Bulgarian life
166. Things I do during a(nother) power cut
My 'oh goody, ANOTHER power cut' face. Just as VAR is fast becoming my favourite thing about football (the drama as the ref jogs off the pitch to look at that telly!), electricity is fast becoming my least favourite thing about Bulgaria. Today we had no power for...
165. Early harvests
The garden is ramping up and feeding us regularly, despite last week’s epic storms. In fact, we’ve eaten (small) beetroot, (even smaller) courgettes and (lots of) tomatoes from the garden every day this week. Our early Latah tomatoes, and spoils from the...
164. Before and after the storm
I say ‘the storm’, like there’s been just the one. But we’ve had storms almost every day for weeks and weeks. It’s normal for this time of year in the mountains – we have beautiful hot, sunny days followed by stormy evenings – and we never usually mind. One storm...
163. June!
I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but it’s June. Already. June of 2018. Yesterday it was 1998 and I was sitting my a-levels, driving a knackered orange Fiesta with a broken speedometer, and planning an award-winning career as a foreign correspondent (or stage...
158. Rando
And so we arrive at the ragged, arse-end of winter. That time when the weather teases you saucily one day with sun and warmth, then slaps you in the chops with more snow the next. Last year this tiresome bait-and-switch behaviour went on until the end of April....
157. My commune dream
There’s a walk from our house that goes up above the start of the village to the tiny hilltop hamlet where our neighbour grew up. Long ago, everyone from this hamlet (I say ‘everyone’ – we’re talking about six houses) moved down into the village and the place is...
156. Snowy scenes
Don’t get me wrong, a mild winter is very welcome, especially as the previous winter was such a long one. But we were starting to feel a bit cheated by the lack of snow and brag-worthy cold temperatures. So you can imagine how pleased we were to finally get a...
155. More walkies
We did a lot of walking last summer and autumn, prepping hard for our Rhodope walking holiday. I mean, we’d always enjoyed a little trample in the mountains around us, but last year we started to take it really seriously. We became far too familiar with our nearest...
154. January funk. Cabbage
It’s been a really mild and easy January so far. We’ve only got about three inches of snow on the ground from yesterday’s snowfall, the first snow of 2018. The road is pretty clear. The temperature is hovering around zero when we get up in the mornings,...
153. Christmas and New Year in pictures
Food wanker I mean, I hate to be a dreadful food wanker, but just look at all the lovely things we ate and drank over the festive period. For the last 11 years, Christmas dinner has consisted of turkey and all the trimmings. This year we went all Scandi:...
152. The one where we go to a Bulgarian football match
We had family staying last week and their big wish was to go and see a Bulgarian football match. I’m not a football lover, as you might have guessed, but I’m up for anything that creates good blog fodder. And, as luck would have it, CSKA Sofia were playing...
151. Prepper’s delight
Greetings from the UK, where this image pretty much sums up the state of affairs: Vape shop?? Vape? Shop? Only two more days then I'll be back in the Bulg and hunkering down for winter. Which brings me to this epic post... Having got ourselves ready...