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


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