Posts

Unhappy Anniversay

Image
Lunch with the in-laws I am not quite sure why I married a Russian lady. It was just one of those things that happened. I remember reading War and Peace when I was about 12. At Oxford, in my final year, I lived in the House of St Gregory and St Macrina and there was a sprinkling of Russian Orthodox.  It was a few years ago, the summer of 2018, when I was last in the Crimea. After we left China, Irena said that I must go and see all of my in-laws and I said okay. When will I see them again? It has been more than four years since Irena saw any of her family and no one knows when this war with Ukraine will come to an end. Yes, she can talk to them over the Internet, but maybe for not much longer. The Russian government is trying to promote Max, their homegrown alternative to Skype, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. In Simferopol, with Yevgenny, my brother-in-law My wife and I do not talk about politics. There is absolutely no point in discussing “the special military operation”. Ire...
Post a Comment
Read more

Canada Calling Part 2

Image
Yes, you could go to a nice village and speak to the kermit (assuming that he or she speaks English) and ask, "Are there any properties for sale in your municipality?" The kermit might know some, but finding the kermit is not always easy. Different properties might be for sale through different agents, so you will have lots of different headches. (Some people spell it "khmet", not kermit, and he probably does not have a girl-friend called Miss Piggy.) Don't get me wrong. Some estate agents in Bulgaria are AWFUL. We have bought three different properties, so we have seen the good, the bad and the ugly. Yeah, I know there's a lot of variance in the quality of agents. The biggest issue I've found is that, when you need to buy a lower priced house in particular, I really have no choice but to look at properties from multiple agencies to have enough options to work with. We need to find our forever home, not just one of multiple properties we will own. Un...
Post a Comment
Read more

Canada Calling Part 1

Image
Quite a lot of people contact me, as they are interested in buying a property and moving to Bulgaria. Here is part of a long chat I had with James, from British Columbia. My comments are in italics, as usual. Alas, I cannot take the credit for the photos. I found these lovely photos of VT on the Internet and I thought that I must include them somewhere in my blog. Maybe you have done quite a lot of research about Bulgaria, but even if you I have would definitely recommend Susan Ashwell's lovely BG-related YouTube videos, "Escape to a simpler place and time". The Yantra Homes property website should give you a good idea of what sort of properties are available and how much you might pay for them. give you a good idea of what sort of properties are available and how much you might pay for them. Oh yes, I watch her videos. I have also exchanged emails with her and I will likely be using Jeff's services for surveying potential properties! And yes, I have done a lot of ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Grave Questions

Image
On Friday afternoon, Irena and I went to a funeral. It was in the huge cemetery, on the edge of VT. The funeral was for the father of Ivelina, a friend of ours. We did not know the father well, but we felt that we had to go along and support Ivelina, her husband John and her daughter, Lizzie. The experience was pretty gruesome, rather scary and disturbing, to say the least.  For a start, the cemetery is vast, such a large area covered by graves and stone memorials. Bulgarian coffins are usually open, so you can see the face of the dead person. The service, all in Bulgarian, did not take very long and then we came up to the coffin and placed flowers inside, next to the corpse. Next we all walked behind the hearse to the grave. There was a big pile of earth and two beams across the grave, with the coffin on top. Then the gravediggers took away the beams and lowered the coffin with two ropes. We all walked up to the grave and threw in a lump of earth. My lump of earth made a hollow th...
Post a Comment
Read more

17th July, 2005

Image
I have been trying to sort out Irena's S1. If you are retired and you have a UK passport, then you can apply for the National Health Service in the UK to pay for your state medical insurance in Bulgaria. In order to do this, you have to get a document called the S1. However, in order to get one for my dear wife, the NHS wants to know when we left the UK.  It was a long time ago. Fortunately I managed to find the exact date on some photos we took of our epic journey from the UK to Bulgaria. Yes, we were a lot younger then and perhaps even more foolish. Here is a photo of Peter, Irena and I departing from "Deande", the bungalow we were living in while I was teaching near Newbury.  
Post a Comment
Read more

A Very Boring VT

Image
Yesterday I went for a rather boring walk around Tsaravets. (No, I do not think that Peter has done this walk.) Well, it was beautifully sunny and it was good to see all of the VT Walkers again, but I don’t really like “road walks” and I could not let Tina off the lead.  I am going to include some more VT photos in this post. They are rather lovely photos but no, I cannot take the credit for them. Any other news? It will be Irena’s birthday on 2nd March and after that I am hoping that we will be going to Daveri sooner rather than later. VT is getting rather boring. Is Trump deliberately trying to wreck NATO, perhaps on Putin’s orders? On the other hand, maybe he is just a ****ing idiot. Yes, the ICE agents in Minneapolis have shot someone else. I am sure that there will be a third and a fourth person shot dead, before too long. ICE really are pretty blooming awful. Some Americans have suggested that the ICE thing in Minnesota has really little or nothing to do with illegal imm...
Post a Comment
Read more

Marmalade (again)

Image
I thought that perhaps you might like a few wintry photos from Veliko Tarnovo. It has been very, very cold the last few days. Not a huge lot of snow, but it has all looked very pretty and white and Christmassy, but it certainly has been cold!  T he river has partly frozen over, next to the suspension bridge. It was minus nine when I took Tina for her walk before breakfast. She was not bothered by the cold because she is so fat! She is a naughty little doggie and usually she sneaks into our bed at four in the morning. We have been very busy with marmalade-making, as you may have guessed from some of the photos. It is rather and long and laborious process, as first you have to wash all of the lids, the jars and oranges. Then you have to peel all of the ginger (yes, we do put in quite a lot of ginger) and then you have to “top and tail” the oranges, cutting off the tops and bottoms and then chopping them all into quarters. Next comes the mincing and I usually get given that job. After...
Post a Comment
Read more