Hotnitsa

I do hope that my friend's mother finally received some medical treatment and that the problem with her ear has been sorted out. I have not had an email from him recently, so I do not know for sure.

On a less serious note, we received a Christmas card drom the UK last week. Yes, the Bulgarian postal service is maintaining its high and professional standards with the delivery of a Christmas card in February. (Almost as slow as the NHS, in fact.)  It was a lovely card, except that it had a picture of a deer on it. My wife and I have some rather unhappy memories with regards to deer, especially the one that scared the **** out of both of us by jumping in front of the car and doing about two hundred pounds’ worth of damage.

While we are on the subject of postal deliveries, this morning we received a letter from none other than the Greater-Footed Armfelt Bird. Nicholas took great pleasure in telling me that the “albino herons” that I had seen on the Yantra River, next to our apartment, were most probably large white egrets. (Egrets, I've had a few, but then again too few to mention...)

On Monday I very much enjoyed our “day out” at Daveri. Yes, everything is still there. The old wooden fence is looking even more wobbly and rotten than usual, but there is not much that I can do about that at the moment. Irena was busy planting some lettuce and I sorted out a few branches. No sign of any asparagus yet and I suppose that is not surprising. That naughty little fat doggie had a lot of fun running around the garden, sniffing all her familiar smells. There was no sign of Vincent and Mariana, alas, so I guess that they are still in Sliven.

But when will we be returning to Daveri? Maybe in March. At the moment we are having some delightfully warm and sunny weather and that all changes next week, when it gets colder and the rain will start.

We went for quite an interesting walk to Hotnitsa yesterday with the VT Walkers and I will include some of the photos. Best of all, we all went back to John and Karen's house for a very enjoyable lunch. The casserole with the dumplings was magnificent. Their house is nice, I suppose, but it really does not have much of a view. To be honest, our street in Veliko Tarnovo is becoming a bit of a carpark. It is not as bad as Leavenheath yet.

As for Trump, it could all be over for him in the next few days. If the Supreme Court upholds the Colorado ruling that Trump should be thrown off the ballot because of the January 6^th insurrection, then lots of other states will also chuck him off their ballots. This would mean that he will not be re-elected President in November and so he will not be able to pardon himself. Will this lead to some sort of civil war?

More than five hundred of those who took part in the January 6^th insurrection have already been in court and some of them have received long prison sentences. It is therefore only just and fair that Trump himself should be punished for what he did. The idea that a criminal, someone who tried to destroy America’s democracy, should be allowed to become President is absolutely ridiculous. On the other hand, this America, where some strange things do indeed happen.