Bulgaria with Noodles

The other day the sky was looking grey and ominous. I saw an advertisement in the TES for an English teacher at St. George’s School. I was quite tempted to apply, for about twenty seconds, but then I recovered my senses. How do you know that Autumn is coming? We drove back to our apartment in Veliko Tarnovo from our new home in Daveri the other day, an easy 45-minute drive, and the trees were the most amazing mixture of colours: the greens, yellows, browns and reds. For once, Irena did the driving and so I had the time and the leisure to enjoy the scenery, the beautiful nature of the Bulgarian countryside, the sort of thing that we used to have in the UK before we built all over it. Another indication that Winter might not be too far away is that Tina, the naughtiest Jack Russell in Bulgaria, becomes very interested in finding warm places in the kitchen for a good snooze. You can also guess that Autumn is coming because my dear wife becomes obsessed with her hunter-gatherer tendenc

Central heating in Bulgarian is centralne tepline . Those are two words of Bulgarian that I have got to know rather w e ll since we first came to this country. We first had the Heat Pump central heating installed in our apartment in VT. (In some ways, that is quite similar to air conditioning.) Then it was the pellet burner and all of the radiators in Kalotina. Now we have a different system in Daveri, a large woodburner, an electric pump and pipes going to the radiators.  The good news is that we now have plenty of firewood, as we had five cubic metres d elivered and, with Vincent’s kind help, we cut d own some of the old trees that were spoiling the view from the house. And the bad news? The bottom parts of “cupboards” that were hiding the original electric heating system have all gone rotten and warped, as the pump was corroded and leaking. Smoke has discoloured the walls and ceilings in the kitchen and the sitting room, so you can see where Allan used to hang all of his pictures. I

Who left my basket in VT? Things did not start well, as we left her basket back in Veliko Tarnovo, but now Tina loves Daveri. She really enjoys running around the big garden, barking at birds, neighbours and anyone who comes anywhere near the house. Her favourite activity, after eating of course, is trying to catch the deflated football that Irena and I throw to each other. If we drop the ball, Tina is onto it in a second and then she runs off in triumph! She was not interested in helping us with the cleaning, as she is a lazy little dog, but she enthusiastically welcomed our new neighbours. Mariana is very fond of her and Tina likes her too!  Tina also has her own swimming pool. Well, actually it is just a hole, about a metre square, in the concrete and stone floor of one of the outhouses. Really it is supposed to be the access hole for  the water stopcocks, but this square hole  has filled up with groundwater. We thought at first that maybe one of the water pipes has a leak. However,

A lot has happened in the last few days. First of all, my dear Irisha is very pleased with her new washing machine (a Bosch, of course). It is now installed and working well (and surprisingly quietly). We could not have installed the new machine without the invaluable help of our dear neighbour, Vincent. Next to the woodshed is another outbuilding and inside it were some very good pieces of furniture. As well as the huge oak sideboard, we also discovered a large cupboard and display cabinet, all solidly made of oak and matching our dining table and chairs. The bad news? Yes, there is some. The central heating expert came today and he said that we have some serious problems. The chimney is not working properly and there are big deposits of sticky black gunge that could start a dangerous chimney fire. The firebox is too small to provide enough heat for all of the radiators and the pump is also not up to the job. Getting it all fixed is going to cost about 4,000 leva (around two thousand

An empty space Well, it is not all good news. There have been some pleasant surprises, it is true, but there have also been some pretty nasty ones as well. Allan, the vendor, decided that he would take the washing machine with him, even though the house was described as "furnished" and "ready to move in". A washing machine was clearly visible in the estate agent's advertisement, so we naively assumed that it would be there when we moved in. It wasn't. There are some serious problems with the fence. It has not been painted with wood preservative for many years. Many of the posts that are meant to hold the fence in place have rotted and snapped off, so some parts of the fence have already fallen down. As for the central heating system, there is a huge hole in the side of the chimney breast. The chimney probably has not been cleaned for years and the electric pump that is meant to push the hot water round the system to all of the radiators is corroded and it se