The Return of the Microwave Woman

I have written to HMRC again (this might be the third or fourth letter) and I posted it this morning, together with another letter, to none other than the one-and-only Nicholas Armfelt.

We were back in VT for a few days, sorting out one or two little matters. My dear wife now has a new UK passport and it is blue. (Not surprising, as we do have a Conservative government.) What with fees for DHL each way, the total cost came to nearly two hundred pounds. Although the NHS is a flipping disaster, at least we now have blue passports.

On the subject of the NHS, my friend John Cann’s surgery seems to have gone fairly well, at least so far, and the surgeon attached two of his vertebra to metal rods. It all sounds horribly painful. Mud wrestling, bungee jumping and the tango are out and he can only do a little bit of walking, at least for the time being. They seem to have done quite a good job, but John’s overall impressions of the NHS hospital were not good.

Now that we are under the Bulgarian government health insurance scheme, we can apply for our EHICs. These are our European Health Insurance Cards. This mean that we should, in theory, get free health treatment anywhere in the EU.

While we were in VT, we also had to go to the KAT office (no, there isn’t a DOG office). KAT is the Bulgarian government office that deals with residency cards, driving licences and others things like that. Our Bulgarian licences expire in July, so we have now applied for new ones. That bit was not too expensive. The pricey part was that when I applied for mine, we discovered that I had two fines for speeding. One hundred and fifty leva is about seventy pounds. Irena really was very annoyed with me.

Why do Bulgarian government offices always have those white plastic windows that remind me of microwaves? And why are government institutions so completely tatty and depressing?

Even though we were just renewing our existing driving licences, there were LOTS of forms to fill out, all in tiny writing and all in Bulgarian. When Irena managed to finish her forms, she had to do the same for me. The whole thing took ages. Later that day she felt really unwell, with high blood pressure.

We are now back in Daveri, feasting on home-grown asparagus and strawberries! I must remember to spray the artichokes tomorrow. I also have the tiresome job of removing the wooden fence between the main garden and the secret garden. This wooden fence is going to fall down anyway, sooner or later. I need to repair the wall and I cannot really do that with the fence there.

As for the tractor mower, I went into Elena this morning and bought some more petrol, as I need to cut the grass. The bad news is that the tractor mower has a flat tyre. I tried to re-inflate it, but it was no good. There is a tyre place in Elena and I got it repaired on Monday.

So what is going to happen with Trump? After Stormy Daniels, I thought that it was all over and that the jury would definitely find him guilty. However, Michael Cohen has also been testifying and he has told an awful lot of lies in the past, so maybe the jury will not believe him. On the other hand, Trump really did sign the cheques himself, to reimburse Michael Cohen for paying off Stormy Daniels, so perhaps Trump will be found guilty after all. If the defence team believed that Trump was innocent, then they would put him in the witness box, so that he could tell everyone what really happened. They are not going to do that, of course. Although lots of Republican politicians keep turning up at the court room, in order to show their support, Trump’s wife Melania never shows up. If she really thought that her dear husband was completely innocent, wouldn’t she want to be there with him?

Now will Trump be found guilty and then go to prison? Well, I am going to stick my neck out and say that I think that Trump will be found guilty AND he will be sent to prison. I cannot see the judge just giving him a slap on the wrist for being a naughty boy, a fine, a suspended sentence or some community service. If he is found guilty, Trump will appeal, of course, so unfortunately he will not go to jail immediately and then perhaps it is possible that an appeal court will throw out the conviction.