The Daily Mail, Part 2

No, I am not a big fan of The Daily Mail. It was quite enjoyable, seeing one's name in print, but it would have been even more enjoyable if they had actually paid me for my journalistic services. Well, all I really did was to chat with a journalist over the Internet and then she turned my comments into a finished article. Recently I saw this piece about Bulgaria in - yes, you guessed it - The Daily Mail.

Christine and Eric Thompson are not quite so positive about their BG experience. I am including a few photos of their Bulgarian house that they are trying to sell for 240,000 euros. 

They were sold the idea of a dream life in Bulgaria, with low prices and friendly locals, but after nine years they say the reality is quite different. Speaking to the Daily Mail, Eric, 70, said, "It's certainly a slower pace of life and the weather is well over 30C. But the people are a different story. Even in the beautiful weather, they have faces like it's a wet Sunday. People say it's cheaper for groceries here but actually it's the same and a lot dearer for some things than in France and Germany. We've travelled extensively around the world and experienced service that was second to none, but in Bulgaria it's absolutely horrendous."

Christine said, "We walked into a restaurant, gave the waiters our order, waited half an hour with nothing and in the end we stood up and walked out again. When you move here, you have a honeymoon period, but then it changes. People have rose-tinted glasses and enjoy the slower pace of life, but that quickly disappears. The whole place seems to have a lack of direction. After taking an interest in what is happening in the country, it became obvious that there is a lot of corruption which still exists. In the nine years we have been here, there have been frequent elections for parliament. All the governments that have been formed have been coalitions. As we all know, any organisation takes on the traits of the people in charge."
Christine's experiences with Bulgarian healthcare were pretty bad. After a wrong diagnosis, she was given the incorrect medication and this made her seriously ill. Now they are trying to sell their house near Sevlievo (and no, somehow I don't think that they will get 240,000 euros for it) and they are planning to move to France.

So is Bulgaria's government chaotic and hopelessly corrupt? Perhaps there is some truth in this, but the good news is that we have never come across any sort of corruption. The Bulgarian Police have been very professional and I cannot object to paying speeding fines when I really was driving too fast. I don't like it, but that is not "corruption". Many governments around the world regularly have coalitions. Maybe I would be shocked and appalled by Bulgarian politics, if I were to take more interest in it. Does Bulgaria suffer from "a lack of direction"? It is clear that the problem of rapid depopulation in this country has not gone away and, if anything, it is getting worse. Some experts predict that in a few decades the population will decline from about seven million at the present to as little as 3.5. Then I look at the view from the end of the garden and tell myself that things are not too bad.



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