Bulgarian life
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...
Recommended reading
I’ve got just the thing for you this week. A good book to lose yourself in, but something deeply thoughtful – so you can distract yourself from the scary state of the world, but with something a bit … worthy, if you know what I mean. Look at me, recommending an...
Priorities
Someone on Instagram was recently talking about life choices, particularly the things they choose to prioritise (time, mortgage-free living) and the things they choose to sacrifice in return (big house, plenty of disposal income, a retirement plan). I needed to...
Sexy Paul. Also, more bread
Right, so I caught a bit of that Beatles documentary Get Back and I have FEELINGS on the matter. Confusing, sometimes sexual feelings. Mostly about Paul McCartney. Which is very weird because, for me, Paul McCartney has always fallen into the same category as Bono...
Plugging back in
Long-time readers will know I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. The idea that I’ll suddenly learn to enjoy exercise, start saving money for my old age, or gain the ability to meditate, just because it’s January, is laughable. We all know I’ll be the same...
In praise of winter
It’s harder to appreciate winter in the UK, isn’t it? Especially if you aren’t lucky enough to work from home. I remember it being dark when I got up in the morning, dark when I left the house for work, dark for the last hour of working in the office, dark on the...
David Pumpkins
There’s an old Saturday Night Live sketch with Tom Hanks where he’s playing this bizarre character called David Pumpkins. (Google it. It’s weird as shit.) And I think about that weird-ass sketch, and his funny suit, and the dancing – oh God, the dancing – every...
Autumn again
It feels like I start every other post like this: how is it [insert month/season here] already?! But indulge me while I do it yet again. Because it’s somehow October, if you hadn’t noticed, and all hope of pretending it’s still, ahem, ‘late summer’ has well and...
The B-word
Watch out, Brexit’s about. It’s had a few drinks, it’s feeling lairy, and it’s ready to fuck your shit up. As you can probably guess, I’m not exactly Brexit’s core target audience, what with me actually living in Europe, and being a soya milk-drinking, wet lefty...
Summer nights, dry days
If you haven’t yet seen the Perseid meteor shower this August, you might have already missed out. It peaked across the evenings of the 11th and 12th. (But you might still catch some tonight, the 13th.) It’s become an annual ritual for us, to stay up and watch for...