Picture the scene: it’s 8.30 on a Friday morning. I have just arrived at work and am checking my emails. I have a friendly email from Costa offering me a free coffee – hurrah, what a lovely start to the day. But what’s this next email? Our Bulgarian tax return is due? Noooooooo. The email has at least 20 documents attached. Naturally, I do what any smart, proactive grown-up would do: promptly close the email without opening any of the attachments and, for the rest of the day, pretend I haven’t seen it.

The deal is, because we had to set up a limited company to buy the property, we now have to submit annual accounts. Obviously we just post a big fat ‘zero’ as we’re not actually trading. But still, it has to be done.

Lucky for us, our agent’s very capable assistant can handle all the paperwork for us – for a fee, of course. We just need to sign, stamp and return the many, many documents. Did I mention we get an official company stamp? I haven’t seen it yet, it’s with our lawyer, but it totally does exist. How cool is that? I was quite a serious child and used to love playing ‘Post Office’ so the idea of my very own stamp is uber exciting. What can I say; it’s the secret librarian in me.

Anyway, the paperwork is signed and ready to return to Emilia, so I think (I hope) that’s the end of the tax return mini-drama. Sigh. It’s tough being an international business tycoon.