This Sort of Thing - May 2024 - Three Dart Finish

 

16 May, Thursday

Ever optimistic, I perused the Bulgarian National Television (БНТ) website for coverage of Leeds United’s crucial playoff match. No joy, so I assumed that Bulgarians dislike football pundits as much as I do.

Television owners have many channels to choose from but televisiophobic misers like me have just four available online.

My options were international wrestling live from Istanbul, international wrestling an hour ago from Istanbul on the catch-up channel, a saucy drama about a remote community of Pirin Mountain goat herders or Ready Steady Cook (the Offal Special). The severe but sexy weather woman’s trendy heels were like Kalashnikov bayonets.

 

17 May, Friday

I saw the playoff highlights on YouTube. Bulgarian Iliya Gruev (Илия Груев) scored Leeds‘ first goal. The big smile on his face was priceless.

Bulgaria has a general election on 9 June. To emphasise our democratic status, we have at least one every year. Anyone can enter. We’ve had has-been popstars, athletes, actors and glamour models on ballot papers. It’s like Celebrity Big Brother. Iliya Gruev would probably enjoy more glory as a parliamentary candidate than as a Leeds United midfielder. Our current prime minister, dithering over whether to play on the left or right wing, is sure to be sent off.

 

18 May, Saturday

A day of scribbling and honing in preparation for a grand evening of rubbing shoulders (courtesy of Zoom) with esteemed authors from around the globe, all fellow members of our elite writing group. As I read to them about my traumatic childhood they laughed, reminding me of my traumatic childhood.

A bite from a demonic garden beast caused a finger to swell like a salami in the sun. Luckily I only use this finger for typing the letters I and K and commas, but work on my book ‘Mississippi Kayaking with Kiki Kirkpatrick’ stalled.

I lit a candle for Julia.

 

19 May, Sunday

Before I’d risen from slumber Priyatelkata had made Balkan chicken and prawn spring rolls and her yoghurt and strawberries concoction perfect for eating straight from the fridge when nobody’s looking. Meanwhile, trout tickled by fresh vegetables and herbs contemplated a sizzle in the oven. I skipped breakfast, holding out for our other four mealtimes.

May’s always our wettest month and today typified this. So I’d nothing to do except loiter, holding out my swollen finger and repeating ‘Oh, my swollen finger!’ Priyatelkata said the Bulgarian word for irritating is drazneshto (дразнещо).

Snezhinka’s wound’s healed but still she limps. What to do?

 

20 May, Monday

Priyatelkata often overcomes the misery of dull weather by doing a big tidy. Feeling obliged to join in, I chose to organise my books, discarding everything I never read (a whimsical tome examining the Gloucestershire dialect and a user’s manual for the lawn mower I left behind in England when I flitted).

So that every book will always be at my fingertips, I arranged them on shelves in order of ISBN. Priyatelkata, a former librarian, rebuked me for not using the Dewey Decimal Classification system to order them. But at least I have something to look forward to doing tomorrow.     

 

21 May, Tuesday

Aussie yodeller, Frank Ifield died on Saturday. His music typified those innocent times of the early sixties. Along with Russ Conway, The Seekers, Val Doonican and Dusty Springfield he made up the core of the Two Way Family Favourites, BBC Radio request programme linking Britain with its former colonies as we sat down for Sunday roast beef and Yorkshires.

They might revive it but Stormzy and Dua Lipa could never match dear old Frank.

So when my life is through, and the angels ask me to recall the thrill of it all then I will tell them I remember you.

 

22 May, Wednesday

Ace vet Dr Gunchev said Snezhinka’s leg lump might be scarring from last week’s vaccination. It could also be cancer, as could her now permanent limp. Monitor the entire dog and return in three weeks, was his suggestion.  

Feeling gloomy, we cancelled our holiday in Puglia. Plan B is a Southern Bulgaria and Northern Greece road trip so we can drive home in a few hours if necessary. Snezhinka isn’t one for holidaymaking.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash. I’m still not over Frank Ifield.

Muddy garden work beneath a spectacular rain-free electric storm cleared my mind.

 

23 May, Thursday

Shops are only fun if they sell books or records and today’s retail assault course featured neither. To restore sanity, we finished the slog with a cracking bit of nouveau Bulgarski cuisine at the recently refurbished Asenovtsi restaurant.

A plague of rainwater rendered our garden an unworkable mire so I set about washing the windows which were also quite muddy. 

My evening’s relaxation on the terrace with Johnny Răducanu and a book ended after ten traumatic minutes as a multi-coloured frog arrived and our worst cats tried to dissect it. So we all went inside… except the frog… and Johnny.

