Bulgaria with Noodles

If you do not count Metro, which is a bit like Cash & Carry in the UK and so you must have a membership card, then there are three supermarket chains in Bulgaria: Billa, Kaufland and Lidl. My dear wife, Irena, flatly refuses to shop at Billa. She says that it is way too expensive. This means that Irena and I are always going to either Kaufland or Lidl and sometimes we go to both on the same day. My dear wife loves the chicken and the pork at Kaufland, as well as the special offers, whereas Lidl rarely seems to have any special bargains. However, the cheese is a lot better in Lidl, she says, and generally Lidl is the cheaper of the two. I was therefore very interested in a video I saw on YouTube, entitled  What is the cost of living in Sofia? This video is on the YouTube “A Taste of Bulgaria” channel and here is the link, so that you can watch the whole video for yourself and then decide if you agree with me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdRkrNxfvX0&t=215s In order...

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...

Things are a bit dull here in VT. I have had an awful cold for the best part of a week and now Irena has it. I also have to go to the dentist and I am not looking forward to that. That naughty doggie Tina spends a lot of her time looking out of the window, watching the doings of all of the local cats. I had a rather unpleasant confrontation with our Bulgarian neighbour, who does not like it when I park next to his apartment. Usually, I park a bit further down the street, but of course someone else had decided to park there. Good grief! Anyone would think that this part of VT is becoming another town in the UK. Blooming cars everywhere! Well, in the end I could not be bothered to argue with him and so I moved my car about 200 metres along the street. Yes, it is not long to Christmas and the government in the UK seems to giving out a few early prezzies. I t is good to know that my TPS pension will be going up again and so will my State pension, when I finally get it. Here in Bulgaria, th...