Since our last post we have had a visitor. My brother Phil came to stay with us for a wèek and I flew back to the UK for a week with him.
He arrived on the 5th April and it was good to see him. We did all the tourist things had a day in Ruse and showed him the city and we had a walk along the Danube, we had a trip to VT and even went for a Chinese meal when we were there the first one we had had in four months boy was it good. Although in true Bulgarian style the prawn crackers came when we had all eaten.
On the 13th of April we flew back to Manchester.
Apart from going to see family I had to go to court. Not as a defendant I might add but after 8 years of being divorced I had finally got my Ex wife to sort our financial separation out. All I will say is I've had cheaper weeks in the UK. But finally at last I now know where I am financially and can move forward, she has been a massive millstone round my neck and a weight has been lifted and I can finally close that chapter of my life and never have to deal with the stupid bitch again enuf said.
Whilst I was in the UK I filled my boots with all I had missed. I had a chippy tea, 2 indian curries, a kebab, a Chinese and a full English breakfast obviously not all at the same time so that should do for a while.
Oh and I also saw my family.
Whilst I was away I had a phone call off Julie in a panic our dogs had attacked one of our chickens and killed it. Fortunately I was able to call one of the other two English couples who live in our village and they went round to our house to help. We have had to seperate dogs and chickens and I have since getting home diverted their run to the land behind the house. Julie said it was probably Daisy our 4 month old puppy that was the villan of the piece as she had feathers sticking out of her mouth whilst Bailey the pampered pooch was stood looking gormless
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| The not so tiny anymore chicken killer |
It was with great joy at 3 am on the 18th April I left my brothers house in Stockport in my hire car off to Manchester airport for the flight back home.
After dropping the hire car off it was a short 5 minute bus ride to the airport and an as usual on time flight back to sofia airport with easyjet.
Our nearest airport is Varna or Bucharest in Romania but I flew to sofia as Varna is a pain to get to from the north of england out of season although whizz air start a regular flight from Liverpool to Varna but not till 1st July, that will be used next time I visit the UK.
As I flew to Sofia I had to get back home under my own steam so to speak I've always had a car when we've been on holiday and it was somewhat of an adventure to get home. From terminal 1 I caught the free shuttle bus to terminal 2. From there I got the metro to Sofia central train station. The metro is ultra modern and very good all the stations are clean and appear new and it is 1 lev 60 stinkies per trip (80p) its quite busy and the carriage soon filled up. It was good to see a young lad stand up and give his seat to an elderly baba who got on.
I got to central station and had just missed my train to Popovo and had to wait another 3 hours for the next one.
First class from Sofia to Popovo is 21 levs about £10 and that's for a 5 hour train ride.
Eventually I boarded the train which was like a train out of a Humphrey Bogart movie. It had a cubicle with 6 seats a sliding door and a corridor down one side.
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| First class ! |
I kept expecting German soldiers to walk down the corridor opening the doors looking for spies. Except it was a Bulgarian female ticket inspector who checked my ticket after every stop all 17 of them ?
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| "Papers ve believe you are a British spy" |
Although I was first class the toilet on these trains are not. I have seen better toilets in crack houses. It was disgusting and although there was a toilet of sorts it went straight out to the track.
On the whole though it was a good journey and on time and i got to see some stunning parts of Bulgaria I had never seen before. There are no announcements on the train so I had to use Google maps to track my location after 5 hours so I knew where to get off.
When I got back to Popovo Julie and our neighbour were there to pick me up. I was glad to get home it had been a long day. A 30 minute drive home and we were back in our village taxi fare being a bag of licourice allsorts. From a 3am start it had taken me 17 hours.
It's good to be back
We bought a meat grinder and after watching several you tube videos we made some sausages, you can get all sorts of sausages in Bulgaria some are nice some are bloody awful so we wanted to make some good old British bangers. Oooh they were nice.
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| Putting the sausage skin on the funnel, no rude comments please |
It was quite easy and the finished article was NOT too shabby
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| Proud owner of some British bangers. |
Since being back we have have been concentrating on the veg plot. We now have growing potatoes, garlic, onions, radish, broad beans, peas, peppers, chillies, beetroot, tomatoes, red cabbage, cauliflower , strawberries and melons as well as having grown lots of flowers from seeds.
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| Spuds |
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| Onions and garlic |
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| Strawberries under netting to keep the birds off |
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| Broad beans and peas |
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| Tomatoes |
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| Red cabbage under netting to keep the butterflies off |
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| My plums are swelling oooh errr missis |
All is good here
Take care Mark n Julie
