A Letter to Markoi

Back in BG, along the street from our apartment in Patriarch Evtimy
Dear Markoi,
I am writing to you again, hoping that this time you will give me some photos of the memorial service, if you have any. And please, do you have any RTD photos? As you probably know, I put my eulogy onto my blog, as nearly everything I write goes onto my blog sooner or later, and so I wanted to include some photos of Roger. Well, if you have not got any, then that is okay, but please let me know, one way or another. 
The London Water Closet, aka LWC
I had a rummage around on the Sternian website, but alas I did not find many photos of the dinosaurus pinguior. The one of Robin Craig is quite good.

A bridge over non-troubled water in Veliko Tarnovo
It was strange, being back in the UK after so long and in fact it was the first time ever that I had been back to Lord Wandsworth College (LWC) since my departure, back in 1977 or maybe it was 1978. So much has changed! The whole school seems to have re-developed, with a massive building spree. On the day of Roger’s memorial service, there were lots of pretty girls running around hockey pitches in short skirts. That would never have happened in our day, alas!

I did think of driving up to Sutton House, to see the old place again, but then I thought, "Why bother?" It was not as though my memories of Sutton are 100% happy ones. Mostly they are memories of loneliness, boredom, frustration, bad food and being cold in the winter. Oh the benefits of private education! 


 Bulgaria is about the same size as England and BG has a population of seven million, whereas the UK has a population of about 65 million. Not surprisingly, the whole place is amazingly crowded and even the countryside is full of people. It is weird. I used to think that the M25 was the biggest car park in Europe, but now it seems that the whole of southern and central England is just one big traffic jam.
Well, now I am back in Bulgaria and in fact we are staying at our apartment in Veliko Tarnovo, a most beautiful and historic city in the centre of Bulgaria, about 300 km from our villa in Kalotina, 60km north of Sofia and close to the border with Serbia. VT is about half-way to Turkey. The autumn colours were lovely when we went for a walk along the river yesterday.
From charms intramural
To prettiness rural
The sudden transition
Is simply Elysian!
Well, this time it was the other way around, as we have come from the countryside to the city. Anyway, I am sending you a few more photos of VT, in the hope that one day even a poor millionaire like you you might be able to afford a very cheap Ryanair flight from the UK to Bulgaria and so you could come to visit us. 
The Hippo

Taravets is the big fortress on top of the hill


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Educaring, Part 2

Image
Not so long ago, I wrote a post for my blog called Educaring . Please do not misunderstand me. I really do believe that teachers, youth workers, parents (and indeed anyone involved with young people) all have a duty to protect children and teenagers, to keep them safe. As I argued in my previous posting, I also believe that the task of protecting children is becoming more and more difficult - almost impossible, in fact. Yes, the Internet has a lot to do with it, I am sure, but there is another problem that is hardly ever discussed.  In a nutshell, anyone who genuinely cares about children finds it very hard to imagine how evil and how subtle child molesters and pedophiles really are. I think that is probably why many teachers and parents just do not know when a pedophile is "grooming" a child and why they often do not believe it, even when confronted with the unpleasant truth. Michael Green at Windlesham House School I knew Michael Green when I was teaching at Windlesh...
Read more

On the Cards, Part 1

Image
Getting our new Bulgarian residency cards from the Microwave Oven Woman Rejoice! Let's celebrate. Hallelujah! At long last, the Microwave Woman has given us our new Bulgarian residency cards (BRCs). As a special treat, just in case you do not know what a BRC looks like, here is my old one.  My dear wife suggested that I should "black out" certain bits, as there are lots of evil people out there on the Internet, all gathering my personal and financial details in order to swindle me or involve me in some dreadful scandal or some such nonsense. Of course, no one who reads my blog could ever do such a nasty thing!   Getting our new BRCs means that we can go ahead with our applications for our Russian visas. Then, maybe two or three weeks later, our passports will be returned to us, with new Russian visas stuck into them. The other good news is that the insurance agent in Dragoman did not lose my car registration document. When she had finished giving me my new car ...
Read more

Moving to Bulgaria

Image
A lady called Betty Bradshaw recently wrote this on the Facebook Group "Moving to Bulgaria" and my replies are in italics. Sorry if this sounds thick... but what is the very first thing we need to do before buying a house in Bulgaria? Is it the visas? Is it buy a house first? We are serious about moving over, but have no clue where to begun our journey. Dear Beckie Bradshaw,  You are not being "thick" at all. We all have to start somewhere, when we do something completely new and out of our comfort zone!  Anyway, the first thing you need to before buying a house in Bul garia is to read my blog  www.bulgariawithnoodles.blogspot.com   Then you should watch some of Susan Ashwell's lovely videos about Bulgaria on YouTube. (Her series is called "Escape to a simpler place and time.")  Thirdl y, you should reply to the message that I am just about to write to you. Here is the message (or messages) I wrote to Becky, together with her replies. Hello! My wife an...
Read more