Bulgaria with Noodles

Dear AJ, I have checked at the Sofia railway station and the left luggage place costs five euros per day per bag. So, if my Maths are any good, then to store two bags for four weeks would cost you two hundred and eighty euros. That is rather a lot! Plus you have to factor in the cost of getting the bags to Sofia. And how would you get it to the railway station? Well, I could store it for you for free, but I hope that you would reimburse me the cost of the petrol (and a round trip from Daveri is about 600 kms!) I have told my dear wife that you will be arriving on 4 th  September and, as you can appreciate, ladies always like to stick to the schedule. However, if you were to arrive on Wednesday, 2 nd  August, I was planning to drive to Sofia on that day anyway because I have to take my friend Peter back to the airport. So I could collect your bags on the 2 nd  of August and then I could put them into the loft of our apartment in Veliko Tarnovo. I could also make sure that ...

Dear AJ, When I read that you were planning to go to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, I was deeply troubled and then I felt that I just had to write to you, begging you to reconsider. I am therefore enormously relieved and pleased to know that you won’t be going there. Praise the Lord! Now we need to think of where you will be going for August, before you come to us in early September. Well, about a week ago I was fixing the fence in the garden. It was a very sunny, hot day and suddenly I felt terrible. I thought that I was going to vomit, I was so dizzy and weak. It really was bad! I am therefore not going to recommend anywhere hot (and yes, it will be  very hot  in August, especially in North Africa and Southern Europe.) Here are my recommendations! (1)              Poland and / or the Czech Republic. Prague is beautiful (a bit touristy and expensive, alas) but there are plenty of other interesting places there...

Yes, we finally arrived safely in Corfu. The weather was a bit grey at first, but after a day or two is warmed up and was wonderfully and typically sunny. That fat little dog was at a boarding kennel. She seemed to be okay and the owners of the kennel kindly sent us some photos of Tina getting lots of fuss. Taking her on holiday with us was a pain last time, so she was probably happier where she is. Recently I had an email from an old friend who suggested that Trump will become President again in 2024. No, he will NOT be re-elected. I watched Arnie Schwarzenegger on CNN and he made a lot of sense. Arnie was saying that yes, Trump will probably win the Republican nomination, as there is no one in the Republican party that has as anywhere near as much support as he does. The anti-Trump opposition within the Republican party simply cannot unite around one effective candidate. However, Trump's supporters only make up about thirty percent of the total electorate. You cannot become presi...

Whenever we want to go away anywhere, the perennial question is, "What do we do with the dog?" We took Tina with us to Zakynthos and Samothraki, but this time we decided to leave her at a boarding kennel. Tina does not really like travelling and you cannot have a good beach holiday if dogs are not allowed on the beach. Accommodation options are also more complicated if you have to find somewhere that is "pet friendly". Herbie's boarding kennels, to the west of Veliko Tarnovo has had some good recommendations on Facebook, so we thought that we would give it a try. Ian and Sylvie, the owners of the kennels, are really nice "doggie people", Yes, I am sure that it must have been distressing for Tina at first, but she soon settled in and enjoyed playing with the other dogs. On our way back from Corfu, we picked up Tina and brought her back to VT. Although she has lost some weight, there is nothing wrong with her appetite and so she is determined to restore ...

Dear Malcolm,                 Thursday, 3rd May, 2023 How are you, old fellow? I always enjoy reading your emails and of course they bring back memories of our time in the Magic Kingdom. Well, I have finally reached the grand old age of 64. I am looking forward to being 65, as then (at long last) I will be getting some money back from Her Majesty’s government. I suppose that now it ought to be “His Majesty’s government”, as King Charles III has become our new royal ruler. Camilla seems to be a total cow and the other two King Charleses were disasters, so I do not have much hope for the new one. What a flipping waste of money, this silly coronation nonsense! On my birthday, we went into Elena, a local town about 10 kms away from our country house, as there was a rather good folklore festival. Lots of music, singing, dancing and old-style Bulgarian costumes. It was all put on for the tourists, I suppose, but ...

Dear Peter, It is always magnificently amazing to receive an email from you, my dear chap! Thank you also for the scanned bank statements. Yes, it is quite clear that Barclays have NOT transferred any money, so I am going to write to them again. This time I will ask them to set up a regular transfer every six months, so that we do not have this problem again. Yes, we are still in Daveri. It has been flipping cold and wet too. When is summer finally going to arrive? Did I mention the home-grown asparagus? It was absolutely delicious, even though it makes your pee extra-stinky. I am sure that there is some special chemical in asparagus that produces this strange and smelly change. The problem is that we really need to have thirty or forty asparagus plants, if we are hoping to scoff the stuff on a fairly regular basis for a month or two. The good news is that asparagus is a perennial, so that means more next year! My guess is that if you were to have had the time and fairly large ...

This is the first time that I have written a piece for my blog in a long while, as not much has been happening. As usual, NO ONE has been writing any comments on my blog. It is rather depressing! Has the Bank of England interest rate really gone up to 4%? Will it be going higher? I am very glad that I do not have mortgage in the UK.  I really do not think that the war in Ukraine is going to end next week. However, a rapid collapse of the Russian army really does look like a possible outcome. The deployment of modern tanks could completely change the overall balance of forces on the battlefield. This will probably happen because the Russians have hardly any tanks left, apart from some ones that are really old and outdated. When the war started more than a year ago, Putin thought that he was going to capture Kyiv in a day or two, but it all went horribly wrong. This just shows that predicting the future is a hit-and-miss affair, especially in a war. Part of the problem is that Putin ...