Bulgaria with Noodles

Yikes! We have had some serious, serious snow and it is still only November. I think that here in VT we had maybe 30 cms of snow. There were lots of branches broken under the weight of the snow and many of the villages round VT seem to be without electricity. So what is going to happen in January and February? The heavy fall of snow has damaged quite a few trees in the woods around our apartment. What a pity I left my chainsaw back in Daveri!

Yesterday we came back from Daveri, having stayed there overnight. Whenever we move from Daveri to VT or the other way round, my dear sweet wife always manages to find piles and piles of stuff that she wants to move from one to the other. Anyway, Daveri was blooming freezing when we arrived, but I am glad to say that our central heating worked pretty well. What was not working so well was the electricity. There wasn’t any. Although power cuts do tend to happen quite a lot in the Bulgarian countryside during the winter months, it was a bit of a shock to arrive in Daveri and find that there was no power. Fortunately, the electricity came back on fairly soon and so we were able to get on with all of the jobs associated with preparing for winter. If you are going to be leaving your house empty for some length of time during the winter months, of course you need to drain all of the water pipes. Before you can do that, you must turn off the water. The next day we were just about to leave...

If you are reading this blog post, then I suppose that it means that you must have electricity and, unlike quite a lot of places in the UK, a tree has not crashed down onto your house and you have not been drowned or swept out to sea. The dreadful storm hits us about midday. It was bad. Tina was terrified and part of the roof was ripped off the greenhouse. Two of the trees in the garden are more or less wrecked, so they are going to be chopped up for firewood, and four sections of the old wooden fence are down in the Secret Garden. Two of them are so badly damaged that it was quite difficult to repair them. We had brought the old green plastic garden chair with us when we moved to Bulgaria from the UK, so it was a bit sad to see that it had been broken in the storm.  As for the roof, two ridge tiles were completely blown off and of course they were smashed, as was the special rounded tile at the end of the ridge. The answer to most problems is Vincent and he managed to find a repla...

It was more years ago than I care to remember that I studied Theology at Oxford. One of the few things that I learned from my degree course is that the shortest verse in the whole Bible is "Jesus wept." He did his weeping over Jerusalem and there still is quite a lot of weeping going on right now in Israel. I do not know which was (or is going to be) worse, the appalling attack by Hamas or Israel's devastating response. Irena and I always wanted to see inside the synagogue in Sofia. (These photos were taken about ten years ago, which is why we both look quite a bit younger and even more good-looking than usual.)  The synagogue in Sofia is a beautiful and peaceful place. I felt rather at home there, as I believe that Christians and Jews worship the same God. (I cannot say that I have the same feelings in a Hindu or a Buddhist temple.) Perhaps it is because m y best friend at school was Jewish and so were most of my friends at university.  To its eternal credit, Bulgaria wa...

After I put AJ on the coach to Sofia, I went back to Daveri. It was good to see my wife and our naughty little dog. Then Irena decided that she also wanted some time in Veliko Tarnovo, so we stayed in VT for a few days.  We finally, finally paid the deposit for the loft insulation. I do not like the idea of unwrapping rolls of that horrible stuff called fibreglass, but that was the cheapest option. I am just hoping that I can get the rolls through the loft hatch. Just before we left for VT, I looked in our letterbox and lo and behold! There was a nice card from Peter and a CD of photos. Every year, he always sends me lots of photos that he has taken during his holiday in Bulgaria. He really has taken some good photos. Well, now we are back again in Daveri, having made no less than TWO visits to Kaufland. Tina is very happy to be running around the garden once again.  As for my blog, it has now notched up more than 100,000 "hits". Wow! The big question for me is why I hardly e...

Maybe some  people in the UK can remember J.R. Ewing and O.J. Simpson, so this just shows that the most reputable individuals in America always go by their initials. AJ is an old friend from our days in Shenzhen. He says that things have got a lot tougher for expats since our departure, with the Chinese government tightening the screws and making life harder for foreigners living in China. Well, AJ did not find life too tough in Bulgaria. I collected him from the airport in Sofia and then we had five or six days in and around Daveri, doing all the fairly obvious things, such as a wander around Elena, a walk around the lake in Palitsi and a trip to the Ruhovtsi waterfall, as well as playing badminton and croquet.  No, I did not bother with another touristy visit to Tsaravets, as I have already seen it so many times, but of course AJ had to see it. We did, however, manage to fit in a walk with the VT Walkers and it was good to see some familiar faces.  If you have not alr...

Have you seen this property advertised on the YANTRA HOMES website? Not bad for 65,000 euros and it comes with more than 2000 sq metres of land. I am not sure that you really need four bedrooms, but maybe one of them could be made into a library or a study or something else. It is really nice to have some spare space and an extra bathroom or two, whenever anyone comes to stay.  Polski Trambesh is about 40 or maybe 50 kms north of Veliko Tarnovo, so you will need a car (and probably a garage). On the other hand, perhaps there is someone in the village who will sell you their garage or rent one to you or else you could use one of the outbuildings as a garage. The vendors have lavished care and attention (and money!) on this property and the swimming pool is rather nice. This property really does look like a bargain!  Recently I had quite a long chat with an old friend in the UK, who is not all happy with the situation in Dear Old Blighty (more rail strikes and air traffic contro...