The plan was to sort house stuff and that was it.

The flight was fine but I have now definitely decided that I don’t enjoy flying.  Not particularly phased by it but the whole process is just unpleasant.  The mental pushing to get on, the hanging around, the morons standing up and getting their stuff whilst being yelled at by the stewards to bloody sit down as the plane hasn’t stopped yet, the moronic football fans, the stewards coming to sell you stuff.  Just nasty.

We had a late flight so ended up in Sofia at 2am.  The next bus was at 6am.  So a lovely 4 hours on a hard chair at Sofia bus station.  There are SO many places to sit that would be far more enjoyable and comfortable.

But eventually to VT and I actually managed to sleep on the coach which reduced a tedious 3 hour journey to a couple of moments of waking up at random towns on the way.  Marvellous.

Straight to the village and arrived sort of midday Wednesday.  Slept for a bit and then to work.

To the house to meet with the guys doing the work.  Things are coming on and the main work completed is a central heating system and improved fireplace bit downstairs.  Still bathroom stuff to do and some decor and a kitchen.  But things are looking alright.

Round to the neighbours (who originally sold us the place) for food and chat.  And then to a new couple in the village’s house.  I was tired and not keen but this was an English couple just moved in.  Met them and sat inside for a bit and got beer so they seemed friendly enough.

Later we had food with them and Maiko and chatted.  A nice end to a long couple of days.

The rest of the time passed in a blur of doing nothing, playing with animals, eating out and shopping.  Oh and I bumped into a 4 club juggler in the city park in VT.  Sadly he wasn’t a passer but he was most impressed to meet someone who could at least have a good crack at 4 clubs.  First club juggler I’ve met in Bg (and on possibly my last regular trip there.  Ah well.  Shit isn’t it?)

We picked stuff for house, not much else to do now.

The other place I saw was K’s new flat.  She has a garage in the city which someone has built a 1 bed flat on top of.  And it’s now hers.  Not quite finished but looking good.  Bachelor pad in the city for some young bloke I’m sure.  Tiny but perfectly good enough for a young ‘un.

One night we had the regulars over for music and food.  As fun as usual.  A good evening.

Coming home was rather interesting.  It was a late night bus to Sofia and my first bus trip journey to Sofia on my own.  K asked a bloke looking like he was off to the airport whether he’d sort me a taxi (I’m sure I could have anyway) and he spoke good English so we chatted a bit on the bus.  Nice chap.

As we were just about to set off a brit a few seats along was getting hassle off the “conductor”.  Apparently his ticket was for the following day.  My new friend went to translate and it went sort of

-”But the seat is paid for.”

“No I can’t let you on.”

-”How about I buy a new ticket then?”

“I can’t sell you a ticket.  You need to buy one at the office.  It’s over there.”

-”It’s closed now.”

“I can’t sell you a ticket.”

-”What does this situation need?” (with hand going to wallet in pocket).

“I can’t sell you a ticket”.

-”I’ll miss my bus.”

“I can’t sell you a ticket.”

And that was that.  Bulgarian customer service in all its glory.  Guy had to get off and the only way he was getting to Sofia was by getting a taxi.  Poor sod.

Then my new pal started getting really ill and threw up on the bus.

Finally to Sofia.  Taxi driver was a mental.  90mph up the backside of a huge 4×4 that you couldn’t see past was the least of his indiscretions.  New pal threw up on the pavement when the cab finally pulled up at the airport.  I was in what can only be described as minor shock/terror as well.  My word!

Anyway once in the airport we met the guy who’d been thrown off the bus.  He’d commandeered a taxi and made it there before us and came over to say “ta” to the Bg guy for trying and helping back in VT.

I ended up sat next to this bloke on the plane and it turned out he’s moved near to VT with his wife and lives in Derby (well nearish anyway).  So we ended up on the same train.

His travel day was shocking.  Starting in VT he’d been thrown off the bus and had to get a cab.  Back in the UK we got on our first train an hour before the one I was expecting to meet, so that was ok.  But that was only to Bedford.  Once in Bedford (at 8.30) we discovered that Midland trains only ran from 9.50.  So a cool hour and a half to wait, in Bedford.  The coffee place was expensive, the cash machine was broken so we couldn’t have had food or coffee (or whatever) anyway, the loos were closed due to vandalism.  The train also appeared not to go to Derby.  He went to find out whether he was allowed to go to Nottingham as he could get a bus from there.  Answer “no” but also “there are no trains to Derby today, engineering work”.  So he had to go to Beeston.  But then another hope!  His sister lives in Beeston so he’d stop there for a bit and then ask them to give him a lift.  Hurrah!

5 minutes later “Bugger!”  What?  “My sister’s on holiday.  Doesn’t come back for a week.”

Ah well.

And the train we got on was called “The Pride of Derby”.  Lovely timing.

Home now.

