Blog
You know it’s autumn when…
Yes, yes, the leaves are turning interesting shades of gold and rust. The entire internet (okay, middle-aged women on Instagram, which for me IS the entire internet) has become obsessed with ‘spooky season’. There’s pumpkin shit everywhere. And we all know what...
Sightseeing (somewhere other than Sofia)
We love it when people come to stay because it forces us to behave like tourists and venture out on day trips. Seems like whenever we have the time, energy and money for a fun day out, we default to a day in Sofia. Don’t get me wrong, I adore Sofia. We live in the...
September and that New Year feel
Don’t know about you, but September has always given me New Year vibes. It doesn’t just stem from childhood and starting a new school year, with new teachers, fresh exercise books, new shoes, etc. It’s more than that. It’s in the air. It’s the shortening days and...
The curse of the inflatable pool
I jinxed the summer by buying a big, dumb inflatable pool. That’s what I did. We had all these plans for August. We had our Sinemorets trip with family, then we were looking forward to a week of quiet time just the two of us, then we had more visitors coming from...
Sinemorets (yes, again)
Happy to see I’ve nudged a few people to head to the wonderful Greek island of Samothraki this year. We’ll be going back ourselves at some point. But this year? This year I wanted to hunker down and go back to our old favourite, Sinemorets, on Bulgaria's Black Sea...
In the veg garden
Let’s check in on the veg garden, shall we? Because I realise I’ve hardly mentioned it since April, which is not very Gardening Bore of me at all. It’s been our best year yet for the veg garden. After we expanded it last year to make some extra new beds in front of...
Kitten circus
Step right up, folks, and welcome to the kitten circus. Also known as our garden. Because it’s kitten mayhem around here. I mentioned a while ago that a heavily pregnant cat had turned up in our garden and promptly given birth to three kittens in our summer...
Mushroom season
It’s been a dry month, with hardly any of the afternoon storms that usually punctuate June. Which is great. The garden has enjoyed the abundant heat and sunshine. But it’s not so great for picking mushrooms. Every time we’ve been mushroom hunting this season the...
Lost in Lyulin
After so many years here, it’s always fun to find a new Bulgarian thing that confuses me. I mean, it’s not always fun at the time but it generally makes for good blog fodder. And so we found ourselves wandering around Sofia’s Lyulin 5 neighbourhood – a nice, leafy...
Why doesn’t everyone just move abroad?
UK readers, please tell me, why are you still there? Why haven’t you buggered off abroad yet? I don’t want to come off as an ingrate. The UK did alright by me. I turned 18 in the late 90s, a particularly optimistic time to be a Brit. I went to university when it...
Life lessons from our five (ish) cats
If you’ve been here a while you’ll know we’re mad cat people. And as any fellow mad cat person will know, cats are masters of the universe who are supremely confident in their own wonderfulness. Here are five ways we can all Be More Cat. Stretch Cats delight in a...
What to sling on the barbecue this summer
Whiplash-inducing turnaround, as per usual, on this blog. Last time moaning about the unseasonably cold April, and this time telling you to fire up the barbecue. Because SUMMER IS HERE, folks. We’ve had a couple of weekends where it’s been warm enough to cook and...