Archive for February 14, 2011

Crocodile Dundee IV

| February 14, 2011 | Comments Off on Crocodile Dundee IV

My better half came over to see me over New Year, unfortunately we had a burst pipe back in the UK which resulted in the police breaking in to turn the water off thankfully the the insurance coughed up, so instead of employing UK plasterers at 400 pounds a day I have two willing builders from my village who are able to come and put everything right for 40 pounds a day!

So until the 28 Feb this will be last update, as I and two of my Bulgarian neighbours head back to my two up to down in Swansea to sort out our house there.
One of my neighbours is 55 years old and has never been on a plane before in his life (like most of the village), and has been watching nothing but airplane disaster movies since he accepted to come.

If the tax man is reading this this they will be working for free, but I might give them a present at the end of it. It should be a really good laugh as neither of my
friends has been to the UK before, not sure what they will think of suburban Swansea with its Heroin addicts and beggars all around it should be an experience. I imagine something similar to Crocodile Dundee!

Up at 4 in the morning tomorrow! Everyone was shaking hands in the pub tonight as if we were on the next NASA mission!

Category: Bulgarian Language, DIY

Stray Dogs Shoot Them I Say

| February 8, 2011 | 4 comments

I am no dog lover, in fact having been a paper boy as a child and even a short stint as postman as an adult, I can say with some conviction
that dogs have the same feeling towards me. Bulgaria has stray dogs all over the place, they mainly congregate in the citys trawling through bins and
apart from the mess don’t really do much damadge. However out of town in the villages, although not on the scale of the towns, stray dogs are a nuisance.

The normal method of geting rid of them is to load them up in a van, drive a couple of kms away from your village and dump the dogs on to the next village along.
I jest you not! My village of Samodiva, which means ‘Wood Fairy’, is as the name would suggest near a forrested area. Unfortunately the surrounding villages see this as the
the ideal spot to dump the unwanted strays, who then follow there nose to the next inhabited place which leads them to our village.

The reason for my rant, yesterday morning I had just been up to the shop to buy a loaf of bread, put said loaf of bread on the kitchen table. The weather was very sunny and
it was a chance to get some fresh air into the house so the front door was left open. Within 5 mins some mangy stray had been in and made off with new loaf.

To all those dog lovers out there, that think it is a shame that the poor dog must have been really hungry, etc etc. Well the next one that tries that
will no longer have the problem of being homeless and hungry as I intend to hang draw and quarter it and display in my garden as a warning to others!

I look forward to the hate mail from the animal rights!

Category: Bulgaria, Village Life

Carp Restaurant

| February 4, 2011 | Comments Off on Carp Restaurant

Just recently I have visited the next village along (Stomansi), to try out the delicacy of fish and chips
the fish being not the traditional Cod or Plaice but the the just as delicious carp. As a young boy I spent many weekend trying to catch these fish is the
local pond but had no idea that they were such good eating.

I suppose there are many foods that the British public now miss out on, due to them no longer being fashionable. Carp is certainly one of them. The restaurant
is set-up quite similar to what I imagine is a suishi reataurant in that you actually get to select the fish of your choice whilst it is still swimming round! 20
mins later it is all cooked and delivered to your table, and is absolutely delicious. Why some types of food have gone out of fashion I think has more to do
with food producers than the feeding habits of the populace. I am sure if Birds-eye made carp fingers rather cod flavoured paper mache ones then the carp would still
be present on many menus throughout the UK.

I have eaten many things on my travels, these include dry roasted ants known as ‘Ntini’ in there native Tanzania, who knows what whilst travelling around south east asia
but the availability of large insects available at the markets was unbelieveable.

The people of my village don’t seem quite as adventurous as me though and
are quite set in there ways, I have introduced some different foods when I have gone to the pub, most are politely tasted, but not coveted.
English Mustard they just don’t understand why anyone would want to destroy the flavour of beef. However I have recently introduced
them to roast parsnips, and these were an indisputable success, so much so that I have distributed 5 packets of seeds around the village so they can grow their own
this year. Yorkshire puddings next, what is not to like!

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Category: Bulgaria, Fish, The Pub