Gardening bore
Scavengers
You know what’s the surest sign that winter is on the way? It’s not the arrival of this year’s wood order, which finally turned up about a week ago… The annual Rob-in-front-of-the-wood-delivery picture. Nor is it harvesting the tempting butternut squash,...
What to do with all those tomatoes? (Inspiration needed)
Just a small selection of this week's bounty. Following last year’s ‘What to do with all those courgettes’ post, I thought I’d do the same with tomatoes – except this time with more of a plea for ideas. Here’s what we normally do with all our toms: Eating...
Tart me up
Here’s a neat way with courgettes that I made up all by myself, like the clever sausage I am. Now that we’re ramping up to Peak Courgette, it’s useful to have yet another courgette recipe to put into rotation, alongside other favourites like cake, briam...
June is over … and so is the stormy season?
The stormy season seems to be getting longer every year. When we first came to Bulgaria, there’d usually be a stormy few weeks in May – lovely warm days, then these great crashing storms in the evenings. Then, within a couple of years, the storms started creeping...
Gardening bore, May 2019
Still flying solo here for another few days while Rob finishes his trip to England. And it’s starting to wear thin now. The novelty of having the house to myself for a few weeks has been replaced with a sore back (from gardening), cracked hands (from washing up –...
Coming home
I’ve always been happy calling anywhere ‘home’. Bulgaria is ‘home’. England is ‘home’. Anytime I stay in a hotel or Airbnb for more than a night, I start calling it ‘home’. So, yes, I’m home (in Bulgaria) after my long trip back home (in England). The cat gang...
KAT, cats and glads
Like a lot of Brits here facing the prospect of no-deal Brexit tomfuckery, I had to drag my arse to the KAT office in Sofia last week to do battle with Bulgarian bureaucracy. But, on the plus side, it was all over within 30 minutes (my personal best for a KAT...
Spring in pictures
Not much to report at the moment as life is consumed (consumed!) by Brexit anxiety. (Joking. Sort of.) At least there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful out in the sunshine, including… 1. Big birds are back The storks have returned and taken up residence on...
Osmi mart and a sunny weekend
Last Friday was International Women’s Day (simply ‘osmi mart’ or ‘8th March’ in Bulgarian). It’s a BIG deal here – easily as big as Mother’s Day in the UK, except it celebrates all women, not just the reproductive ones. Women receive gifts from their loved...
Spring tease 2019
We’ve had our afternoon coffee out on the back terrace for the past three days, and it's been heavenly. Sat on the bench, against the sunny back wall of our house, it was baking. I can’t remember ever having coffee breaks outside in short sleeves in...