Photos good.  House good.  Glad to be back.  Glad house is sorting.

Perhaps I can concentrate more on life again now.

We’ll see.

I’ll prolly write some more tomorrow but for now you’ll just have to look forward to stuff about houses, flats, furnishings, and travel hell.

For now here are some pics.

Have fun.

I’ll prolly keep the Care2 gallery there as it costs nowt and some of the pics I no longer have the originals of.

Anyway in the new gallery you can now find a few repeat BG photos of this latest trip and some I’d not uploaded before; plus an album of BG house photos.

And by the way, if you know anyone who may wish to try this house/holiday/tour out in early summer next year then get in touch with them and me and they can have a cheap holiday with lots of stuff to do.

Have fun!

Warning, a small section of these does indulge my “signs” fetish.

Have fun.

Just been to Bg again ostensibly to sort out my house with K and get it suitable for renting out.  It really is a lovely place but it leaves me a quandary.

I want to do the business thing over there.  Run tours around and use the house as a hotel type thing and that.  But with me and K no longer an item it’s going to be awkward at best.

Imagine I get a new partner.  She’ll be so pleased I’m away in Bg running a business and sharing accomodation with K.  If I bring this hypothetical new partner over to Bg as well then K’s not likely to take that terribly well either.

Do I want to sell? No.

Do I want to do this? Yes.

Do I want to be single for ever? No.

Oh it’s a dilemma indeed.

Nonetheless if there are any people out there who want to be alpha testers for our business idea (IE you want a cheap holiday in a beautiful house in gorgeous countryside in the Balkan hills with full-on tour guiding and travel included) then get in touch. We’re looking for 10 people (possibly including singles, couples and kids) for a week in early summer next year (not all at one time but 4 people in 1 week and 6 the following week).

Anyway after the clicky is a review of the trip if you wish to read about it.  D may feel it’s a little long for him (MTV junkie that he is).

Day 1:
A long flight made easier (I hate boredom) by a medical emergency on board. We had the “Is there a doctor on board?” message said in all seriousness. Turns out there wasn’t, at least not one who answered the call. So K got to do her thang. Seems this youngish and fit bloke just collapsed in his seat. Probably a low blood sugar thing rather than anything too nasty. He wasn’t diabetic so it was unlikely to be serious but he got a free Coke and a Twix. Poor K got no such freebies. It was interesting that the plane had no medical equipment at all. No BP monitor, no BM monitor, nowt. Rubbish.

Landed at Bourgas – never been there before and the family of the collapsed man insisted on paying for a taxi for us to get to Nesebar. K refused flatly but they took her phone number in order to offer us a meal out in the evening. We had to lug our bags to a nearby bus stop just outside the airport. Sigh. A free cab would have been lovely.

Found a great hotel overlooking Nesebar (lovely place), expensive but worth it. Walked for a while and found a stunning fish restaurant where we met a pug called Barry and a brave seagull who kept wandering into the restaurant to pick up scraps.

The day finished with stunning weather – thunder and lightning of a type not seen in the UK. Magic.

Day 2:
Still not great weather but not so bad that we couldn’t go walking. Started in Nesebar again. I got very excited when I saw 2 monkeys dashing into some bushes under a tree. “Ooh look monkeys” I said. Just then 2 thin cats scuttled out from the bushes. Methinks my eyes were deceiving me. Made K laugh though.

We had to get some bus tickets to get to VT later that day and the legendary Bulgarian helpfulness reared its ugly head yet again. There was no way the bus depot/shop/ticket office could sell us a ticket as they didn’t know how many seats were still available. OK can you phone the main office to find out? They phoned the office. The info they came back with was “You must go to the main office quickly; it’s about to close.” Ah what a lovely lady. (I nearly typed “what a lovely lazy”, would of been apt).

We eventually got our tickets and they left us plenty of time for more sightseeing. We got on a boat from Nesebar to Sunny Beach (across the bay). Not a heavy swell until we got to the quay at the other side. Huge waves (higher than the quay) so pitching and yawing horribly. Great fun was had getting the middle aged women off the boat and great squeals went up when a big wave hit the quay and water shot up from beneath, soaking their smalls (or in most cases, larges). I loved every second of it, twas great.

Sunny Beach turns out to be package holiday hell. Hated all of it except that they did have Indian restaurants. We still need one in VT.

Oh and there was a portrait painter who was very bad indeed. Picture the scene. A woman sat in front of a canvas painting away busily. Another woman sitting the other side of the canvas in the punter’s chair. Well the portrait looked rather masculine indeed. As we got closer it turned out she was painting Sean Connery and not this poor woman. I wonder what bit of the poor punter’s facade caused Sean Connery to leap out at the artist?

Day 3:
Back in VT and yet more pissing about trying to get the car to work/start/keep going. It really is a wreck but it does go.

