Bulgarian life
91. Switching on spring
I don’t want to be one of those awful English people who move abroad and complain about the heat, but (she says, limbering up to complain about the heat) … it’s 30°C here today. Thirty degrees! In Bulgaria, spring often starts like the flicking of a switch and it’s...
88. February squared
I’ve been trying hard to blog more frequently in 2016. Like many resolutions, I did really well in January then fell off a cliff in February. Not updating the blog for five weeks is the writerly equivalent of sacking off the gym and eating a whole bag of doughnuts...
85. Five winters in
Usually around this time of year I start reading one of Rob’s old books on Buddhism in a futile attempt to become more zen and live in the moment. This year I’m screwing that off in favour of looking backwards. Not in a gloomy way, you understand, but a reflective...
81. Snakes and housing ladders and other imaginary worries
My anxiety has been a little woo-hoo lately. (When you read ‘woo-hoo’ imagine me doing bug eyes and waving my fingers in the air). It goes like that sometimes. In Bulgaria you really just have to go with the flow, which is not only a dickish phrase but also...
80. Love letter to Sofia
Sveta Nedelya Church, Sofia Moving to a Bulgarian village is like moving to the 1950s. In our village, they could easily film one of those TV programmes where people live like Victorian farmers or Tudor doctors or something: everyone knows everyone, chickens...
79. Time flies when you have a fungal infection
As it’s been so long since I last wrote, I shall attempt to summarise the last six months in 200 words. Ready? August 2014: Catastrophic rain and floods in Bulgaria. We go to the beach for five days. It rains. I get the shits. It rains some more. We come home....
76. A change is gonna come
I quit my job recently. It was a good job, one that I enjoyed maybe 80-90% of the time. That’s pretty good going, I think; some people hate their jobs 90% of the time. And it’s not like I’ve ever had a burning ambition to work for myself or run my own...
75. Living abroad and the eighty-fourth problem
Lately I’ve been reading this book about Buddhism. It’s not been going well; I don’t think I’m really cut out for Buddhism. I spent ages staring at this close-up-magic-eye-type picture in the book, trying to work out what it was. It was a cow’s face. Even when I...
72. Ode to the beach
I bloody love the beach, I do. I love the way the wind troubles my hair. (A too-short bob in summer is a bad choice, what I wouldn't give for a ponytail!) The constant watering of my left eye. Those little pimples I get after days of sweating under factor 50 sun...
69. Three good things
Some things that have made me happy lately... Wardrobes. For 18 months I’ve been sharing one of those cheap clothes racks with Rob (you know, the things that very organised people take to car boot sales to hang their wares on). Some time ago we gave up putting...
67. Three reasons why I should not have children
I’ve never really seen myself having kids. I just don’t feel the urge. And I’m okay with that. But not everyone understands - sometimes I feel like I need a proper grown-up reason, something better than ‘I just don’t really fancy it’. So, I’ve decided to...
66. [I’m not very good at this sort of thing so insert your chosen motivational phrase here]
Almost four years ago Rob and I sat in a pub in Southsea. It was a Sunday and we both had a bad case of the Sunday blues. I was commuting to London at the time - spending 4-5 hours a day travelling. (It doesn’t matter how much you like your job, that sort of...