beginning of March, but my dear lady wife seems to think that we ought to go back to Daveri at the end of March. Hmm.) Being back in VT means that on Wednesday mornings we can go for walks with the VT Walkers, a group of old drinkers with a walking problem. We had quite a long and tiring walk in the woods above Gorna Oryhavotisa (have I spelled that correctly?), stopped at the gazebo for a cup of tea and a piece of cake, and then we had lunch together at a rather nice mehana.

On Saturday it was our 30 th wedding anniversary and it was also the Elenski But Festival. Just in case you did not know, Elenski But is salt cured pork leg from Elena. It is a local and national delicacy. Elena is quite a small town, much smaller than Veliko Tarnovo, and it was exciting to see the place so full of people. The Bulgarians do love their piece of pork. Anyway, we went into Elena and saw what was going on. Yes, a bit touristy and traditional at the same time. It was very noisy and crowded, but a lot of fun. The Elenski But Festival probably was not an enjoyable experience for vegetarians and piglovers, but we liked it.  

The good news is that this will, most probably, be the last Gardening Bore of 2025. The bad news is that it was a rather warm day (what the Bulgarians call "a gypsy summer" day) and so I took off my shirt while I was doing the weeding. Although my American readers will no doubt be used to wide open spaces, some of my other readers will not be pleased with the sight of my huge tummy! Unfortunately the soil in our garden is mostly clay and that does not make gardening a pure pleasure. It's awful soil when it's wet: heavy, sticky and blooming hard work. When the weather is dry, the soil is even worse and does a very good impersonation of concrete. Tina, that pampered Plovid pooch, was not really interested in helping me with the digging. She is a lazy and fat little dog. As well as removing the weeds, my dear wife also wanted the soil turning over and loosening, ready for planting in the spring. As well as weeding, I have also been quite busy with the leaves, collecting ...

No, I am not a big fan of The Daily Mail . It was quite enjoyable, seeing one's name in print, but it would have been even more enjoyable if they had actually paid me for my journalistic services. Well, all I really did was to chat with a journalist over the Internet and then she turned my comments into a finished article. Recently I saw this piece about Bulgaria in - yes, you guessed it - The Daily Mail . Christine and Eric Thompson are not quite so positive about their BG experience. I am including a few photos of their Bulgarian house that they are trying to sell for 240,000 euros.   They were sold the idea of a dream life in Bulgaria, with low prices and friendly locals, but after nin e years they say the reality is quite different. Speaking to the Daily Mail , Eric, 70, said, "It's certainly a slower pace of life and the weather is well over 30C. But the people are a different story. Even in the beautiful weather, they have faces like it's a wet Sunday. People say...

Recently I have been watching some of the YouTube videos for The Phoenix Project .  One of Peter's photos - the view from the end of the garden Yes, estate agents (or realtors , if you are an American) in Bulgaria can be a pain. One little problem is that in Bulgaria there are quite a few property owners who sign agreements with estate agents, so that the only way you can buy that property is through that particular agent. This means that often you must deal with that agent, however bad you might think they might be, if you want to buy that property.  Yes, some estate agents in Bulgaria are a bit incompetent, lazy and unhelpful, rather like their cousins in the UK, but at the end of the day it is your decision whether or not to buy this or that property. No one is forcing you to use the services of this or that estate agent. In Bulgaria, some agents will help you to arrange for the electricity and water bills to be sent to you, the new owners, and maybe sort out one or two oth...

Some experts now think that the Ukrainians have destroyed as much as 40% of Russia oil production. Someone once described Russia as “a petrol station pretending to be a country”, so I reckon that the Russian economy (and the Russian army) are in serious trouble. Western weapons are helping the Ukrainians to kill an awful lot of Russian soldiers. According to some YouTube videos I have watched, the Russian army is running out of tanks and has to salvage old tanks from the Soviet era, some of which are forty or even fifty years old! So when is the war going to end? When can Irena go home? Next month? Next year? Is it really possible that the Israeli army and airforce have stopped bashing the **** out of Gaza? Is there really going to be peace? Well, so far it looks quite promising and the hostages have been released, as well as thousands of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. The really good news is that the Nobel Peace Prize committee has decided NOT to give the prize to Donald Tr...