Bulgaria with Noodles

I do hope that my friend's mother finally received some medical treatment and that the problem with her ear has been sorted out. I have not had an email from him recently, so I do not know for sure. On a less serious note, we received a Christmas card drom the UK last week. Yes, the Bulgarian postal service is maintaining its high and professional standards with the delivery of a Christmas card in February. (Almost as slow as the NHS, in fact.)    It was a lovely card, except that it had a picture of a deer on it.  M y wife and I have some rather unhappy memories with regards to deer, especially the one that scared the **** out of both of us by jumping in front of the car and doing about two hundred pounds’ worth of damage. While we are on the subject of postal deliveries, this morning we received a letter from none other than the Greater-Footed Armfelt Bird. Nicholas took great pleasure in telling me that the “albino herons” that I had seen on the Yantra River, next to o...

Yes, I have my eyes shut. I hate photos when I have my eyes shut. They look so silly. Anyway, 2024 did not get off to a great start, as I have been quite ill, with a temperature of 39, as well as various aches and pains. Yesterday I was feeling a lot better and so Iryna and I went for a wander around Arbanassi with the VT Walkers. (Arbanassi is the Beverly Hills of Veliko Tarnovo, as it is full of very expensive properties belonging to corrupt politicians, pop stars and footballers.) This was followed by lunch at The Wine Club, my favourite restaurant. (Iryna does not like it and she thinks that the food is overpriced.) Here are a few old photos from our previous visit with the VT Walkers. It's rather like an old-fashioned English pub. On the subject of not making a good start, Nikki Haley came a poor third in the Iowa primaries, but maybe she will do a lot better in New Hampshire and South Carolina.  

The weather has been wonderfully mild and sunny here in Bulgaria, whereas in the UK it has been colder and peeing down, as per usual. Recently we have been for some splendid walks in the woodland around Veliko Tarnovo. (That naughty little fat Plovdiv dog also enjoyed herself.) Some of the walks are ones that I have done with my friend Peter, but some of them are quite new ones and he will enjoy them, I think, when he has yet another summer holiday in Bulgaria this year.  On the subject of an overweight and pampered pooch, Tina was very frightened by all of the fireworks on New Year’s Eve. She ran under the bed in our bedroom and would not come out. When Irena finally managed to pull her out, Tina refused to sleep in her own bed. Although our dear neighbours, Vincent and Mariana, have been spending the New Year at their house in Daveri, it very much looks as though The Boss will not want to move back to our house until March at the earliest. There is a total mess and mud everywhere...

This is the first time that I have written a piece for my blog in a long while, as not much has been happening. As usual, NO ONE has been writing any comments on my blog. It is rather depressing! Has the Bank of England interest rate really gone up to 4%? Will it be going higher? I am very glad that I do not have mortgage in the UK.  I really do not think that the war in Ukraine is going to end next week. However, a rapid collapse of the Russian army really does look like a possible outcome. The deployment of modern tanks could completely change the overall balance of forces on the battlefield. This will probably happen because the Russians have hardly any tanks left, apart from some ones that are really old and outdated. When the war started more than a year ago, Putin thought that he was going to capture Kyiv in a day or two, but it all went horribly wrong. This just shows that predicting the future is a hit-and-miss affair, especially in a war. Part of the problem is that Putin ...

Well, perhaps it was not the very best walk that I have been on with the VT Walkers, but at least it got me out of the apartment and gave me some exercise.  Although the walk through the woods to the Blue Lake will probably be beautiful in the summer, in the middle of January it is not quite so pretty. Tina, that naught little doggie, had lots of fun, playing with the ever-energetic Sisi.

Bill and Julia, our dear Chinese friends, have been very ill with COVID, as I think I mentioned to you, but the good news is that they seem to be recovering. In China, COVID is causing chaos and the hospitals are all full up.  Yes, almost everything in Bulgaria is going up in price, just as it is in the UK. Now things seem to be a bit more stable and the price of oil is going down again. There are still some things in BG that are still absurdly cheap. For example, in VT I can usually park my car without paying a penny. We can live in my apartment or house without paying two or three hundred quid a month in Council Tax. And yes, you can still buy a house here in Bulgaria for less than ten thousand pounds, although you might have to spend another ten in order to make it nice.  As for Bulgaria adopting the Euro in 2024, I just cannot make up my mind whether or not this will be a good thing for Bulgaria (or a good thing for the EU). You need to bear in mind that the total populati...

I have discovered a group called VT Walkers o n Facebook. One member of this group of expats described them as "drinkers with a walking problem", as their forays into the Bulgarian countryside usually end at a pub.   Most of them are retired Brits and doggie people, so of course a pooch or two comes along for the walk. I went for a walk with them on the other side of VT, when we met near the art gallery and then went for a long walk in the huge park, the one with lots and lots of steps (and then some more).  Today we were walking around Arbanassi. Tina wore her red doggie coat, as it was decidedly chilly. During the walk I had an interesting chat with a lady who has a house near Cambridge and she has recently returned from the UK to Bulgaria. Why is the UK such a flipping miserable place at the moment? (Regular readers of my blog will know that this is an issue that Claire has raised in her excellent blog, Auntie Bulgaria .) Maybe the UK has always been a total dump and I hav...