Bulgaria with Noodles

Peter is one of my oldest friends. I am including a few photographs from 2018, when he visited us in Bulgaria (yet again!) We went to Plovdiv and came back with a naughty little dog. Dear Peter, How are you, old fellow? I have not had an e-mail from you for a while, so I can only assume that you are still recovering from all of the extra strain and the stress of overwork. I really am glad that I do not have to do any more of that online teaching nonsense.    Well, in some ways I suppose that you should be grateful that you do in fact have a job, as lots of people in the UK seem to have lost or are about to lose theirs. Thank goodness you are not an airline pilot! However, I reckon that quite a lot of independent schools will have gone bust by the time this is all over. But when is this Coronavirus pandemic going to be over? So far, there have been about 45,000 deaths in the UK and 140,000 in the USA. Some commentators think that in America the death count might be as high as 2...

I am very pleased to have an excuse for including some of my old photos of Shenzhen!  Recently a friend of mine told me that Serpentza, a video blogger (or "vlogger") based in Shenzhen, has finally decided that he is going to leave China. He is fed up with living in the Middle Kingdom. Well, I watched the most recent Serpentza video and I thought to myself, “What a twit!”  I used to respect Serpentza a lot because he made a big effort to learn Mandarin, an incredibly difficult language that I never mastered. Well, he did live in China for fourteen years, he made quite a lot of money out of China, in one way or another, and he did get to meet some pretty Chinese girls, so you would think that he might be just a tiny bit grateful. But when he started making videos that said that all Chinese girls are "easy" and then he made some more videos criticizing the Chinese Communist Party, what happened? The CCP was not happy. Wow! What an amazing surprise! Whoever would have ...

At last I have found one the right size! I don’t really enjoy going back to England any more. Last year it was RTD’s memorial service and last month I went back to try to sort out what to do with my lump sum from the Teachers’ Pension Scheme.  Well, why don’t I enjoy going back to my own country? First of all, I think that it is because I just do not belong there. Bulgaria is my home and therefore, more and more, I feel that my roots are in my adopted country. Bulgaria is “home” now. Secondly, there are the practical issues of going back, as I have no place of my own in the UK, no car, no nothing.  Peter hard at work in the kitchen My old friend Peter Adams was very hospitable, as usual, and we certainly enjoyed some splendid scoffing: lots of roast beef, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pud and all the trimmings! This was then followed up with the inevitable crumble and custard. Then we also had a good lunch with Peter’s mum (fish and chips), followed by a delicious Chine...

After we drove back from Greece, we had a few days to get things ready. On the Sunday we had lunch at the cheap but rather good Chinese restaurant next to the church. Dave and Beth Kanelos of IBC had been running a Christian camp in Macedonia, so they wanted to say “thank you” to their co-workers and we were invited to the lunch as well. Lunch after church, with Dave, Beth and lots of IBC people My old friend from our teacher training college days, Peter Adams, has come to stay. Peter arrived on the Tuesday. I collected him from Sofia airport and we had a late lunch, followed by a wander around the huge park that is just across the road from our flat in Ulitsa Kozyak. Then on the Wednesday we went to see my school, St. George’s. Peter was suitably impressed by the amazing gym and the penthouse suite, complete with the fully-equipped bar and spectacular views of Mount Vitosha, but my security card does not give me access to the theatre and the swimming pool. Bother! Out on ...