Bulgaria with Noodles

The Philadelphia Church in Veliko Tarnovo had a service as usual on Sunday morning. Yes, it was all in Bulgarian (no big surprise) but it was good to worship with other brothers and sisters in Christ. Ivelina's daughter, Lizzie, was singing in the worship team. And in case you were wondering about the car, our old Nissan X-Trail, the Toyota garage in VT did a very good job of repairing it. Now I am waiting for the fire department's insurance company to pay for the damage.

One of the good things about being back in VT is that we can go for a stroll with the VT Walkers every Wednesday.  Last week we also had an evening meal with everybody and that was great. The pizza was good too, but I could not drink because I was driving. Bother! The other smashing incident happened a few days later, at about midnight. There was a car on fire at the end of our road (and yes, it was a hybrid). It really made a jolly blaze and nearly set fire to some of the houses! Anyway, the next morning I had been taking that naughty Plovdiv dog for a walk and I was just coming home for breakfast when I discovered the damage. It was a bit of a shock! The fire truck smashed into the back of my old Nissan X-Trail during the night, while we were asleep. I reckon that the truck must have been going quite fast, as it did some serious damage to the bumper. I suppose we should thank God that it did not break the petrol tank as well. That could have been rather interesting. Later there...

Dear Peter, Yes, the article you sent to me really confirms what I was thinking about the government pension, namely that you must make sure that you have paid all of the National Insurance contributions, in order to get the fullest possible amount back. And yes, the article made the point that whatever you pay, you should get it back in three years or less. The article also underlines your point that the state pension is linked to inflation, so it is bound to go up each year. In fact, it is supposed to be going up by more than eight per cent in April! Well, I have written to the pensions people, using your address, so there ought to be a letter back from them in a week or two. One of the things that I asked in my letter was what I should do if I am unable to access the pensions online thing through the government gateway. Yes, I have my passport and my NI number, but that still is not enough. Talking of passports, Irena's passport will need to be renewed next year and mine the fol...

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...