For a house that’s basically been closed down for the last two years, I managed to get a few guests come through in the last few months…some knew me, some didn’t, some had been here before and for some it was the first time. Each and every one bought a little ray of sunshine into the house and quite a lot of fun.
First cab off the rank was a friend from Australia, Anna.
I met Anna when I was managing the ABC Radio station in Geraldton while in Australia. She came in for an interview one morning, and she showed a great interest in a magazine that was on my desk, a magazine about Bulgaria. We got talking and she asked why I hadn’t written a book about my experiences here. Anyway, one thing led to another and I settled in to write about my time in Bulgaria. Once I had bashed it into some sort of shape, Anna edited it for me. We became firm friends and she spent a lot of time ( over the odd wine and/or champagne) listening to my stories, laughing about the good times and being kind to me during the bits where I broke down when talking about the not so good times.
She is now living in Germany and one day she rang me here and said she’d found very cheap flights and was I ready for a visitor.? I’d only been here a short time, so told her the place was chaos, but she was very welcome to come into it if brave enough…and she did.
It was very hot while she was here and quite a bit of her time was spent on my balconies, enjoying the cool evening air…and the crisp, cold Bulgarian wines.
The dogs really enjoyed her being here and it became her job to be dragged around the village by them every day, a ‘pleasure’ usually reserved for me
They get very excited indeed about their daily walk and shoot out that gate like bullets from a gun…it takes quite a lot of strength not to find yourself face down being dragged down the road.
We had a beaut time, and it was lovely for me to stop working. When I’m here on my own, I don’t and sometimes I get really worn out, but I find it hard to just sit…so while Anna was here, I did bugger all, except play tourist.
We ended her visit with a couple of days in Sofia. I have always liked that city and it was nice to return. I contacted my friend Stella with the fabulous apartments in the city centre and once we were settled in, we went wandering.
I took Anna to a lot of the places I had been to before and went searching for the restaurant I had always taken people to in Sofia, ‘Sеmovata Kushta (симоваmа къща) ‘, the best Bulgarian food I had ever had. Well, we found it…or what’s left of it.
I knew I was in the right street and the right area but I could not find it anywhere, so I asked in a little shop. The very big man in the little shop pointed across the street and what do you think greeted us ? Bloody Tex Mex !!! I asked a young woman in the doorway what had happened, and she told me. Some American had bought the place and, as far as I’m concerned, ruined it…
I made the comment that this was typical of the Americans and she replied that she was married to him…I retorted that perhaps she should tell him he should be ashamed of himself for destroying the best restaurant in Sofia…and stalked off, full of indignation.
Anyway, not to be deterred, I remembered a restaurant that my sister Jillian and I tried to get into one night, but it was packed to the gunnels. We found it and decided to have lunch there. It may not have been quite as good as the Sеmovata Kushta, but near as damned. In fact, we enjoyed it so much, we booked to return there for dinner.
We headed off to see some of Sofia…needed to walk that lunch off…
We wandered past the Presidents palace just as the changing of the guards was happening. And I know I’ve put pictures of these guys up before, but this time they were obviously in their summer dress.
The last lot I got were dressed in red with black markings.
and this guy gets in because he’s obviously very good at his job…or something
He was leading these guys 4 or 5 years ago. I never forget a face.
There was the ‘Egg of Luck’ to stroke…and I did
This rather beautiful thing was just set up on the pavement in the middle of Sofia…unattended. I’m afraid that when I see things like this I think about Australia and I know that you could never do this there. It would either get vandalised or stolen or smashed by some dickhead walking past… just for the hell of it.
There was irresistible ice-creams, served from gorgeous silver thingies, to take into account
And something I just love about Europe…in the warm months, there’s always music…somewhere.
So while we walked around the park in Sofia centre eating our ice-creams, these guys played….it was terrific.
We had another sumptuous meal for very little money that night and the next day it was time for Anna to return to Germany and me to get home and get back to work…
Not long back in Mila, when I got an email from a man I had never met, but who I felt I’d known for years…and I had. In 2007, before I returned to Australia, I was contacted by a man called Alastair. He is an Australian who has lived overseas for more than 20 years. He expressed a wish to come to Bulgaria, but never seemed to make it. I returned to Australia early 2008 and he emailed me to see if he could come and stay. I told him where I was, but agreed for him to stay in the house anyway. He did this twice, and still we had not met. Well, now we have. He and his partner came over and stayed a couple of nights. It was terrific to meet him at last. He’s very affable and very pleasant company, as was Katherine, his partner. I had a couple of very nice days with them here AND they got to have the one and only BBQ I managed in the new patio area before the nights turned cool.
After they had made their departure, it was back to work for me. There was still rooms to paint, a garden to sort and, of course, I was still cooking, cooking, cooking, stocking up the house with preserves for winter….siege anyone ??
And, plans to make…after I found out how cheap Anna’s flight had been, I decided to get online and see what else there was. My very dear friend, Deb Westerberg, lives in the south of France. She’s been to visit me twice in Bulgaria and I have been promising to reciprocate, but everytime we went fare hunting from BG, the cost was ridiculous. Anyway, Wizzair fares were so low, I booked myself a trip…but that’s another story.
Before I could go off swanning around France, I had more guests coming.
Another great friendship I made in Geraldton was Sue Chiera. For most of my time there I lived alone but, towards the latter part of my stay, I decided to move house and was fortunate enough to meet Sue, who offered me a room at her place. It had many advantages over where I was. It was near the beach, she had dogs ( I was missing my girls terribly) and Sue is a very funny woman and great company to boot.
