1 February, Thursday

Here in Bulgaria it was a day of remembrance of the victims of the communist regime. Friends who lived through those times tell me it was absolutely awful but admit that a few aspects of life have deteriorated further since the Iron Curtain was drawn back. Little is done to mark the occasion. A few wreaths are laid but what else can we do?

In Ireland it’s Imbolc, to celebrate the beginning of spring. Another country that’s suffered terrible times in the name of empire building.

Reading daily news hurts, but sunshine in our garden brought us great positive feelings.

2 February, Friday

We met English friends for a brew in the Viva café at the OMV petrol station by the nasty roundabout. They insist that although they used to live in Essex they’re really from Hertfordshire, so we allowed them to sit with us. And we’re regulars there now so the staff didn’t object. They dwell in lovely Kapinovo these days. Our cat ownership tally is greater than theirs so we were able to show off a bit.

But the rain came back. Mister Meteorologist said ‘No!’ but still it was a shit, wet grey day… the sort that inspires travel plans.

3 February, Saturday

I’ll be flabbergasted if the president doesn’t declare future thirds of Februarys as National Day of Mushroom Risotto. I spent most of the day either shopping for the ingredients for mushroom risotto, making mushroom risotto, eating mushroom risotto or dozing on the settee with a belly containing far too much mushroom risotto. I can’t wait for Lent so I can give it up.

The woman in the shop in the village where I bought my risotto raw materials looks more like Ronnie Wood every day. Funny he never comes to Malki Chiflik. I suppose our rakia’s too strong for him.

4 February, Sunday

I’ve spent the last month writing about my 2011 Iranian trip. It’s been an emotional journey as demanding as the original physical journey was. I’ve found myself pining for the mosques, the breakfast naan bread (I find toast and muesli so wishy-washy), the Del Monte mixed fruit salad flavour non-alcoholic beer and my old mate Mahtab.  

Mahtab’s email said that Priyatelka and I can go on one of her tours anytime we want but governments in the West say that if we do, and we get murdered, we shouldn’t go running to their embassies.

I wish politicians weren’t all snollygosters.

5 February, Monday

The sun’s warmth inspired me to hum Percy Faith’s Theme from a Summer Place all day, but exhaustion from compiling lists of outdoor jobs guided me back to the settee with tea and biscuit.

The bathroom shop shopkeeper made me feel old. Apparently shower trays are things of the past. Our timbered floor is unsuitable for the new mode. Ottoman architects were so remiss at times. Jolly good that Vasil Levski saw their kind off.

My heart’s been pulling me towards Africa since November 1957. I’ve a yearning to go to Togo. I expect it’s hot there, like our garden.

6 February, Tuesday

Priyatelkata was bussed to the capital city to rub shoulders with ‘ses amis français’ again. She collected her new passport but muttered ‘merde’ many times because she had to surrender the old one. So many exotic visas sadly lost. She vowed to replace them with new.

Human beings want to meet us for talking and coffee. Bulgaria’s brown bears are not asked to socialise at the end of their hibernation so why should we? Thursday 18 July, I decided, is a good day for that sort of thing. I hope they’re not all busy. Well actually I hope they are.

7 February, Wednesday

The computer repair shop boys are good for my ego. Whistling while they work to heavy rock music, their baggy jeans and sweatshirts make me feel like a sharp dressed man.

With technical skills outshining social skills a thousand fold, I imagine they are happy living alone in basements.

The job is done quickly and at little cost every time. But they have told me not to say a word to Bill Gates, as we may be fiddling him out of the price of a pair of children’s shoes. I hope the Microsoft kids don’t go to school in rags.

8 February, Thursday

Our personal grooming habits are suffering at the hands of protesting farmers. The only shower tray shop in the former Soviet Bloc, it seems, is by the Dunav River in Ruse but we found the roads blocked by tractors bigger than Thunderbirds. They have a beef with the European Union’s agriculture policy. Bulgaria is undercut and flooded with Ukraine’s cheap grain and vegetables. Even their chickens are going cheap. The very fresh ones are going cheep.

