I know I was only away for four days and I had a great time in Turkey with Di, but I have to confess that when it was time to return home I felt just a little excited…I do love coming back here. I had also left three people and Gina in charge and thought perhaps it was time to get back and relieve them of their duties.
Before I headed down to Turkey, a couple from Denmark ( Australia) came to stay. Amanda and Di walk together in a walking group in Australia and so when Di was talking about coming to visit me, Amanda and her husband Stuart thought that Bulgaria sounded like somewhere worth visiting as well, so along they came.
They are terrific and it was a pleasure having them here.
Their start in BG wasn’t that great. They came from Istanbul with a bus company called Metro, and even though the company says on their website that they come to Yambol, they don’t, and have a very bad habit of dropping people off in the middle of bugger all…precisely what they did to Stu and Amanda. I arranged to pick them up from Yambol but when Stu rang, they were clearly NOT in Yambol and had been dropped in a village called Zimnitsa, about 20 Ks from where they should have been. I headed out there and found two waifs looking slightly shell shocked standing in the middle of a place they probably had never thought they would visit. I bundled them into the car and so began a very enjoyable few days leading up to my departure to meet Di.
These two were here for some rest and recreation, a good holiday, so you could have knocked me over with a feather when, on their first morning with me Amanda asked if she could go and dig up the rest of my potatoes…” don’t be ridiculous’ I cried ‘you’re here for a holiday’. But there was no stopping her, She insisted that she really wanted to spend time in the garden and who was I to refuse her. She was down there for ages and, with some help from Stu, got another great patch of my spuds up, which was a terrific relief for me as I was already falling behind with everything that needed doing around the place.
The weather was incredibly hot and we had many a pleasant evening sitting in my fairy light garden enjoying a few cold bevies and some fabulous fresh food from my vegetable patch. And,of course, they won the heart of the resident tyrant (Gina, not me) and she managed to con many a walk out of them as well, especially Amanda.
I was taking them down the Sozopol for a day, so with Colin in tow, the three of us headed out for a lovely day. The weather was still blistering hot and the place looked gorgeous. We had a beaut day of walking, looking, good food and sights like this
We were sitting in a great little restaurant overlooking the water on a stunningly beautiful day when this cruised past…fabulous.
When I was heading down the meet Di in Istanbul, Stuart and Amanda were moving off to tour through Bulgaria, intending to come back for a few days before Di & I headed off to France. I was going to put Gina in the kennels for the days I was away…well, they liked it so much that they asked if they could stay in the house while I was gone and were perfectly happy to look after the old girl in my absence. I was very pleased. It meant Gina wouldn’t be uprooted twice ( she was going to the kennels while I was in France) and I knew she’d be more settled and less neurotic at home with strangers than in kennels with strangers. Don’t forget, in 2008 I put her in the kennels for 6 months and didn’t come back for two years…she gets very suspicious when I drive anywhere near the kennels these days.
Anyway, I did the Istanbul run and Di and I came back to Miladinovtsi to a very happy dog and equally happy house guests. We had a couple of days before heading off to the other side of Europe. We took Stu and Amanda to Plovdiv, their starting point for an eight day walk through the Rhodope mountains, and said our goodbyes there
Di & I headed back to Miladinovtsi to prepare for our departure to France. We didn’t have a lot planned and figured a nice, easy restful time before embarking on a cross Europe journey would be good, but the best laid plans…