Blog
Dumpster-diving window beggars
This is our life now. Every time we go out, we’re on high alert for abandoned wooden windows to finish off the rustic greenhouse. We eyeball people’s gardens as we drive by. We scour municipal bins. We tell anyone who’ll listen, ‘We’re looking for old windows. DO...
Springwerk, greenhouse progress and wild garlic
We finally had a warm, sunny, spring-like weekend, so we spent all of last Saturday and Sunday in the veg garden, attempting to impose some order on the chaos. It was hard work (werk schmerk). The first gardening weekend of the year is always murder on my back and...
Return of the Gardening Bore (again)
In a list-writing mood today (quelle surprise), so I thought I’d present you with an update on our Gardening Bore 2021 antics. If you’re new here, when we bought our Bulgarian village house it came with a large-ish (1/4 acre) garden – complete with some grass,...
April, is that really you?
My calendar, filthy liar that it is, is trying to convince me that it’s April. But that can’t be right, can it? How are we already a quarter of the way through 2021? How can time fly when none of us are having any fun? It doesn’t seem fair. As it’s April Fool’s...
A trip to Troyan Monastery (but mainly, Bulgarian pottery)
I have never seen Troyan Monastery as quiet as it was last Friday. True, the main chapel is currently undergoing restoration, but I was still surprised to see the rest of the complex so empty and, well, monastic. There were more people browsing the wooden bowls and...
13 squash recipes everyone should have up their sleeve
I realise this post would have been more timely back in the autumn, when squash and pumpkin were everywhere in the shops. But if you grow your own squash, as we do, you’ll still have loads left from the autumn (cured properly in a sunny, warm spot squash will keep...
Wanted: An unsociable person’s guide to making friends
It’s hard to make friends later in life, isn’t it? I often wonder how people do it. So many of my longstanding friendships started in the workplace or stretch all the way back to my college and university days, so now that I work from home and am about as likely to...
Gratitude (I’m not a robot)
Seems a lot of people back home are grateful that there’s now a roadmap for bringing the UK out of lockdown. I’m not really one for strong ‘feelings’ (she says, in air quotes, like feelings are something marketers made up to sell ice cream), so I’ve always felt,...
A lovely, sticky ginger cake for you (vegan, but you’d never know it)
As someone who’s constantly obsessed with my next meal, I’m still surprised how much I’ve focused in on food during this whole pandemic thing. Which is partly why I’m enjoying Instagram so much. (If you aren’t yet following me, I’m @auntie_bulgaria. I share lots of...
Indoor gardening, or welcome to Gardening Bore 2021
Hello and welcome to Gardening Bore 2021, hosted by me, your favourite gardening bore. For anyone who’s new to the Auntie Bulgaria blog, Gardening Bore is an annual traditional in which I: Throw myself enthusiastically into sowing veg and flower seeds in spring....
The (secret) joy of Bulgarian power cuts
We’ve had a couple of lengthy power cuts in the last week. We seem to go through phases where we have no power cuts for months, then we’ll have days or even weeks of frequent disruption. Long-time readers will know my frustration with this. There are the...
Homemade liqueurs. Birthday snow
The snow has finally returned to Bulgaria. Which is handy because I was getting really cheesed off with all that brownness. Brown trees. Brown muddy lanes. Brown garden. Brown paw prints all over the kitchen floor. Brown village river (it’s been raining a lot,...