Our bathroom progress obstructed, we enjoyed wandering the Danubian Plain’s rolling countryside. After an ice cream in Byala I needed a shower but couldn’t.

9 February, Friday

‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the scars,’ I thought as Bulgarian ‘Scarface’ Sammy fixed our snow damaged gutters. I'm glad his price was agreeable as he looked like he might be quite adept at fighting.

Priyatelkata was away being ceramic with Women's Institute type people. They were making candlesticks today. I wasn’t sure I could be trusted with a Cludo weapon in their company.

At home I watched Zhivko and Stoyo (Gorbanov, not Marx, despite being the funniest Bulgarians) lopping trees that threaten our roof with every snowfall.

Whose idea was snow?

10 February, Saturday

My nose is my Achilles’ heel. I come from a family of weak noses. Whenever my Grandad sneezed every drink became a Bloody Mary, even tea. Cat Nouveau scratched my nose and I bled like a pig with a weak nose.

And my bones creak. Yesterday saw the start of the 2024 Terrible Pain Caused By Heavy Garden Work season. I removed a huge branch from a snow-damaged oak tree. I felt like I’m nearly 70 but really I’m only nearly 67.

Priyatelkata said the ceramics teacher reads what I write on my website. Is she my first ceramic fan?

11 February, Sunday

Despite residual agony from previous days’ horticultural exertions, I braved the vast expanse of land that will soon rival the gardens of Claude Monet and Suzi Kew. Endomorphs oozed from my every pore as I set about removing deceased boughs and briars from the edge of the forest. Poets might swoon over a droplet of blood on a rose thorn but I uttered words that were less than romantic.

Nature sprouted everywhere. From trees, bushes, grasses and bulbs. And I worked until darkness fell, just after six o’clock.

Such euphoria upon emerging from the agreeable end of winter’s dark tunnel.

12 February, Monday

I don’t like Mondays. They always herald the start of a new weight-loss diet which, in some weeks, has been known to continue until Tuesday afternoon. Our garden is our gymnasium, except today because it was very windy and it rained a bit.

I wasted hours faffing around on a genealogy website to produce what they call a family tree but what I see as just a list of names and how many kids they had.

It would have been much more interesting if some ancestors had scribbled a few words about themselves. This is my main reason for writing.

13 February, Tuesday

The village boys wanted our cut up tree branches to take to elderly folk for burning in their stoves. This would seem beautifully traditionally rustic if they weren’t selling the overpriced logs for cash to buy beer, marijuana and condoms. I’ll give the wood to our neighbour, Hassan, who has never found the need for any of these commodities as he’s always off his face on homemade rakia.

It’s Pancake Tuesday over the posh end of Europe but our Easter’s not until 5 May so even if Bulgaria had a Pancake Tuesday it wouldn’t be today, but we don’t anyway.

14 February, Wednesday

This wet but warm day so reminded me of the old times with Desdemona in Uttar Pradesh. I called for the boy to serve tea and tiffin at my table on the veranda where I sit these afternoons to enjoy Kipling. After a number of hours, I remembered we don’t have a boy and Mr Kipling hasn’t reached the Balkans yet.

It’s the day of Saint Trifon Zarazan, the patron of vine growers and wine makers. We rejoice his life with village rituals akin to wassailing, though rakia is much stronger than scrumpy so casualty rates tend to be higher.  

15 February, Thursday

Turlough the genealogist becomes more active every day. Eight years ago I posted off a bottle of spit and a month later received an email saying my DNA is 56% Irish, 43% Scottish and 1% Scandinavian. My mother grinned when I told her the results showed 80% Afro-Caribbean and 20% milkman.

I also learned that for a fee I could use a website to build my family tree. Having recently succumbed, I’ve had many late nights fiddling about with their suggested sources. Apparently I had a great x5 aunt called Isabella Heavysides. Suddenly every penny of the subscription seemed worthwhile.

