Crado Come Home

 

16 July, Tuesday

Bulgaria is on fire. A common summer occurrence in our wild places but today infernos sweep dangerously close to the cities of Stara Zagora, Svilengrad and Varna.

In Malki Chiflik our mayor warned us about ciggies and barbeques because everywhere we still have piles of dry dead leaves remaining from the hailstones catastrophe. A terrific and unexpected thunderstorm this afternoon has dampened us for a few days. Nervously we watched for great balls of ice but this time we were spared.

We’re the lucky ones. People in drought-stricken Malomirovo on the border with Greece could only watch their village burn.

 

17 July, Wednesday

With a book in my hand and demonic android device in my bin, that’ll be the day that I die. And as I’m lowered into a hole amongst nettles where my bones will enrich Balkan soil, no photographs or video recordings will be allowed; not even where a tourist permit has been purchased. There may be an afterlife but I hope not, unless clergy can convince me it’s a place devoid of apps.

There’s no internet at home today. Visiting under-sixties people skulked, comparing the situation to having the brain removed, but maybe that happened months or even years ago.

 

18 July, Thursday

Priyatelkata’s young family, who are not familiar with the classic recordings of Françoise Hardy or Jacques Brel or their native Caribbean music, were dismayed at my poor knowledge of French gangsta rap. Apparently, Bakar is the daddy. Luckily they didn’t understand my insuppressible English expletives, but they did understand their grandmother’s expressions d'horreur and the artiste’s scruffy lyrics.

They went to the swimming pool in Kapinovo this afternoon so we took advantage of the temporary privacy by putting on all our old Charles Aznavour records and dancing ourselves dizzy in vests and pants whilst calling each other ‘you crazy ho’.

 

19 July, Friday

The ladies and gentlemen standing in as a government until we decide upon a proper one have imposed a nationwide month-long ban on cutting crops, bush and grass of any kind. The earth will retain moisture, reducing the risk of fires. Unprecedented measures, necessitated by unprecedented heat. I’d say hats off to the caretaker government but it’s wise to keep our heads covered.  

If our crisis was in a western world country, it would be all over the news and Thunderbird 2 would arrive to squirt Perrier on us. Meanwhile, the chips on our shoulders turn a delicious crispy brown.

 

20 July, Saturday

Apparently a global technology outage made everybody in the world late for work, holidays, heart surgery and returning their library books. We didn’t notice, probably because Bulgaria’s version of Microsoft Windows is made from cornflakes boxes, squeezy bottles and rubber solution glue.

Keinoa singing in the bathroom was our only clue that something was awry. Remembering my Nan’s old saying, ‘You don’t download gangsta rap from the internet and then rap yourself’, I became suspicious but didn’t stop admiring his silky vocal skills.

I learned today that Sasha Distel’s Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head isn’t the French national anthem.

 

21 July, Sunday

The sky is crying. Non-violent rain extinguished most wildfires and all hopes of a final trip to the pool for the kids. Midway through the droughtiest month in history cats and dogs traipsed mud into the house.

Across the Atlantic a doddery old man with a fuddled brain decided to hang up his boots, but everything will grand because they’ve a doddery old man with no brain set to take up the reins of the presidential Zimmer frame next January. Call me conceited but I’d say I’m over-qualified for that job, as is the surviving member of the Chuckle Brothers.

 

22 July, Monday

La famille française hopped aboard a taxi in which driver Nikolai recreated scenes from the classic cult road movie Herbie Goes Bananas for en route entertainment. Even travellers who suffer a morbid fear of flying would feel the worst leg of their journey was over once dropped off at Sofia airport.

On the first day of a return to normality it’s hard to remember what normality is. Two humans, two dogs, eight cats and a scolopendra heaved huge sighs of relief whilst dossing around and eating leftover shit food. Only the washing machine appeared to be putting in any effort.

 

23 July, Tuesday

Bulgarian travel and comedy writer, Aleko Konstantinov, said ‘Get to know your motherland and you will fall in love with it.’ He nicknamed himself the Happy Man, or Lucky Man (Щастливеца, pronounced ‘shtast-leev-etsa’) but in 1897, aged only 34, he was mistakenly killed by assassins after swapping coach seats with a politician friend. His quote is often seen on Bulgarian road signs and his portrait adorns our 100 leva banknotes.

I don’t have a 100 leva note and lately I haven’t travelled further than Lidl. Just call me the Pitiful Man (Жалкото Човече, pronounced ‘zhal-koto cho-vetch-eh’) or whisk me away from all this.