Sue said she would be coming to visit, and contacted me to tell me she’d be here early October and another friend Lyn, would be with her. Around about the same time as we were corresponding, I had an email from a couple in Perth, Brian and Marg. They were thinking of visiting Bulgaria and could they come and stay as well…at the same time as Sue & Lyn ? Of course, I said, at the same time as realising that I didn’t have enough rooms ready for them all…and I had a flight to France booked for the day after they all left.
Small, busy, crowded moment.
I swung into action and got myself downstairs to repaint one of the ensuite rooms. I found more water damage but luckily the builders were still here with buckets of plaster, so I asked Stoyan to fill the holes that I had made removing all the water logged render. The whole room was redone, except for the repaired bits. Unfortunately, I then took a rather nasty tumble and badly sprained my wrist, and Yes, it was the right hand and Yes, I’m right handed…Ooops !!
I just had to stop the painting. I managed the get the rooms upstairs made up..thank God the painting was finished there, and the downstairs room made up, just 98% finished. I wasn’t far off, but the final painting certainly wasn’t going to happen now.
Brain and Marg were hiring a car in Istanbul and driving to Bulgaria. That was their plan. Sue and Lyn were flying into Burgas and we’d decided to get Dimitar to pick them up so we could chat all the way back to my place.
Best laid plans…
I was on my way to Yambol to meet Dimitar when my phone rang. I waited until I got to Dimitars house before checking and there was as call from an ‘unknown’ number. I rang it and heard the dulcet tones of an Australian on the other end, but not a voice I knew. Brian & Marg had arrived in Turkey only to be told they couldn’t take their hire car across the border. They had got a bus to Burgas and what would I suggest as their best way of getting to me ??
Heavens, I was on my way to Burgas, but could we fit six adults and all the luggage of four of them in Dimitars taxi ? I asked him, and in that classic Bulgarian way where nothing is too much trouble he said ‘no problem’. I told Brian and Marg to sit tight and we’d be there as soon as we had the girls from the airport.
It was so good to see Sue and Lyn coming through customs and after a very excited hello how are you, what’s been happening etc etc, we headed off to the hotel where Brian and Marg were waiting for us.
It has to be said that the fit was tight, but we managed to get everyone and everything in and soon we were on our way to Yambol to pick up my car and then get out home to my house.
And there started ten days of fun, eating, drinking and much enjoyment…Oh, and sight seeing.
And here they are:
Just a few kilometres from Yambol is the Kabili Monastery and, as often happens, the nearest things to home are the last ones you see. Ivan had told me so much about this place so I made a decision that it would be out first stop off. It’s lovely and a truly peaceful place surrounded by beautiful gardens.
Out the front of the Monastery was the usual seller of trinkets, an interesting man called Ivan. He took a shine to our Sue and was very keen for her to stay and be ‘his’. It was charm all round and then this…
Sue was a little taken aback and did say a couple of times his hands almost strayed and he almost got a slap….but she did confess to feeling pretty good after her free massage AND he gave her two packets of sunflowers seeds for her and all her friends. We almost had to prise him off her 🙂
We managed to get her back and headed up to Jeravna for an over nighter… On the way up we stopped at a restaurant in Gradets and had a large slap up meal…gorgeous place, gorgeous food.
I’d contacted Ivana from ‘IV’ guest house, the place Ivan took me to all those years ago when I was recovering from my operation, and had rooms booked for us all. We got settled and spent a while wandering around taking in the sights and enjoying the terrific art galleries. And what was I saying about the things you see:
Yes, that is a man with a large gun on his back walking through the streets, but the only thing he was looking to kill was wild boar.
It was fast approaching end of season and the place was nice and quiet. We headed to the local restaurant that night not looking for food as we’d had such a large lunch, but thinking a few beers and maybe a wine or two could be nice.
We ended up having an unexpected and very enjoyable night out while there.
A group of musicians wandered in and started to play.
The guy with the goatee truly had the voice of an angel, and after we convinced them that we were not interested in ‘english’ music, they got down to the business of singing and playing what they excelled at, good, traditional Bulgaria music. When they started playing there weren’t that many people in the place, but it gradually filled up and my visitors got the see the Bulgarians at play. I’ve mentioned before how you can be in a restaurant when there’s music playing and the whole place can start dancing. We weren’t disappointed. Even one of the staff came out of the kitchen and joined in the dancing and the whole place was just having a great time, especially us.
even got Brian singing
All a little quieter the next morning though
and I’m not even showing you the picture of me…I look like I’ve been hit by a truck.
We headed back home and basically spent their last few days doing relaxing things. The dogs loved having extra friends to love them and they got to go for lots of walks with these ‘ new’ people as well. They both fell in love with Sue. She’s a real dog lover and I’m sure they sensed that in her. Gina even allowed displays of affection and Mia just fell about all over her every time she appeared at the door.
All too soon it was time to push them out the door…they had homes to get back to and I had things to do.
They were bussing from Burgas to Istanbul and I’m very proud to say that I managed to ring the bus company in Burgas, where they spoke not a word of english, and booked four tickets for them. I did have concerns that there might be a donkey and cart awaiting them at Burgas, but they assured me that all was fine. The tickets were there and they got safely to Istanbul.
I had a wonderful time while they were all here…and I think they did as well but, as I said, I had plans.
And that’s my next catch up story
And as I am in catch up mode, my timeline is a little skewiff. We’re well into autumn right now and across the road from my house is a huge tree, so large it basically fills the view from my front windows. At the moment I’m looking out at these colours every day
they are absolutely beautiful
ciao for now
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