The gentle rustle of feathers…

is a sound I’ve heard a couple of times since this whole mess started. The first time was when I was sitting in my hospital room waiting for Dimitir to come and take me back to Miladinovtsi.  I was feeling very, very beaten and very vulnerable and suddenly, there he was, my guardian angel ( the younger) standing in the room looking very concerned about me.  This is a terrific young man. The amount of times he was helped me and my friends and sorted out the seemingly impossible and everything he does, he does with warmth and kindness.  This is a ‘good’ man, an expression I think gets used rather more frequently about people than many really deserve…Dimitor does. I’m sure he’s not perfect, but he has a warmth and realness about himself that is very hard to find these days.

He helped me sort out all the hospital stuff and get my own Pharmacy organised, bundled me into his car and delivered me safe and sound to my home.  I crawled into my bed, just happy to be alive. He has phoned me almost everyday to be sure I am OK and when I gave him a list of stuff I needed to start treating all my problems, he did my shopping and delivered it out here to me.  His parting words ”  you phone me any time of the day or night if you need help” and I know if I did, he would be here like a shot.  He has his own life, his family and his work and yet he will always find time to be there for people who need help.

I settled in as best I could, given my condition.  Colin was still here for two days and then he was off.  On the Tuesday  morning, at the crack of dawn, he departed.  Hristina came over and once he had gone she got me back to my bed and settled.  As she walked away back to her house, I heard that rustling sound again and I think that’s when she very gently folded her senior guardian angel wings around my house and me. There would be no interlopers, no intruders, only her and the local doctor, who was coming to change my dressing and give me B12 injections every other day. Once he had finished, and after a little chat with me, she shooed him out .

The house was disgusting.  I had been sick for so long by this stage and nothing was being done to keep the place in check.  Hristina sat on my bed one morning sort of looking around and commented that things weren’t that clean. She understood that I could not do a thing. On the Friday morning, I was lying in bed when I heard a bit of giggling and shuffling about.  Hristina and her friend, Donka appeared downstairs wanting to know where Gina was, and once they knew she was outside, they went to work.  Six hours later they had transformed the place, especially my floor, including my bedroom. I had smashed another of my big glass doors and though I had bought the new glass before I got sick, I then got too sick to repair it.  In came the cavalry,  …in the shape of Hristina’s husband Volcho and Donka’s husband Ivan.  Before you could say it, the house was lovely, the door was fixed and back hanging and I was sitting in my bed crying.

This concerned them all greatly and they wanted to know if the things they had done weren’t good enough, which just made me cry more. Hristina and Donka tucked me in and they all left me to continue my healing.

Now, I’m not eating a great deal, though things are getting a little better.  It’s been pro-biotic yoghurt to try and repair my innards and a little banana here and there.  On the Sunday, the mob appeared back in my house. They were having a ‘Banket’…as it sounds, a get together with food and a few drinks.  Obviously I wasn’t up to it and Hristian and Donka pressed a little napkin with something warm in it into my hand.  I opened it up and there was a small piece of freshly fried fish.  I decided to brave a small bite, having no idea how my body would respond.  God, it was the best thing I have ever eaten,  It had been rolled in flour and a little salt and fried.  It tasted like nothing I had ever put in my mouth, and I’ve been lucky to eat some damned fine food over the years…it was amazing, and I can still taste that warm, salty, fishy flavour.  I was sitting in bed eating it very slowly and just relishing the taste when Hristina asked me if it was ‘dobre’ and I started to cry again.  She asked what was wrong with it and I then had to try and explain that she had given me the best thing I could ever remember eating.  I think she thought I was completely nuts !!

They gave the house another little cursory clean and then disappeared for their day together.

How can I ever thank or repay these people.

I continue to sleep.  Not so much drug addled sleep now, so things are obviously on the mend, but I have a long way to go.