Blog
Very important things I learnt in 2020
I just don’t want to write about COVID-19 and the misery of UK lockdown. For one thing, we’re only semi-locked down here in Bulgaria and life, at least in the village, continues pretty much as normal. So I can’t even begin to relate to the struggle back home, and I...
Dusting off some memories (and house porn pics)
The other day I realised it was exactly 10 years since we bought our house. One of the joys of redesigning the Auntie Bulgaria website was revisiting some of our old adventures. Things that laid deep and dusty in my memory. The whole Bulgarian house-buying...
How to make mekitsi
The first time we ate mekitsi, we were in the Rodopi mountains, staying in a small family hotel. Every morning the cook would bring out a plate piled with three or four large mekitsi at a time. There would be a brief but dignified scrum among the few guests...
Autumn highlights
Yes, it’s no longer autumn. In fact, it’s very snowy and festive here in Bulgaria. But because I took a two-month break from blogging while the site was being redesigned (which actually only took the designer a matter of days. The rest was me fannying around), I...
10 years of writing Auntie Bulgaria
Looky here. Instead of giving myself something made of tin – the traditional 10-year anniversary gift – I gave myself a new website instead. (What the hell kind of anniversary gift is tin anyway? What tinny item could possibly articulate, ‘I love you, babe. Thanks...
A change of scenery (and some news)
Back in bleak old January, we booked a little something to look forward to for August – a week in a small guesthouse in Sinemorets. By March, when we went into lockdown, we were already resigning ourselves to the fact that we probably wouldn’t go. By June,...
Let’s see…
Hello! Yes, I’m still here and haven’t been carried away by COVID, yet. I know I’ve been neglecting the blog in favour of work and gardening (mostly work). But it’s not like there are lots of exciting new life experiences to write about. Every week consists of us...
Out in the garden – a photo essay
‘Photo essay’ being a grandiose way of me just inserting a load of pictures instead of crafting a logical collection of words. (It’s Friday. It’s sunny. We’re barbecuing. Who wants to be inside typing?) Here goes… In the veg garden Pepper sizing up the...
Confession
We did it. We did the post-lockdown cliché thing. We went to Ikea. We needed a new teapot, you see. And some margarita glasses – yes, we needed margarita glasses – and Rob wanted some special paint for a garden project. So we figured we’d do a quick...
The boomiest of booms (also, cake)
Stormy season has arrived in Bulgaria. Look at those clouds rolling in. Ah, June. A great month for those Brits in Bulgaria who love wanging on about the weather. (So that’s all Brits in Bulgaria, then.) It’s hot and sunny one minute, then you hear the...
Cold spring, gardening boast
Spring flowers from the garden. Hard to believe it’s June next week, when it feels like spring barely got started. It’s been a funny old spring, weather-wise. Much colder than usual, with only a week or so of temperatures above 25°C. The rest of the time,...