Bulgaria with Noodles

As her rather late anniversary present, my dear wife now has a jacuzzi. We have two bathrooms in Daveri, the ensuite one next to our bedroom and the large "guest bathroom". Well, the latter one was big enough for a jacuzzi. Yes, we could have settled for an ordinary bathtub, but Irena does have some back problems. It is a rather impressive thing and sits in the corner of the bathroom, where the shower is.  First Iyaylo had to do some serious work to the plumbing and the electricity supply, in order to prepare for the installation. He also had to remove the washbasin and take the foor of its hinges. Then the two chaps from the bath company in Sofia arrived in their truck. After a couple of hours, it was all finished. Tina does not seem to be impressed.

  The Savoya Spice restaurant in Tryavna has lived up to its growing reputation. The Onion Bahjis we had as our starters were excellent and my lamb was delicious.  Irena had a Chicken Korma, as usual, and it was very good too. The Peshwari Naan were a bit unusual and sweet, but they were most enjoyable. The piece de resistance was the sticky toffee pudding. No, this is probably not a traditional part of Indian cuisine, but it was jolly good with icecream and very filling.   

  It was about seven in the evening and we were driving back from Sofia airport. We were only about a kilometre or two from our house in Daveri. I supposed that I was driving quite fast, about 90 or 100 kmph, but it was a straight country road, uphill and no traffic. Suddenly, BANG! A deer was dazzled by the car’s headlights and jumped in front of our car. Well, it all happened so quickly that I did not have time to swerve. I think that the deer was probably badly injured or killed. As for the car, well, you can see the photos.  The front bumper was a mess and the number plate fell off. (I had to go back the next morning in order to find the number plate by the side of the road.) There does not seem to have been any damage to the radiator or the engine, I am glad to say, but obviously it was going to take some time to get the car repaired. This was all rather expensive. A dear deer, in fact. The repair shop in the Toyota garage in Veliko Tarnovo did a good job. They also repa...

  Yes, it is yet another addition to my expanding collection of Husqvarna kit. I do not know why they call it a "leafblower" because it is really a vacuum cleaner, a prohusmucatchka for the garden. In case you have not guessed, prohusmucatchka is the Bulgarian word for "vacuum cleaner" and it is one of my all-time favourite Bulgarian words. Anyway, it is good to have one of these things when you have a lot of leaves and oh boy do we have some leaves and then some more. 

We had to go to Veliko Tarnovo for a few days, as I needed to take the car into the Toyota garage. On our way back from the airport, we had a small accident. The Toyota people reckoned that they can get it all sorted by Friday afternoon and that was good news. On the way to the garage on Wednesday morning, some of our neighbours were pointing at the bumper and so I stopped the car. The bumper was nearly falling off, but fortunately the neighbours found a piece of wire and fixed it on again. We have been watching some things on Youtube, as here in VT we have a "smart TV". Well, the one we have back in Daveri is a very stupid one, as the only things that I watch are CNN and DVDs. We have started on "Down Abbey" again, all thirty or maybe forty DVDs. Perhaps normal TV programmes will become a thing of the past, just like VHS replaced Betamax. Although my old friend John Cann has had his hip replacement operation, he has found it pretty tough going. He has had to go...

It was nearly ten years ago that we left Qatar, but I still get e-mails and other messages from teachers who are interested in teaching there. Dear Simon, I hope all is well with you, the wife and the dog.  I have been following your blog and the badminton 'court' looks great. You probably don’t remember, but I was due to go to Haileybury, Almaty with my family before Covid and then Hangzhou this year.  Hangzhou didn’t happen, as the school could not get visas for the kids, so we have ended up in one of your old stomping grounds, Qatar. To say we are underwhelmed is an understatement.  Both Qatar and the school area are major disappointments. The positives about the school is that it is truly international and our two primary-aged kids have settled well. We were told that the school was one of the better schools in Doha and had a good reputation.  If this is good, I wouldn’t want to see a bad one! From a teaching perspective, it is tough.  They have the lo...

Recently I had some WeChat with Angela, who used to be one of the board members for Shenzhen International Fellowship. This gives me an excuse for including lots of our old China photos. Hi Simon, I hope you and Irena are well! I was hoping for your feedback. I’ve submitted an application to Green Oasis as a Year 2 teacher. How was your time there? Is it a place you would recommend? Dear Angela, hooray! Yes, I did indeed teach at GOS for five years. On the whole, I really enjoyed it. POSITIVES? The school paid the rent on our two-bedroomed apartment, next to Lianhuacun Park, the students were lovely, the school was fairly well resourced and the hours were okay. Some very good colleagues. NEGATIVES? The food was horrible, ditto the dining room and some parents could be too pushy. The school follows the English curriculum (more or less) and that might be an issue for you. Also there were too many MEETINGS. (I hate meetings, in case you had not guessed). On the whole, I really enj...