Bulgaria with Noodles

Irena flew back to the Crimea on Friday morning. Now it is Tuesday and I am really feeling her absence. It is not a problem when I am at school, as there I usually have more than enough to do. (This morning I had the added joy of Grade 5’s charming company, with a double lesson of cover for a missing French teacher.)  No, the problem comes at the weekends, when I have time on my hands and I do not know what to do with it. There is just a big empty space. Coming home to an empty apartment is horrible as well, but being on your own for a few hours after a busy day at school is not quite so difficult as a long weekend. This weekend was extra-long, as we also had Monday off from school. It was Bulgarian Army day. Irena is probably with her mother, whom we usually refer to as Mamulichka , at her country house just outside Simferopol, usually called the datcha. Well, Mamulichka’s datcha has no Wifi or Internet connection, so that would explain why I have not had any mes...

Every summer since we were married, Irena has gone home to the Crimea for a month, to see all of her family and friends. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Hmm. Well, she simply must go to see her parents and friends every year. I cannot argue with that. Both Mamulichka and Papulichka are rather elderly and not in the best of health. Irisha’s visit is in many ways the high point of their year, something for them to look forward to. There is, however, a more practical reason for Ira’s visit and that is that we do give some financial help to Mamulichka , as pensions in Russia are a bit of a joke (about 80 euros a month). Mamulichka has her datcha and her chickens, so in many ways she is a bit better off than many old people in the Crimea. There is, nonetheless, one little drawback to Irisha’s yearly trips home: I miss her terribly. Yes, this summer I have had Peter and John, two old friends over from the UK, to stay for a while. We have had a good time, going kayakin...

'Cos making up is hard to do. My dear Irisha was away on Sunday and she did not come back until Monday afternoon. This meant that her poor lonely husband had lunch with AJ at our apartment after church on Sunday. Although she quite enjoys the actual modelling and meeting new people, as well as chatting with the people she has worked with before, Irena does NOT enjoy the travelling that seems to be an inevitable part of being an international model. Well, this “shoot” in Guangzhou was no exception. Yes, the agent did go with her on the train from Shenzhen, but travelling on the GZ MTR is not for the fainthearted. The shoving and the sardine-like crowds on the metro trains were pretty bad. A horse, of course! Irena said that the shoot itself was quite easy, even though it involved more travelling once they arrived in GZ, as they had to go to a sort of country club about an hour from the city. It was all rather twee and English and afternoon tea, except of course tha...

To be honest, I did not think that my dear wife Irena would get some more modelling work quite so soon. But I was wrong. As all of my regular readers will have noted by now, it does not happen very often, my being wrong, but it does actually happen occasionally.   Anyway, Irena’s Friday morning meant a train journey to Guangzhou, surely one of the most impossibly-spelt words in that non-existent language known as Pinyin, and then five hours in front of the cameras. Just in case you are interested, “Guangzhou” is actually pronounced “Gwanjo”, but then how should (and how would) you pronounce “Cholmondeley”? It was all in aid of a UK cosmetics company (I am not allowed to mention the name) and Irena’s job was to tell everyone how this company has developed an exciting series of skincare products and creams that use the power of Nature and plant extracts. Irisha’s speech was in Chinglish, a language that really does seem to exist and is in fact regularly used in China. She ...

My dear Irisha was out rather late the other night. In fact, she did not get home until 4am. So was she out partying? Another night out on the town? No, she had a “bit part” in a film. In fact, Irena has now had quite a few modelling jobs over the last couple of years, in Guanghzou, Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Some have involved making films, while others have been photoshoots for various advertisements, such as furniture. Occasionally she has been at the opening of an exhibition or special event (as part of a sort of “rent-a-crowd”). The art exhibition thing that she did in Hong Kong was all about trying to persuade people to “invest” in some rather dodgy “artwork” and she did not enjoy doing that. As the husband of an international model, I have learned a bit about what it is like to do some modelling work. First of all, it is a completely unreliable and precarious job, if indeed you can call it a “job” at all. You just never know when or if you will have any work. Sometimes a mon...