I’d had contact from some old friends from Australia, Karen and Gary Wylie, who were on a six month sojourn through Europe and who were hoping to squeeze in a couple of days with me in Bulgaria. Fortunately, they managed to make the detour here and it was with great excitement that I headed into Yambol to get them off the bus.
Now, I haven’t seen Gary pretty much since I left Australia 10 years ago and have only seen Karen once, when she dropped in to see me in Scotland. And gee, it was good to see them step off the bus….like me, a little older, a little greyer, but basically just the same. They had come for a few days, but liked it so much they decided to stay a few more, so after changing their flight out of BG, we settled in for a very relaxing and most enjoyable time.
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The house numbers had now reached 6 people, three dogs and thirteen chickens…..!!
I managed to get them up into the mountains when we headed up to the Pamporovo region
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and we also managed a lovely day in Sozopol
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The weather while they were here was searingly hot, and a lot of time was spent in the garden with the BBQ working overtime and a number of icy cold beers biting the dust. And as you can see from the pics, a lot of time was spent eating and drinking and just generally kicking back….and as it turned out, that was a good thing because it held me in good stead for the torrent that was about to descend upon the big house.
It was so nice to spend time with them after all the years away. Karen reminded me while she was here that we’ve known each other for more than twenty years now. They were a youngish married couple, new to Albany when I met them and now they have two grown up children and about as many grey hairs as me…though Karen and I are far better at hiding them than Gaz is 🙂
When the time came for them to move on to the next part of their journey, it was with a lot of sadness that I squeezed them onto a night train to Sofia and waved them goodbye.
On the drive back to Miladinovtsi, I couldn’t help but noticed the hundreds of mice scurrying back and forth across the road and Yes, the only sound I could hear was the ‘splod’ of mashed mouses as I drove over them…and No, you could not avoid them…they were in droves. !! And a harbinger of what was to come once the weather cooled down…which it has..but that’s another story…….
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