Power Cuts

After reading the next few sentences, you will probably say, “Well, this just shows that not everything in Bulgaria is perfect after all, Simon!” Things have not been quite so perfect recently because we had a power cut on Wednesday that started about nine in the morning and then the electricity did not come on again until after four in the afternoon. Then exactly the same thing happened yesterday and then again today! Fortunately, the weather has been lovely, so we did lots of work in the garden and my dear wife beat me again at badminton. At lunch time, we have been using our little gas cooker. We bought it for camping, but it certainly has come in useful for the last three days. However, my readers in the UK should not worry and they should not feel that they are missing out on these exciting experiences. I am sure that soon they will be having plenty of power cuts in the UK! Anyway, the pound has lost so much value against the dollar that soon people in the UK will not be able to afford to use expensive things like electricity, even if there isn’t a power cut. 

Seriously, things really do not look good for the UK economy. This new Chancellor is an idiot. Abolishing (or trying to abolish) the higher rate of tax shows what the Conservative government really wants to do: help the rich to get even richer.  

Without bothering to ask her husband, my dear lady wife bought some fruit trees. Then who got the job of digging the holes for these trees? Yes, I had to do it. Then my sweet wife decided that the trees were too close together and one of them was in the wrong place because the soil was not so good there. All of this has meant that I had the job of digging ANOTHER lot of holes. 

Vincent, our neighbour, has gone a bit mad and he has bought himself TWO tractors. Yes, two. I think that his wife Mariana must be a very kind and patient lady. Vincent’s tractors are bit bigger than my Husqvarna tractor mower, but they are not quite as large as a normal farm tractor. I do not really understand why he has bought two of them. I mean, the two tractors look pretty much the same to me, so there really is no advantage buying two. I think that he said something about repairing and renovating one of the tractors, so maybe he will sell it again after he has finished giving it a makeover. If he loses all interest in them, then will he become an ex tractor fan? Sorry. What an awful joke!

 

Tina, that naughty Plovdiv dog, has also been a bit crazy recently. No, she has not bought any tractors, but she is very unhappy about the tiny kitten that appears to have adopted us. This little kitten is always hungry and good at climbing trees, so Tina can never catch her. What is going to happen to the kitten when we go to Veliko Tarnovo for a week or two? Well, I don’t know. 

I have been quite busy with my chainsaw and I have cut up a whole cubic metre of firewood. It did not cost me anything, except a bit of effort and some petrol. The wood came from the trees just along the road from our house. A few months ago, the electricity company came along and cut off some branches that were touching the electricity cable. As the wood was quite close, I did not need to use the back of the car to transport it. I just put it all in the wheelbarrow. My chainsaw is just a small one, not really for serious work, but it is more or less adequate for the sort of things that I have been using it for. I also have my electric bench saw and in some ways that is better for some cutting jobs.