Blog
84. Work in progress
Just a quick (and unusually chipper) update: the builders are making great progress and we’re thrilled with the work so far. They did half days for the first few days (finishing up another project I think) but have been here 9–5 every day since then. Three of the...
83. Polystyrene walls
The 'before' pic. You'll have to wait for the big reveal... We’ve got the builders in. That’s not a euphemism for getting my period or having vaginal reconstructive surgery. We’re finally having the house re-rendered. In Bulgaria this means having the house...
82. Polytunnel city
‘Let’s build a greenhouse for the tomatoes,’ we said. ‘Just a small one,’ we said. You might wonder why, when we live in the land of hot summers, we felt such an urge. Well, reader, last year we had a pretty wet summer (warm, but wet and stormy) so Rob hastily...
81. Snakes and housing ladders and other imaginary worries
My anxiety has been a little woo-hoo lately. (When you read ‘woo-hoo’ imagine me doing bug eyes and waving my fingers in the air). It goes like that sometimes. In Bulgaria you really just have to go with the flow, which is not only a dickish phrase but also...
80. Love letter to Sofia
Sveta Nedelya Church, Sofia Moving to a Bulgarian village is like moving to the 1950s. In our village, they could easily film one of those TV programmes where people live like Victorian farmers or Tudor doctors or something: everyone knows everyone, chickens...
79. Time flies when you have a fungal infection
As it’s been so long since I last wrote, I shall attempt to summarise the last six months in 200 words. Ready? August 2014: Catastrophic rain and floods in Bulgaria. We go to the beach for five days. It rains. I get the shits. It rains some more. We come home....
78. Gardening bore
This one goes out to Mike, who will soon be back in the gardening groove. Have fun, sir. You might remember last year we overhauled the veg garden: creating raised beds, laying a stone path and adding a rustic stick fence. We were pretty pleased with it at the time...
77. The spectacular tale of the splendid indoor staircase
Once upon a time there was a girl who moved to a house in Bulgaria. A house with no indoor staircase. Every time that girl wanted to go upstairs, she had to go out the front door and walk around to the external staircase at the back of the house. Every time that...
76. A change is gonna come
I quit my job recently. It was a good job, one that I enjoyed maybe 80-90% of the time. That’s pretty good going, I think; some people hate their jobs 90% of the time. And it’s not like I’ve ever had a burning ambition to work for myself or run my own...
75. Living abroad and the eighty-fourth problem
Lately I’ve been reading this book about Buddhism. It’s not been going well; I don’t think I’m really cut out for Buddhism. I spent ages staring at this close-up-magic-eye-type picture in the book, trying to work out what it was. It was a cow’s face. Even when I...
74. White Walls and Tiaras
Ah, the good old days of living in a building site. In many ways, it’s really easy living in a building site. I’m only just realising this now, as we near the end of our renovation. (At least, we’re nearly finished on the inside of the house. The exterior is...
73. Ten things we’ve eaten next door for breakfast
Our neighbours are our surrogate Bulgarian parents. We love them, they make a big old fuss of us, and we have coffee with them most mornings. Trouble is, they are such feeders. If I should dare turn down a second slice of cake or pie, Svilen shouts at me and...