Bulgaria with Noodles

One of the quirks of the English language (or maybe of English people) is that we sometimes say exactly the opposite of what a word actually means. "Gay" really means happy, joyful and free of care. Whose smart idea was it to call a wild area of the countryside, the royal property of William the Conqueror nearly a thousand years ago, the "New" Forest?    Just in case you did not know, I went to a slightly posh public (i.e. private) school called Lord Wandsworth College.      Little Lord Wandsworth  Had a college in Hants. He had silken trousers And marble pants.    Although the front gates look absurdly pretentious, the reality is that going to LWC in the 1970s was a pretty horrible experience. The food was awful, as school food usually is, I hated competitive sport (and there was plenty of that) and the college was way out in the countryside, miles from anywhere. My mother could never have afforded the outrageous school fees, but my father (a hea...

Dear Malcolm,        Wednesday, 13th May, 2026 So booze has finally arrived in Saudi Arabia! And not before time. In Doha, there was something quaintly called “the Qatar Distribution Company” or the QDC or just the booze shop. As well as alcohol, you could also buy some rather overpriced pork. In Egypt, you could actually buy wine that was made in Egypt. It was horrible. I am sure that they are paying you rather well to mix some concrete, but I quite like being retired. It’s much more fun than going to boring staff meetings. Being a teacher meant quite a lot of paperwork, writing loads of end-of-term reports and so on. We came back to our country house near Elena in March and so far the spring has been a bit on the chilly side. As usual, we are planning to go to Greece in June. Any other news? I think I told you that M. B. was “struck off” the medical register. He was a senior anesthetist in a hospital and he made several questionable decisions that resulted in patie...

Yes, spring has finally, finally arrived and maybe summer is not too far away. (I am so excited that I was almost inclined to give both "spring" and "summer" a capital S.) The garden of our country house in Daveri is looking really rather splendid.    The tractor mower did an excellent job and the lawn next to the terrace is looking beautiful. A very pampered and podgy Plovdiv pooch is celebrating the warm weather by lying on her back and showing her tummy. How embarrassing! The really good news is that we have had a bumper crop of asparagus this year. It is absolutely yummy when eaten with my dear wife's delicious homemade mayonnaise.

Alistair Swinnerton's excellent blog post about Oxford brought back a flood of memories, but really this piece of mine is just an excuse for having lots of nice photos of Oxford. Whatever Veliko Tarnovo's architectural charms, Oxford has them in spades. It really was (and no doubt still is) an amazingly beautiful city, with oodles of gorgeous old buildings. No doubt there are more than enough modern monstrosities on Oxford’s outskirts, but fortunately I hardly ever saw them during my four years. When I first found out that I had a place at Oxford University (the real deal, not the Poly down the road), I would invariably mention it to anyone and everyone, on all possible occasions. Now I try to keep quiet about my Oxford days. Well, they were rather a long time ago and the memories of those years are so disconnected with my life in Bulgaria. Ou sont les neiges d'antan? I met many rather colourful and / or eccentric characters while at Oxford and one that will always rema...

Oh dear! Old age has been creeping up on me. I am not very keen on the idea of being 67. It was bad enough being 66. A good belated birthday present would be some comments on my blog, but I never seem to get them.   The good news is that my dear wife cooked an excellent birthday breakfast for me, with plenty our own homegrown asparagus and Irena's yummy homemade mayonnaise. (Yes, and in case you were wondering, I cannot help feeling smug whenever I see the price of a small bundle of asparagus in the supermarket.)   We were in VT for a few days, staying in our apartment. I went to see Adrian a couple of times and we took his lovely doggie, Sisi, for a long walk. In fact, we almost got as far as Arbanassi, as my dear wife assured me that she knew the way. She didn't. I also had the car serviced and the garage managed to find a replacement for one of the wheel nuts. As we were in VT for a few days, I have an excuse for including some more photos of this quirky, photogenic ci...

Yes, it's confession time.This post is really just an excuse for lots of old photos from my five years at Green Oasis School. Why are Chinese children so completely sweet and adorable? Well, most of them were, most of the time.  Even when one or two of the students at GOS were a little bit naughty, the parents and the school's administration were very firm and supportive. Another probable reason why GOS was such a positive place was that many Chinese schools have a reputation for being absolutely dreadful and unhappy places, so the children loved being at a happy school where the teachers wanted to be friendly and make learning fun. When I was at Lord Wandsworth College, more years ago than I care to remember, most of my lessons were staggeringly dull, uninteresting and predictable. At GOS, I really tried hard to make my lessons "hands on", fun and different. Practical Science lessons are a headache for teachers, but the students love them and, even more importantly, ...

Happy Easter! Christos vaskres! Yes, when I started writing this, it was Easter Sunday, the most important day in the Christian Church’s calendar. But which church? Normally Irena and I go to the evangelical church in Veliko Tarnovo. The services are all in Bulgarian, of course, but it is good to be with other Christians. I was not brought up as a Christian. I don’t remember my mother or Eric, my step-father, ever encouraging me to pray or to read the Bible. I hated going to church at my public school, Lord Wandsworth College, and it was at Oxford that I become a Christian. Although I originally signed up for Classics, I changed to Theology. So what about our new Archbishop of Canterbury? It is now a few days after Easter. There have been a few pieces in the newspapers and on TV about the new Archbishop. Half of me says, “Hooray! Yes, why not? It is about time we had a lady in Canterbury. After all, we have female airline pilots, lawyers, plumbers, mechanics, soldiers, etc.” I am ...