Bulgaria with Noodles

Getting to school in the morning is quite a ritual. Two pairs of socks, then the second pair of trousers, lace up the boots, scarf, coat, hat and gloves. Then take it all off again at school and change into a soft pair of shoes. Yes, snow in the city is a pain and just walking along the slippery pavements can be slow and tiring. In the huge park across the road from our apartment, the snow can still be pretty and a lot of fun. Sledging is popular with the youngsters, although dads and even some mums seem to be glad of an excuse to have a go with their children.  Even when it is cold and the wind is biting, my dear Irisha still looks lovely. I am going to miss her next weekend, as she is going to Bucharest, to stay with her friend Inna for a few days. Innichka and Irisha became friends becase they always used to walk their dogs in Parcul Herastrau. And in the distance, you can just make out the looming mass of Mount Vitosha.

Sometimes things happen just in time. On Friday the man from BG Therm came and he spent an hour or two adjusting the boiler, as it had developed an irritating habit of shutting itself down after an hour or two. The sensor for the exhaust gases was set too low, so that was why we kept getting the error messages on the boiler's mini computer. On Saturday I went into Sofia on the train. First I visited the Elephant Bookshop, hoping toi buy a copy of Adam's book, Kings of the Yukon , but they did not have a copy. Bother! I also went to the Christmas Bazaar at St. George's. My main reason for going was to talk to the two very nice ladies who are sort outing my employment details and our new apartment in Sofia. The Irish coffee was good, the sausange and sauerkraut were so so and the kindergarten children were sweet when they did their little songs and dances in the theatre. Lots of happy, cooing parents. We were supposed to go to church this morning, but it just did...

Looking across the Yantra, with Tsaravets at the top of the hill. Veliko Tarnovo used to be Bulgaria's old capital city. It is a rather splendid place, with the River Yantra winding through the old town and the Tsarvets fortress up on the hill. There are two main bridges across the Yantra, the stone bridge for cars and the old wooden footbridge. Our apartment in the Assenova quarter is next to the wooden bridge and from the window of our dining room you get a great view across the river to Tsarvets. The balcony of our apartment, looking down into the cobblestoned street. Now it is time for the bad news. Our apartment was horribly, dreadfully COLD. It was like a freezer. (Unlike our house in Kalotina, we have never got round to having the insulation done.) There was a bottle of olive oil in the kitchen and it had frozen! There was also something wrong with the guttering, as it was probably clogged up with ice and snow, so there was a nasty-looking damp patch in the bat...

Today it is exactly three months to go before I retire, so of course I spend a lot of my time crossing off the days and thinking about what I am going to do once I have come to the end of my teaching career. No more boring meetings, for one thing – three this week – and I will not have to check that the alarm clock is set to go off at 5.30am. In fact, I might even give away my alarm clock and not bother having one at all. There's no boredom with a snowboard. However, one of my main pleasures is thinking about what we are going to spend our money on over the summer and when we return from the Crimea. (That is, of course, if we actually go to the Crimea. The British government and Mr. Putin are not the best of friends at the moment.) I once tried skateboarding, when I was about 15. It was fun, but falling off a skateboard onto concrete or tarmac is probably a lot more painful than falling off a snowboard onto snow. How difficult can snowboarding be? Okay, so we do not ...