Bulgaria with Noodles

There is no need for the Birling family to be worried, as this inspector came to St. George’s and she was suitably impressed by what she saw. Actually, she was not even called an “inspector”, but a Leading Improvement Partner (giving us a bit of LIP, I suppose, or was it just LIPservice?) Anyway, the inspector was in the school for three days and she certainly talked to a lot of people: students, JKN, teachers and parents. She did not come into any of my lessons, but she did have a look round my classroom and she asked me a few questions about what I teach and how I teach it. At the moment I am feeling pretty blooming exhausted and being woken up at three in the morning, in order to take a naughty little dog outside to do her business, has left me feeling run down all day. Thank goodness it is Friday and the weekend has now started. The flowers I bought for our Wedding Anniversay last week have lasted rather well. Another thing that has lasted quite well is my bl...

My two favourite girls It has been a long week. Irena decided to stay over in our villa in Kalotina, so I went back to our apartment in Sofia without her last Sunday. She wanted to stay there with Tina and do various garden-related things, as well as giving the whole place a good clean before we shut up shop for the winter. This week has actually been pretty exhausting, as there were meetings with the St. George’s parents for more than two hours on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon. These meetings were supposed to last from 3.40 to 5.30pm, but in fact they always go on much longer. I always seem to be the last teacher to leave and then I have to take all of my students’ books and lots of other bits and pieces back from the sixth floor to my classroom on the second floor. As if that were not enough, there was Halloween on Thursday, so the students all came to school dressed as monsters, witches and so on. In short, my dear students were not really in a mood for serious some...

I will wake you up by walking on your face. Dear John, How are you, my dear chap? I was sorry that I could not invite you to come to Bulgaria this summer, as we were off to Zakynthos in Greece and then some friends of ours from Qatar were supposed to be coming. Anyway, Irena put her pretty foot down when I mentioned your name as well!   J.C. in Kalotina, looking down the valley  The good news is that next summer she is off to the Crimea again (probably early in July) and that will be for about a month or so. Therefore I am planning a Grand Reunion of the Gang of Three – except that actually it is going to be the Gang of Four, as there will be an important addition to the likes of Peter Adams, John Cann and Simon Hill. Tina is a very naughty little Jack Russell and we love her very much. Her main interests are food, eating, and finding something to scoff. In some ways, she does look a bit like dear Zoika. Her speciality is waking me up in the morning by wa...

A blogger at the opening ceremony for a new school year   The most important thing we’ve learned As far as children are concerned Is never, ever, ever let Them near your television set. In fact, just don’t install The idiotic thing at all. Well, that was one of my greatest heroes, Roald Dahl, in that modern classic, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory . But Dahl’s words of warning about the pernicious effect of the TV on young children’s minds seems quaintly dated, irrelevant and out of all proportion to the dangers for children that can be found on the Internet. And some of those dangers are not passive, like a television. They will coming looking for your son or daughter, 24/7. Yes, you can switch off your family’s TV, but how do you turn the Internet off?   Recently my school, St. George’s in Sofia, has had a blitz on Safeguarding. All of the staff have been doing online training with a company called Educare. Some of the courses have been pretty explicit an...

In many ways Veliko Tarnovo, also known as V.T., is a much nicer city than Sofia. It is smaller, less polluted and the traffic is nowhere near as bad as it is in the capital. Every year, we go and spend a week or so in our apartment in Veliko Tarnovo.  The balcony of our apartment in V.T. For I don't know how long, Irena and I have been saying, "When you retire, we will move in V.T. and that is where we will spend the winter, as it won't be much fun spending the winter in Kalotina." The main problem with this plan is that we have not retired yet. Well, I was retired for six months, but then I started working again and now we have started to put down roots in Sofia, not in V.T. This trip to V.T. was rather different, as it was dominated by the presence of Tina. Yes, it was a lot of fun to have her delightful company, but she was also seriously ill. Several trips to the Vet were needed, along with quite a few injections and a course of antibiotics. Firs...

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...

My old car is being repaired (yet again), but Stefan has cheered me up. This has to be one of my saddest and most painful posts on my blog so far. Stefan has died. He was our first Bulgarian friend and in many ways our best. Irena and I got to know him soon after we bought our villa in Kalotina, about fifteen years ago, and we have stayed in contact with him and his wife Poly over the years we have been coming to Bulgaria. Stefan and Irena Stefan had a great sense of humour, a wonderful laugh and a fund of silly jokes that showed an appreciation of the comic and ridiculous element in life. He would sometimes come out with that very old and dreadful Dick Emery catchphrase, "You are awful, but I like you!" A widely-travelled businessman and diplomat, Stefan spoke French and Russian fluently. He loved the Russian language and he liked to sing old Russian songs, often with my wife Irena.  Like many of the older generation of Bulgarians, Stefan was pro-Russian and he ...