 

24 July, Wednesday

Canine Snezhinka, probably assisted by three or four cats, sussed how to open our oven door and transfer fish to her garden dining area. Laughter followed shouting. In an act of revenge, we ate her Cyrillic Pedigree Chum (Родословен Приятел). You can’t beat putting your feet up with a few cans on a Wednesday night.

Meanwhile, Butcher Boy Netanyahu addressed the US Congress. What were they thinking? Probably how much money they could make from selling him weapons. They need to work fast as there aren’t many Palestinians left to slaughter. David Attenborough estimates there are fewer than a hundred breeding pairs.

 

25 July, Thursday

A week’s passed since our government banned grass cutting to reduce risks of wildfires. Since then it’s pissed it down every day. Nobody expects soothsayers but our elected leaders have a long history of underestimating the gravity of future events.

Similarly, we’ve lost every war we’ve ever been in so we’ve given up now. Bulgaria is to war what Harry Kane is to football.

All day we heard the rattle and boom of thunder as gathered storm clouds relieved themselves over Europe. It sounded like a conflict trying to begin. Our defence ministry had failed to issue brollies, of course.

 

26 July, Friday

Elin Pelin, born in 1877, was a highly respected author, recreating in his writing the peasantry and countryside atmosphere of a Bulgaria recently liberated from the Ottoman yoke.

Twenty-five kilometres east of Sofia there’s a village named after him. It was there last night that a fireworks factory caught fire and blew up. Emergency crews can’t enter to put the fire out because of constant explosions. Two employees have died from burns and two are missing. Toxic fumes are rising to mix with the thunder clouds above. Should we hope for rain?

I can never understand why we have fireworks. 

 

27 July, Saturday

It’s more than a day since we saw Crado, the best cat in the world. He’ll be back, we tell ourselves, but anxiety heightens with every hour he’s gone.

Meanwhile, the fireworks factory in Elin Pelin continues to rocket and burn. Frustrated rescue workers can see a corpse lying in the hot sun but the site’s still too dangerous to enter.

Meanwhile, a favourite writer, Edna O' Brien, died at the age of 93. Changing the face of Irish literature, she upset a fair few Irish politicians and Roman Catholic zealots in her time.

Aren’t I a barrel of laughs? 

 

28 July, Sunday

With my best little mate, Crado, still missing it was difficult to find a hundred words to write today. A million dark thoughts and suspicions have gone through my mind. They’re all too dark to describe here.

Working outside to take my mind off him failed as everywhere I went or looked I imagined I saw him. We’ve seven other cats and we love them all. But he’s a special cat. For the past eight months he’s been the life and soul of our house. 

We’ve searched everywhere in tremendous heat.

He’ll be back! But for now the waiting hurts.

 

29 July, Monday

Three very young girls died in an horrific knife attack at a yoga and dance centre in Southport. Many more were severely injured. A teenage male of Rwandan descent was arrested.

Israel responded severely to a rocket attack that killed twelve school children in the occupied Golan Heights. An Israeli Air Force strike on Beirut killed the Hezbollah terrorist organization’s senior commander Fu’ad Shukr. The Gaza war fizzles out so it’s time we had a new one.

When I write this stuff I try to make it funny but I see more tears than laughter in the world these days.

 

30 July, Tuesday

Pro-Russian Daniil, the recently and controversially elected Patriarch of Bulgaria’s Orthodox Church, needed five days to decide that the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony was blasphemous. Commentators and journalists here pointed out that Parisians’ weren’t mocking the Last Supper but instead the feast of our local boy Dionysus. How strange that the Orthodoxies made this mistake.

Again feline issues frayed our nerves. Streetwise warrior cat, Ludo, knows how to look after himself so normally we wouldn’t have worried about him being gone for 36 hours. However, life has changed. Eventually he turned up, but without Crado. Sighs of relief and disappointment.

 

31 July, Wednesday

I’m not going to write about world events. I don’t want to make Reuters redundant and also, in the words of rock legend Ronnie Lane, they're doin’ me crust in, it's no good at all.

On these hot days there’s nobody in town except the illiterate bookseller who displays his second-hand wares on the post office wall and the profusely sweating gypsy who sneaks up determined to flog his lethal hunting knives. It’s very hard to say no.

A cold Shumensko at a shady table outside Lino Bar helped clear my head.

But Crado didn’t come home. We are heartbroken.

 

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Image:

Crado… on the hottest day in history, they say it's cool to be a cat.

 

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