 

24 May, Friday

Our first public holiday for almost a fortnight. We get more time off than Santa. It’s the Day of the Cyrillic Alphabet, Bulgarian Enlightenment and Culture, celebrated largely in honour of our brotherly scholarly Saints Cyril and Methodius. With wall-to-wall traditional dress, there was swinging and swaying and music playing and dancing in the street and school children giving to passers-by sheets of paper on which they’d handwritten classic works of the great Bulgarian poets.

In the sunshine isn’t this a grand place to be? So we scrapped our holiday Plan B for the sake of Hristo Botev and Snezhinka. 

 

25 May, Saturday

Partying nightingales sang all night to entertain Turlough the insomniac. They sing until they’ve found a mate. The one by the bedroom window must lack social skills.

We ate handfuls of mulberries from the lower branches of our tree as jays ate from the top. How much more bio could a breakfast be?

But then the little golden orioles flew in and bullied the jays as all ornithological hell was let loose. Swallows swooping about our kitchen in search of a slice of toast appeared aloof and above such squabbling. Local storks don’t like toast… the butter puts them off.

 

26 May, Sunday

The excruciatingly well-spoken waiter at the old Ottoman Bey House Restaurant was disappointed that we knew he was Australian but didn’t recall having told us this during our previous visit. The owner of the restaurant is the woman who would be our Queen if Bulgaria was still a monarchy, but it’s a republic so she must work for a living. Perhaps the waiter is a marsupial royal.

Stuffed to the gunwales with scrumptious victuals, I switched to energy-saving mode for the afternoon.

Leeds United lost at Wembley… words copied from an old diary. I can’t remember which. Take your pick!    

 

27 May, Monday

Outside Praktiker we met Fiona, the one of the two house-sitters who we still trust enough to allow into our house and the one who we haven’t found it necessary to buy a voodoo doll of. Cancelling our holiday at very short notice made us feel we should still pay her. She, and her husband, seemed more concerned about ailing Snezhinka. Perhaps we should have kept the money and given them the dog.

To lift our spirits, we had luncheon at Arbanashki Han. Their garden’s almost, but not quite, as lovely as our own. I wished I’d taken my secateurs. 

 

28 May, Tuesday

Day one of our holiday at home. Determined to not let life’s complications beat us, we imagined a customary poolside sangria reception at which a hefty lass called Chantelle from Bromsgrove, who was a big fan of going to the dogs, offered excursions to a variety of gift shops with adjacent Roman ruins, broken pottery museums or calamari plantations.

We know Snezhinka’s been very ill recently because she hasn’t been a pain in the arse. Today normal service resumed. So we could have gone away and we wished we had gone away. I wonder if Judith Chalmers had a dog.

 

29 May, Wednesday

I ceased buying books online because Brexit introduced customs complications and the need to pay import duty on British goods. But, running out of English language reading material, I ordered one from dastardly Amazon.

Four weeks later I was summoned to our big post office. A lady sent me to the collections counter in another building. Another lady sent me to the parcels collections counter in another building.

I paid tax of 4.00 leva (£1.80) to lady three who, after a rubber stamp frenzy and personal circumstances interrogation, smiled and gave me the book.

Amazon emails ask if I’m satisfied. 

 

30 May, Thursday

Day three of our pretend holiday was blessed with real Scarborough seaside weather. I remembered a younger me almost perishing in the North Sea, emerging with nipples and genitalia that had grown and shrunk respectively to exactly the same size as each other.

Not recognising cooking and washing up as holiday activities we went to Pizza Napoli for lunch and a warm. Being rarities in this strictly Bulgarian establishment we were asked if the rain was spoiling our holiday. We hadn’t the heart to tell them we were only 5 kms from home or the truth about our make-believe trip.

 

31 May, Friday

Day four. Leaving base camp shortly after lunch, we trekked cautiously beneath thunderous skies to the bamboo plantation by the garden shed. Fearing encounters with tigers, Priyatelkata held the blunderbuss as I removed invasive bindweed from young shoots. A spiralling abomination that seems indestructible. Strange it hasn’t strangled our entire planet!

Trump, found guilty of everything, was allowed to go home. He is the bipedal equivalent of bindweed.

Planting out seedlings I was overcome by the heat, the flies and those damned drums. Please send serum for the dengue fever. This may be the last time that I’m able to…

 

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Image:

A fine specimen from our array of demonic garden beasts which sometimes get a bit lonely out there so they come to visit us in the house. This is Stoycho the baby Scolopendra, my all-time favourite arthropod.

 

Click on the link for part one...

This Sort of Thing - May 2024 - Up to the Oche