Where was I ???

Now, where was I ?..Ah, that’s right…in Bulgaria.

Once I had put all my reservations about returning the Bulgaria to bed, I just had a terrific time with my sister and everyone else that I had time to catch up with.

When I arrived back in the village, clearly the news of my return had spread. I was welcomed back by my neighbours, the Mayor, his wife and my Bulgarian friends. I felt like a long lost daughter….I was truly moved by the experience. I knew I had friends there but was concerned that my friendships were being damaged by malicious gossip. I was right that there had been plenty of gossip. This was bought to my attention by a friend who speaks english, but it hadn’t affected the real friendships I made in Miladinovtsi, the friendships that count.

Also, I was once very good friends with a woman called Stefka…we were great friends, but a couple of issues got in the way and we ended up estranged. When I knew I was going back, and after hearing that she had had a bad run with some of the people that adversly affected my life, I decided it was time to re-establish the friendship. I contacted her from here before I left and arranged to catch up once I got settled…..

I wanted to take Jillian to all the lovely places that I had been privileged to see in Bulgaria. I planned to head for Jeravna and Sozolpol for starters and as Stefka was also on holidays, I arranged for her to come with us.

We had a fabulous time and I even managed to drag my neighbour, Christina along for at least one day out….I figured she probably deserved a day off. We squeezed into my trusty car, and after dropping a couple of village ladies in Yambol, I picked up Stefka and we headed down to beautiful Sozopol. The weather was gorgeous…not to hot…and the old town, where we were, wasn’t too busy.
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We had a wonderful day…we did all the touristy things. We walked the length and breadth of the old town, we shopped, we lunched ( as ladies do), we ate icecream, we chatted …we just generally had a really nice day. And it was good to spend a little time with Christina when she wasn’t working, and it was great to get back to the good friendship that I had with Stefka.

I didn’t have nearly enough time back in BG and I knew that I wouldn’t have time to catch up with everyone I wanted to, even in the village, so I decided to throw a barbie..not the doll, the classic aussie summer feed…..

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It was a cracking night !! I made the mistake though of thinking that if I invited 20 people, only ten would turn up…silly me. Everyone I asked arrived, both from within the village and from Yambol and Slavyantsi (sic) It was chaos……Jillian, Louisa, Anne, Jeremy and Gary spent half the night in the kitchen making more and more Shropska salad. I ran out of meat and had to borrow some…my poor pathetic little BBQ could hardly cope with the demand…. never worked so hard in its little life…
Thank god we didn’t run out of booze 🙂
Thank god the neighbours and various visitors from around the village had crammed my fridge full of fresh veges, cirene cheese and rakia….I had the capacity to feed the thousands…well, with veges, cirene and rakia anyway.

When we arrived in Miladinovtsi, we’d hardly had a chance to get settled before people started to arrive to welcome me back…all armed with food. As my huge fridge got more and more full, Jillian was saying ‘Susie, we’re only here for eight days..you have to tell them to stop bringing food..we’ll never get through it’ My response was that if she wanted to try and stop them, to go ahead…I wished her every success 🙂

Mind you, given the mob that turned up for the BBQ, it was a good thing that I had all that food……it certainly came in handy.

My time back in BG was starting to run out and the night after the BBQ, Christina invited Jillian and I over for an evening with her family. She had two of her sisters and her daughters there, with their partners.

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Christina laid on the full feast of lamb, lamb drop sarma, shropska salad, rakia and wine….jesus, no wonder I put on weight while I was back in the country. We had a terrific night with them all. Christinas daughters live away, one in London and the other spends time working in Norway. When I left Bulgaria, both her daughters left around the same time and poor Christina was devastated that we were all disappearing at the same time to different corners of the world. It just happened that they were back in Bulgaria while I was there and it was very flattering to be included in their family gathering.

All too soon my time in Bulgaria was drawing to a close. I needed to spend time with Ivan, and in between him working with his sheep and house renovations and me running around catching up with everyone, we managed to get together…we also needed to sort a few things out because, again, wagging tongues had made difficulties between us….all sorted now though and our friendship is back where it belongs, on solid ground.

I wanted to spend time with his uncle Ivan and wife, Gospodina, which I did. I had a lovely few hours with them and though I’d only called in to say a proper goodbye, I ended up being fed and indulging in just the wee-ist of rakias. These are such good, welcoming people and I hated having to say goodbye to them again. In fact, I hated saying goodbye to any of them….I so wanted to stay there and get on with my life surrounded by these beaut folk……

Possibly the hardest goodbye was yet to come though, and that was saying goodbye to my dogs….again.

Jillian returned to Turkey on the Tuesday, as she was on her way to France to visit our friend Deb Westerberg and then onto Italy to spend time with our sister Helen. This gave me a day to tidy up some loose ends. I organised friends to mothball the house and car for me, but this doesn’t mean the house isn’t available if someone wants to rent it for a holiday. Just email me: aussiebulg@gmail.com if you think you might like a holiday in a very nice little corner of Bulgaria in a particularly special house.

Then it was time to say bye bye to my dogs. Jesus, I was a miserable cow…pretty sad old time for my last day in the country…..I did spend some very nice, though fairly miserable, time with my Gina in the house with me, and then it was time to return them all to the kennels for a few more months until they move to Bourgas. I think I actually heard and felt my heart break as I drove away, leaving them again.

And then it was time to say bye bye to Bulgaria. I’m so glad I went back, albeit for far too little time. I came away feeling exonerated, comfortable in the knowledge that I’m not the problem, it’s certain individuals around me. I’ve sorted out so much ‘stuff’ and restored very important friendships and seen the important people in my Bulgarian life.

So, with very mixed emotions I returned to Australia to start another life with the ABC in Geraldton…..and that’s turning into a whole other story…..