A Weekend in Kalotina, Part 1


The weather forecast said that it was going to be warm and sunny. The Nissan garage had finally (finally!) fixed the problem with the powered steering, so we decided to have a weekend away from Sofia and go to Kalotina. There was an extra reason for going: Ira needed her old passports in order to apply for her Russian visa.


We left at a reasonable hour on Saturday morning, so the traffic on the ring road was not a problem. It was sunny and pleasant spring weather as we drove to our villa in Kalotina. Yes, the house was still there and the dogs in the village were pleased to see us. When I went up into the loft to check, there was no sound of buzzing and nothing flying about, so perhaps the fumigation smoke did its business.

Although we had the central heating system going full blast all day, it was slow to get going and make a difference to the temperature inside the house. I suppose that the whole house was so cold, after nearly three months of standing empty.  


The birds were chorusing and we could hear a few woodpeckers bashing away at an old tree somewhere. We were a bit miffed to discover four or five holes in the large wooden beam above the top balcony. Obviously this was the work of a woodpecker, but does it mean that there are insects inside the beam? Or was he just practising?   

Comments

  1. Unknown30 March 2019 at 07:05

    Will you plant flowers in your garden?

    ReplyDelete
  2. the hippopotamus30 March 2019 at 11:59

    My dear wife has already planted some tulips. Perhaps some more would be good.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

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

Hello once again, Peter

Image
. Yes, he was supposed to be on holiday, but while Peter was with us he fixed the lights in two bathrooms, mowed all three lawns and repaired the hob of the cooker in our apartment in VT.  Now he is back in the UK, having a rest.
Read more