Bulgarian life
One of those ‘whoa’ moments
You may not expect this of me, sweary, dungaree-devotee that I am, but I’m surprisingly into visualisation and manifestation. No, really. Woo woo me up, baby. I draw the line at crystals and horoscopes (with apologies to crystal- and astrology-lovers – you do you),...
Why does this summer hate me?
I don’t want to be one of *those* Brits. Those Brits who complain about the weather all the time (it’s either too cold, too hot, too dry or too wet for those people). But I have to get it off my chest, guys. I just have to. I’m going to explode all over my office...
Ah, so THIS is why we moved to Bulgaria
We’ve recently been rewatching The Good Life, the 1970s BBC sitcom about a suburban couple who turn their back garden into a self-sufficiency paradise. And oh lord, my life choices make so much sense now. Because I forgot how much I LOVED The Good Life when I was a...
How to survive January
How’s January treating you so far? I was livid – actually livid – to see that other parts of Bulgaria had a lovely sprinkling of snow in the past week, while our area is still a sea of brown. Brown trees, brown fields, brown roofs. So although we always ease into...
Worried about winter
Early January. Even though 95% of your body is under the duvet, you can tell it’s going to be cold when you get out. Cold wooden floors, maybe a thin film of ice on the single-pane windows. What little you can see through the window is bleached, the grey and white...
It snowed without me
Greetings from the UK where I have been mostly screeching about the price of everything and wondering why there are so many people everywhere. So, you know, my standard UK experience. It doesn’t even feel that Christmassy here, and that’s my main reason for coming...
Putting on a show
How splendid has this autumn been in Bulgaria? The colour of the leaves has been stunning, and because the days are so warm (verging on hot, really), they’ve stayed glued to the trees for much longer than usual. A few years ago, we had a really hard frost pretty...
How we make cider
I say ‘we’ but this is mostly an annual Rob endeavour. I help out with the picking and chopping of apples, then I entirely check out of the process until it’s time to drink the stuff. Writing this post therefore meant shaking the details out of Rob’s head via a...
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...
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...
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...