16 February, Friday

We met our young Chinese friend at the OMV petrol station café. She calls herself Echo because her real Mandarin name is totally unpronounceable. Her Bulgarian husband couldn’t make it for coffee because he was in New Zealand working on a ship. A very nice man but when they’re together I struggle not to call them Echo and the Bunnyman.

Her brother-in-law asked her to childmind his ten-year-old son every weekday afternoon for two months, so she suddenly decided she needed to visit her mother in China. Her airline ticket cost her almost $2,000. He must be an awful child.

17 February, Saturday

Priyatelkata and I regularly discuss our need to do another off-the-beaten track adventure. She’s found a Bulgarian travel company offering guided tours in remote parts of Iraq. It looks wonderful but I’m reluctant because I’ve been to Iraq before, in 1977. Surely it can’t have changed much in 47 years.

She spends her days drilling holes in gourds to make Turkish table lamps. She says she’ll sell them to finance the purchase of a little holiday cottage by the Tigris.

Neither of us has ever been to Great Yarmouth, but neither has the woman that runs the Bulgarian travel company.

18 February, Sunday

As a borderline gadgie, I’ve noticed that the joy of converting unkempt litter-strewn wilderness into beautiful woodland is directly proportional to the muscular agony that tears through my body in the evenings. Some people enjoy pain. I can get it on my doorstep for free. The Bulgarian Dominatrices’ Union would be livid if they knew.

Some mornings, whilst perched au toilette, I notice that from a nearby tree a Bulgarian dark red squirrel sits and stares through the bathroom window. Rude, considering the trouble he goes to in hiding his own nuts. I’ve never encountered a peeping Squirus Vulgaris before.

19 February, Monday

We went to renew Priyatelkata’s Bulgarian long term residence permit. The woman that works at the Immigration Office is lovely. We’ve known her years. I’m surprised more people don’t apply to live in Bulgaria.

Desislava Daihatsu has developed respiratory problems so we took her to see Nick the quick mechanic. He’s going to have a look at her tomorrow.

Something ordered from a website has been delivered but nobody knows where. The courier’s office couldn’t help so we began door-to-door enquiries.

We enjoyed the lunchtime sizzle of sea bass but news of family health problems in Martinique soured the day.  

20 February, Tuesday

Sofi met with French woman, Mathilde. Outside Café Yasna, in the cobbled Ulitsa Mednikarska, they sipped café noir and nibbled langues de chats whilst discussing rent and cats.

I took Ludo, our scabbiest cat, to discuss his weeping sores with our lovely young vet. She knows our cats’ names off by heart. Something I often struggle with myself.

Yesterday was Vasil Levski’s birthday. Born in 1837, he is Bulgaria’s ‘Apostle of Freedom’. We saw hundreds of schoolchildren lining up with their teachers to lay single carnations by his statue. I felt as proud of them as they did of him.

21 February, Wednesday

Luncheon was by Kolyu Ficheto Park with les Belges. Inge walked with crutches because of an unfortunate incident involving a small dog. Patje had recovered from falling off his ladder.

Needing to see a man about a field near Nova Zagora we instead saw Petya the nice Notary. During her childhood her grandfather was mayor of our village. She feared our invitation for tea at our house might stir old emotions.

Sammy the builder started work. He drives a van that originally belonged to a Bulgarian soup manufacturer and is liveried accordingly. From now on he is our Souper Man.

22 February, Thursday

The hours without an internet were painful. A dodgy connection, the Vivacom man suggested over the phone. I agreed, likening the trauma to the cutting of our umbilical cords.

At the Immigration Office Priyatelkata got her new leech-nah karta (лична карта, meaning ‘personal card’) so she can stay in Bulgaria at least until she’s an elderly lady.

A beautiful day so we celebrated with Turkish coffee and cake on the terrace of the new Café Reste in Arbanasi, admiring spectacular views across our city and the snow-capped Stara Planina range beyond.

Sammy broke our garden chair but I still adore this country.

