Bulgaria with Noodles

I HATE plumbing. Anything to do with fixing a supply of domestic water is something that I really do not enjoy. We have stopcocks at the bottom of Tina’s swimming pool, the square hole in one of our outbuildings. This hole always fills with water, so turning the stopcocks on or off is a pain. It is even more of pain when the lever rusts and comes off in your hand! Well, today the local plumber chap came round and he installed two new brass stopcocks. I actually bought new ones of the right size, to replace the old ones. I suppose that he was working for about an hour and he refused any payment, as he said that he was paid by the water company. I insisted on giving him 40 leva (about twenty pounds).   Then there was the flooding in the kitchen. Alan took his dishwasher with him when he sold the house, but there is still a waste water pipe under the sink, with just a plastic bag over the end! Last year I bought a sort of spiral wire thing with a handle at the end. If you turn th...

Yes, we are STILL in Veliko Tarnovo. It is now the 20th of March and I am wondering if we will go back to Daveri in April. Or maybe May. The other week we had a good walk with the VT Walkers, so I am including a few photos. It was great to be able to offer them some hospitality in our apartment when we did a walk around VT. Bad news. Ira has some serious problems with her teeth (or rather the lack of them). She has had quite a few X-rays and they have made her feel rather ill. She needs quite a lot of work done to repair all of the damage to her teeth, so maybe she will have some implants. More bad news. The car sounds more like an old tractor and I am planning to take it to Stanislav on Thursday. Adrian reckons that Stanislav is the man. We shall see! Although I would like to keep that old X-Trail on the road a bit longer, I might not have any choice and so I could have to get rid of it and buy another car. As for my pension arrangements, I filled in the S1 form and the pension ap...

Yesterday we went for yet another lovely walk, one that Peter has never done. Here is Assenova, our particular district of Veliko Tarnovo, we do have some beautiful countryside very close to us. The sun was shining in a blue sky and it was gloriously warm. I even saw a butterfly. Tina enjoyed herself, that naughty little fat doggie. The day before was not so enjoyable. First I went to one of those exhaust garages, the ones that mostly repair and replace knackered exhaust systems on cars, and they said that they really could not find anything wrong with the exhaust. Well, they lifted the car right off the ground, so I was able to see for myself. Anyway, if it is not the exhaust that is making the noise, then I suppose that it really must be the engine. Bad news. More bad news awaited me when I arrived at the hospital. Our GP, Doctor Ivanov, said that we really ought to have some tests and so we had a blood test and various things monitored our hearts. The results? Well, generally we...