Bulgaria with Noodles

  Dear Malcolm,                                You will be amused to learn that while I am writing this on my computer, I am also listening to Supertramp’s “Crisis? What Crisis?” album. Yes, the one with the grey and boring background and the chap in shorts, sitting under the yellow umbrella. I find that music takes me back in time, back to a room in Sutton House, one with the strange wallpaper that looked like wood, a cuckoo clock and a big poster of a young lady who was not wearing a lot of clothes. So have you drowned yet? Saudi Arabia seems to be permanently under water, with floods drenching Mecca and turning the desert green. Is this a sign of the End of the World? Or just another indication of climate change? It would help, of course, if the civil engineers in KSA had designed the roads properly, so that there were proper drains to take away the water. I keep getting rubbish from LWC, inviting me...

Recently there was some discussion on a Facebook group about why expat Brits would want to leave Bulgaria and go back to the UK.  In my experience, very few expats sell up and leave Bulgaria, although some do for family reasons or bereavement. Here is my contribution to the discussion. If your life in the UK had been so wonderful, then of course you would never have wanted to leave in the first place and you certainly would never have wanted to go and live in Bulgaria. Yes, it is true that learning the Bulgarian language is not exactly easy, if you really want to be fluent in it, but in reality Bulgarian is not much harder than French or German, once you have got over the novelty of the Cyrillic alphabet. In any case, why would you want to do something stupid like returning to the UK? Because you miss the fun of driving on the M25, aka the biggest carpark in Europe? Because the National Health Service is such a model of prompt and efficient patient care? Because all of the affordab...

If you do not count Metro, which is a bit like Cash & Carry in the UK and so you must have a membership card, then there are three supermarket chains in Bulgaria: Billa, Kaufland and Lidl. My dear wife, Irena, flatly refuses to shop at Billa. She says that it is way too expensive. This means that Irena and I are always going to either Kaufland or Lidl and sometimes we go to both on the same day. My dear wife loves the chicken and the pork at Kaufland, as well as the special offers, whereas Lidl rarely seems to have any special bargains. However, the cheese is a lot better in Lidl, she says, and generally Lidl is the cheaper of the two. I was therefore very interested in a video I saw on YouTube, entitled  What is the cost of living in Sofia? This video is on the YouTube “A Taste of Bulgaria” channel and here is the link, so that you can watch the whole video for yourself and then decide if you agree with me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdRkrNxfvX0&t=215s In order...

I do hope that my friend's mother finally received some medical treatment and that the problem with her ear has been sorted out. I have not had an email from him recently, so I do not know for sure. On a less serious note, we received a Christmas card drom the UK last week. Yes, the Bulgarian postal service is maintaining its high and professional standards with the delivery of a Christmas card in February. (Almost as slow as the NHS, in fact.)    It was a lovely card, except that it had a picture of a deer on it.  M y wife and I have some rather unhappy memories with regards to deer, especially the one that scared the **** out of both of us by jumping in front of the car and doing about two hundred pounds’ worth of damage. While we are on the subject of postal deliveries, this morning we received a letter from none other than the Greater-Footed Armfelt Bird. Nicholas took great pleasure in telling me that the “albino herons” that I had seen on the Yantra River, next to o...

Recently I received an email from my old friend and I was very sorry (and angry) to read about his mother’s ear problems. She has been in a lot of pain. Bloody National Health Service! What a flipping disgrace! You work hard and pay your taxes all your life and then what? When you really need the NHS, it isn’t there! Well, maybe it might be there, after you have waited three weeks to see your GP and then waited another year for an operation. Here in Bulgaria, the hospital in Veliko Tarnovo is not exactly ultra-modern. In fact, it is a bit tatty and could do with several coats of paint. However, Irena and I have always had fairly prompt treatment. Even if we turn up to our GP without an appointment, as we usually do, we do not have to wait more than an hour and sometimes we hardly have to wait. Just about every hospital in the UK charges about five quid an hour to park your car in the hospital carpark. In VT, I have never paid a penny to park my car near the hospital. I suppose, like mo...

Is it really possible that Donald Trump could be re-elected as the President of the United States in 2024? In some ways, it is difficult to imagine this happening, as Trump is currently facing no less than ninety-one different criminal charges, some of which might result in a long prison sentences, if he were to be found guilty. On the other hand, I have seen quite a few YouTube videos in which someone asks members of the American public some fairly simple questions. The incorrect answers that are given show levels of utter stupidity and moronic thickness that are almost unimaginable. I have often wondered whether these videos are actually faked and that the people who are giving these brainless answers have been bribed or tricked into saying such silly things. But what would be the point of that? If these YouTube videos are genuine, then they suggest that there is a most unpleasant reality, namely that a significant number of Americans are in fact staggeringly stupid, uneducated and m...

Yes, I have my eyes shut. I hate photos when I have my eyes shut. They look so silly. Anyway, 2024 did not get off to a great start, as I have been quite ill, with a temperature of 39, as well as various aches and pains. Yesterday I was feeling a lot better and so Iryna and I went for a wander around Arbanassi with the VT Walkers. (Arbanassi is the Beverly Hills of Veliko Tarnovo, as it is full of very expensive properties belonging to corrupt politicians, pop stars and footballers.) This was followed by lunch at The Wine Club, my favourite restaurant. (Iryna does not like it and she thinks that the food is overpriced.) Here are a few old photos from our previous visit with the VT Walkers. It's rather like an old-fashioned English pub. On the subject of not making a good start, Nikki Haley came a poor third in the Iowa primaries, but maybe she will do a lot better in New Hampshire and South Carolina.