23 February, Friday

Vivacom sent two internet repair men, as promised. They quickly repaired whatever it was that was broken, as promised. Then the one that spoke a little English expressed interest in my 61 year-old framed photograph of Leeds United. I was tempted to damage a cable so he’d have to return tomorrow.

Priyatelkata’s pain is her art. She bleeds aquarelle! It was a bed-bound day for her to recover from an affliction called Turkish lamp maker’s back. However, she leapt from her sickbed like a Turkish lamp maker’s salmon when I returned from town with sirene (Bulgarian feta) and spinach banichkas.

24 February, Saturday

I’ll mention dear Finbar in County Kerry because he’s the only person in the world with whom I discuss the ups and downs of having supported Leeds United since 1968. Leeds are the Tsigani of the football world and last night we beat Leicester who should stick to making crisps.

Harry Secombe was on my mind because if he ruled the world every day would be the first day of spring, but we seem to have missed it because today’s weather was the stuff of the first day of summer.

In Leicester they sang Justin Hayward’s ‘Forever Autumn’ dirge.

MOT

25 February, Sunday

Only the risk of smelling worse than Gaia, our Shih Tzu, deterred me from garden work. Bulgaria had run out of water for the day so bathing was impossible. The aroma of food at Вкусотерия, (pronounced Ver-koose-oh-terr-yah) our posh, healthy burger café saved our plant-based bacon.

In local mythology, Gaia is the personification of the Earth and mother of Uranus. The awful smell of the decaying dog food that adheres itself to our Gaia’s long facial hair takes something away from these magnificent tales of mighty gods.

Though Pan had sex with goats, which fits in well with our village customs.

26 February, Monday

The sixtieth birthday of my beloved, Paris-born, half-Breton, half-Algerian, totally eccentric Priyatelkata.

Agreeing that her birthplace was too distant, we visited Elena in our local mountains. The main road had the builders in but a lengthy alternative of narrow lanes, steep hillsides, dense forests and trips of goats eventually got us there with petrol tank and bellies equally empty.

Although lacking a tower, Elena oozes hospitality, history and culture. Paris lacks beautiful mountains and deliciously healthy Balkan food. We often hear French voices in Elena but never Bulgarians in Paris; an indication of which is the better place to visit.

27 February, Tuesday

Mitso the heavyweight champion cat of our lane lost his first fight so stayed overnight at the veterinarian (the best cut man in Bulgaria) to recover from facial surgery to drain obnoxious fluids. With a creature that sleeps all day it’s difficult to tell if the eye will survive.

The Priyatelkata Birthday Festival continued at the Bey House Restaurant in town. Yesterday lacked luxury but today we ate like Sultans. The Aussie waiter spoke Bulgarian and educated English but lapsed into his native tongue at the mention of sheep.

We’d never met a posh Australian before. We nicknamed him Brucephalus.

28 February, Wednesday

In Bulgarian lessons I learn how to say the black cat is on the red roof. Talking to Sammy our builder I learn much more. In his language we discussed:

• Kaufland, our local German supermarket, pays his 18-year-old son £290 per month for full-time employment.
• Bulgarians worry more about the ethnic tension rising between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo to the west of Bulgaria than about Ukraine in the east.
• The nearby Yovkovtsi reservoir has less water in it now than it used to have during hot summers.
• Putin will never invade our village because even taxi-drivers can’t find it.

29 February, Thursday

When clocks are retarded for the daylight saving thing in October, people often rejoice at spending the extra hour in bed. Today we decided to do exactly the same with the extra day.

Beneath the bed are tins of soup, beans and sardines, stockpiled in anticipation of a nuclear holocaust. Armageddon needs to come soon as our crisps are fast approaching their best-before date. We’ve already eaten the chocolate because it would surely melt if Oppenheimer’s deadly toy was detonated. A kettle and a good paperback completed our requirements. 

We didn’t even have to get up to adjust the clocks.

Photograph: A small section of a roadside trip of goats somewhere between Zlataritsa and Elena.