Bulgaria with Noodles

Oh dear! Old age has been creeping up on me. I am not very keen on the idea of being 67. It was bad enough being 66. A good belated birthday present would be some comments on my blog, but I never seem to get them.   The good news is that my dear wife cooked an excellent birthday breakfast for me, with plenty our own homegrown asparagus and Irena's yummy homemade mayonnaise. (Yes, and in case you were wondering, I cannot help feeling smug whenever I see the price of a small bundle of asparagus in the supermarket.)   We were in VT for a few days, staying in our apartment. I went to see Adrian a couple of times and we took his lovely doggie, Sisi, for a long walk. In fact, we almost got as far as Arbanassi, as my dear wife assured me that she knew the way. She didn't. I also had the car serviced and the garage managed to find a replacement for one of the wheel nuts. As we were in VT for a few days, I have an excuse for including some more photos of this quirky, photogenic ci...

Yes, it's confession time.This post is really just an excuse for lots of old photos from my five years at Green Oasis School. Why are Chinese children so completely sweet and adorable? Well, most of them were, most of the time.  Even when one or two of the students at GOS were a little bit naughty, the parents and the school's administration were very firm and supportive. Another probable reason why GOS was such a positive place was that many Chinese schools have a reputation for being absolutely dreadful and unhappy places, so the children loved being at a happy school where the teachers wanted to be friendly and make learning fun. When I was at Lord Wandsworth College, more years ago than I care to remember, most of my lessons were staggeringly dull, uninteresting and predictable. At GOS, I really tried hard to make my lessons "hands on", fun and different. Practical Science lessons are a headache for teachers, but the students love them and, even more importantly, ...

Happy Easter! Christos vaskres! Yes, when I started writing this, it was Easter Sunday, the most important day in the Christian Church’s calendar. But which church? Normally Irena and I go to the evangelical church in Veliko Tarnovo. The services are all in Bulgarian, of course, but it is good to be with other Christians. I was not brought up as a Christian. I don’t remember my mother or Eric, my step-father, ever encouraging me to pray or to read the Bible. I hated going to church at my public school, Lord Wandsworth College, and it was at Oxford that I become a Christian. Although I originally signed up for Classics, I changed to Theology. So what about our new Archbishop of Canterbury? It is now a few days after Easter. There have been a few pieces in the newspapers and on TV about the new Archbishop. Half of me says, “Hooray! Yes, why not? It is about time we had a lady in Canterbury. After all, we have female airline pilots, lawyers, plumbers, mechanics, soldiers, etc.” I am ...

The other day I was surprised (and very pleased) to hear from Yehia Ayman Saleh, one of my Year 5 students from The British School of Al Rehab. This school is a few miles out from the centre of Cairo, on the Suez Road. Yehia sent me a voice recording and I have transcribed it. Hearing Yehia's voice brought back some happy memories of our two years in the Land of the Nile, so I am going to include a few old photos. Mr Hill, hello! This is Yehia. I used to be your student at the British School of Al Rehab in Cairo, some twenty-three or twenty-something years ago, in Year 5! I don’t know if you remember me, but I definitely remember you and I am so happy to have found you on Facebook. I have been looking for you for many, many, many years. I had asked also Mr. Cann about you and I am so happy to know that you are doing well that enjoying your life in Bulgaria with your wife and that you are having a good time. Again, I don’t know if you remember me, but I remember you very well and my...

Well, I finally go to meet Josh and Heidi, two Canadians who are hoping to buy a property in Bulgaria. We first met on Monday evening at "Bianco" in VT and then they came to have coffee with us at Daveri, followed by lunch at the "cheap and cheerful" mehana in Elena. I hope that things work out for them. They want to buy a "renovation project" and that might mean rather a lot of extra expense and hassle for all of the DIY work. In case you have not guessed, the series of posts called Canada Calling was a long chat I had with Josh over the Internet.  I thought that my comments might help anyone else who is thinking of re-locating to Bulgaria. Why does no one ever comment on my blog? We just went to Daveri for the day on Wednesday, in order to drop of some of my dear wife's rather large collection of house plants. Today, Saturday, we made the all-in move and, as usual, I was amazed at the huge collection of stuff that Irena had decided we must move from...

Looking forward to meeting you guys and checking out Elena for that leg of the trip. It's probably a lot more expensive though, so it might not actually be beneficial in the long run to have house or car insure through an EU wide company. My car is really old, second-hand and not worth much money, so I have fairly cheap insurance. We will probably be going for an older, small off-road capable vehicle there, like a Suzuki, for easy and cheap repairs.  Well, these are matters that you will need to discuss with your Bulgarian friends and neighbours. For example, some expats pay for a security company to protect their property. Yes, you can do this and it will cost you about 300 euros each year. Maybe it is worth it for the peace of mind. Indeed. That's not very expensive. There is no point in getting expensive car insurance for a really cheap car! Totally! As long as you are well covered for liability, you don't need amazing coverage for the vehicle itself. We had a ...