The village remains an idyllic place for me. Lovely and quiet. Dogs to play with and time to chill. Ace. Still want to run this damn business though. Ooh it’s a tough choice to make. A day spent doing nothing more.

Day 4:
A trip out to my fave place in Bg. The Dryanovo Monastery has a beautiful setting and is never very busy even in tourist season. Again a beautiful place. I let K drive a bit on the way home and even chose the back roads for her to avoid traffic. This was the 3rd time K’s driven me. The first time she hit the gate post when reversing out of the drive. The 2nd time was “uneventful” shall we say. This time she managed a full on crash with another car. He was 3 point turning hence “shouldn’t have been in the road”. I tried the “It’s irrelevant whether he should have been there or not, you still have brakes that would have stopped you in time. You don’t just keep going because he “shouldn’t be there”" argument but it seemed unconvincing to K. Possibly that’s the last time I’m letting her drive me anywhere, certainly in that car that’s, I would guess, not the safest car on the road for passengers nor for pedestrians. And don’t get me started on her reversing skills.

Day 5:
Another quiet day with lots of reading and DS playing. Lovely. Oh and playing with the dogs.

Day 6:
An important day. We had a builder and house fitter come to look at our place to get an idea of how much needs doing (a lot) and how much it’ll cost (a lot). But he was impressed with the place and looked up for doing the job. Just waiting for the estimates to come through now.

We went back to VT for a meal with Tzetzko and Katya. Ended up in a posh restaurant that was hand-picked by T. Probably because the music choice was just “so him”. We arrived to hear “The Final Countdown” and spent the evening hearing other fave soft rock classics. T was in heaven. Oh and Marian served us. Thought that odd.

Day 7:
Quiet day in VT. Bought a 2l bottle of Coke. Sat in the lounge and heard a massive thump and whoosh and then a perfect K “Blooodyyy helll!” echo out. She’d tried to open the bottle, it slipped and fell just as she got it slightly undone. The bang sent the bubbles mental and the slightly openness of it sent coke showering around the kitchen grand prix stylee. Me cracking up laughing didn’t go down well with K for some reason.

That evening we ended up at an even posher restaurant. K was amused by a tableful of prozzies next to us and I was entertained by an exceedingly attractive young lady singer hired to entertain us. Before anyone gets affronted by my sheer sexism she was an excellent singer indeed – wearing a very nice cocktail dress that showed her in a very flattering light. That’s all I’m saying.

Her pianist was a spiv type with an utterly wonderful 70′s spangly shirt. Amazing!

Day 8:
Turns out Tzetzko is still on dial-up at his flat! Unbelievable. Spent a pleasant afternoon round there looking at pics and listening to Louis Armstrong. Ended up in a tiny caff watching the England-Israel match (and occasionally switching over for T to check the tennis). A good day.

And then I came home on Day 9 with nothing too much to report except K was sweet enough to accompany me to the airport even though she didn’t really have to. She is a sweet one.

And that’s that. Back at work to find what the previous post has described.

Have fun.

Oh and the collapsed man never did phone up for us to get that meal out. Tsk.

The skit was an interview between the host and 2 football managers (played by actors taking off real people).  The teams were Levski and CSKA.  This would be like having the managers of Man U and Chelsea in an interview.  Now the manager of one of these teams is an Indian chap.  So cue one actor coming out all “It Ain’t Half Hot Mum”.

But the riotous fun didn’t stop there.  Questions started with; “So did you fall asleep near a fire?”  meaning did your skin get burned? or why else would you be that colour?  Even K looked concerned at this and she’s notoriously forgiving of bulgarian humour.  Not impressed by the guys on this one.

Bulgarian humour is pretty awful anyway.  We’ve had experience of K struggling to tell jokes through gales of laughter only to find that there was nothing at all funny about it.  Poor thing.  This show is regularly doing the “pepperpot women” types from Python but managing to remove anything that was funny about that in the first place.  Just terrible.

Disappoining to hear the god-awful stereotyping on this show though.  But perhaps I’m just too damn PC.

Have fun.

Praznik Vseki Den

Have fun.

I don’t know.  She’s off to insure the house against damage tomorrow and to confront them this weekend.  K’s worried she might get beaten up by him.  Thankfully she’s off with our fixer Tzetzkin as back up.  Second worry is that he’ll come back and torch the place after he’s been kicked out.  Police are no use, security firms won’t cover it to the extent that we need as it’s too rural.  We really need someone in the place looking after it full time.

I’m seriously pissed off with our vendors as they still assume the place is theirs; at least they re acting like it.  Last time I went their car was in our garage (after their son broke one of its windows in anger). They also turn up to say hello whenever anyone is in the place. And now their idiot, drunkard and stoned vicious git of a son feels like he can stay there free of rent.

I wonder if we can get someone to break his legs for us (or at least threaten it).

Have fun.