Bulgaria with Noodles

Dear Markoi,                       Tuesday, 22nd October Who is this amazingly handsome and good-looking young fellow, whose photo you have sent to me? Obviously this seventeen-year-old aquatic Adonis is no relation of yours. At LWC, aka the London Water Closet, I do remember the one and only Mint, Mr Merriman, coming up to me and saying, “Your brother has the body of a young Greek god!” Andy, aka The Sheep, has had several crime novels published and he does not seem to have made any money out of them. I only read the first one,  Dead Drift , and it really was quite well written. In the book there was a “blurb” about Andy’s CV (or resume, as you Americans call it) and that was an even greater work of fiction. As for me, I do not have any photos of my son or daughter playing water polo, so I am sending you a few pictures of Tina, our very fat and naughty Jack Russell. My dear wife says that Tina is lazy, greedy, and di...

There's a dead body in the window seat, Mortimer! It is not every day that I get a message from one of my old students, but today I discovered that there was a comment that someone had put at the end of my latest blog post. Headed for marital bliss? Mortimer and his future bride. I remember Adam Weymouth when he was about 11 or 12 years old. He was a most marvellous Mortimer Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace (directed by yours truly) and he was a singularly evil and Machiavellian Cardinal Richelieu in my production of The Three Musketeers.  Well, today I had a message from Adam Weymouth and here it is! Simon! Although I still feel compelled to call you Mr Hill...I've been trying to track you down for a few days, and with some help from Sue King and Isabelle Assali they've pointed me in the direction of your blog. This is Adam Weymouth, who you taught for some years at Northaw back in the mid 90s. I've been wanting to get in touch to thank you - last week...

A photo of the Pirin Mountains in Bulgaria. Well, why not? Ever since I started writing one myself, I have become an avid reader of other people's blogs, especially if they are in any way connected with Bulgaria. Auntie Bulgaria, otherwise known as Claire Ruston, has been writing an excellent blog for quite some time now and you can read this blog by going to www.auntiebulgaria.blogspot.com Recently Claire was excited because her little lemon trees have at last started to produce lemons for the first time . (Gin and tonics, here we come!) Here is my comment and Claire's reply. A lemon tree, my dear Watson! I am very impressed by the citrus surplus that you are about to have, Claire. Lemons usually cost a fortune in Bulgaria. Did you bring your lemon tree into the house during the winter? Or did it somehow survive in the wonky polytunnel? What about the asparagus? Does it really take FOUR years before they start producing a good crop of spears? Any special asparag...

We washed the chopsticks too. Firstly, I was delighted to see that two of my favourite blogs, Peter and Minty's www.movetobulgaria.blogspot.com, and Claire's www.auntiebulgaria.blogspot.com, have new posts. Minty had not posted anything for ages, so we were wondering what had happened. Secondly, my own blog has now had more than 6,000 "hits". That is pretty good for a blog that has only been going for two months. Bill and Julia are our dear friends. It would be difficult to imagine our years in China without them. Even though Bill and Julia are younger than us, Irena and I always enjoy their company. We are always laughing when we are together.  Of course, this is China and so one of the most important things the four of us do is – yes, you guessed it – eating! Bill and Julia love Irena’s cooking, so they often come to our apartment for a meal. We often go out to a restaurant together and so that means leaving the ordering to Julia! On Sunday, after c...

In his wonderful BBC travel series, Around the World in Eighty Days , Michael Palin says that his round-the-world trip could only be interest of interest to other circumnavigators and therefore most ordinary people would find it boring. I have to disagree with Mr Palin, as I must have watched Around the World at least fourteen times.  What has that got to do with blogging? As I have mentioned in a previous post, I used to bore to death all of my poor wife and my colleagues at Green Oasis School by talking endlessly about Bulgaria. (In fact at one point, I had the idea of marketing Bulgarian real estate here in China, but that particular attack of insanity did not last long.) Now I bore everyone to death with the latest news about my blog. “Yesterday I had nearly 200 hits!” and “Expatfocus have done the piece I sent to them and they also mentioned my blog!”  Et cetera, ad infinitum.   It is freezing in our apartment. Yes, southern China is supposed to be ...

Being a blogger is really hard. I have promised my wife that I am not going to write anything nasty about the blogger (who will remain nameless and so instead I will just put the link to the blog http://www.adventurouskate.com/and-then-it-went-to-hell-in-bulgaria/ ) Anyway, this person wrote a dreadfully boring and self-obsessed blog but did include some great photos. (I liked the one of the cat on the roof tiles.) The photos were of one of my favourite places, the city of Veliko Tarnovo in Bulgaria. It is a funky place, V.T. There is the castle of Tsaravets, perched on top of the hill, the winding Yantra River and the picturesque old buildings in the twisting, photogenic cobbled streets. But the aforementioned blogger just wanted to moan about the bad Wifi and whinge about the lack of air conditioning. The Wifi is not very good here. The AC does not work properly. And I am really lonely. Yes, but what about the beautiful, historic churches? The view of...

The view from balcony of our villa in Kalotina, BG Why is this blog called Bulgaria with Noodles ? Well, at moment we are here in Shenzhen (SZ) and then, next summer, we will be moving back to Bulgaria. In the meantime, I bore to death all of my unfortunate colleagues at Green Oasis School by telling them about that country in SE Europe. Although physically I am still in southern China, my heart is in Bulgaria. As this is now my fifth year in the Middle Kingdom, maybe you would like to read one or two points of comparison and contrast between the two countries. Noodles, at last! Firstly, food. I am sure that all of my Chinese friends would agree that food ought to come first. Chinese food is, well, okay. Eating out is cheap in China. I am writing this after having eaten lunch in the Green Oasis cafeteria. For a school lunch, it was not bad. Yes, there are some particularly annoying things about haute cuisine Chinoise , such as the strange concept that a chicken’s head, fat,...

The Red (and Ghostless) Bank of China Towers Yes, I have done it! After reading several other blogs about Bulgaria and asking myself, "Yes, but how is my blog going to be different ?", I have finally taken the plunge and made my very first blog. Bulgaria with Noodles is the title. Yes, yes, it really is going to be about Bulgaria, one of these days, but it is all going to start in China! All the other blogs that have be written about moving to Bulgaria start with lots of anxious posts about selling the house, scraping together the cash, buying a tumbledown house in Bulgaria (usually in the mountains) and then driving all the way from the UK to BG. Well, this blog is different because we already have a house in Bulgaria, and an apartment, and a smug smile. The only problem is that we are still in China. Well, dear reader, I say that it is a problem, but really being in southern China is not so bad, for various reasons. Firstly, it is now November and the weather here ...