For the Love of Irma Ogden

 

In the Garden of Hephaestus

 

Trees stand solemn and still like lofty gravestones

Memorials to past days of rain and

Cooler times before August’s furnace came

Leaves wrinkle and crinkle and dry

Beside figs that blush and swell

To make me wonder where they find the energy

For I have none

 

In a shadow a sleeping Tom

Plays hide and seek with the fierce rays

With time to bide for the heat to subside

Only the cat can win

Nothing stirs, nothing purrs

‘til dusk shaving off a few degrees

Declares a truce in the conflict with this swelter

 

Perspired, not written

My hundred words

 

1 August, Thursday

Yorkshire friends around t’ world reminded us it were Yorkshire Day. To mark t’ occasion, I ate all, supped all and paid nowt. They’d planned to rise up, smash t’ system and declare independence but cardboard placards don’t come cheap and Molotov cocktails sound a bit poncey and southern.

In Gabrovo, 20 kilometres from us, the townsfolk exhibit similar stinginess. Their symbol is a black tail-less cat because they are said to cut the tails off their cats so they can shut t’ door faster when letting them out, thereby saving heat. ‘Appen I could sell this idea to Huddersfield.

 

2 August, Friday

In this money-crazed digital world, reflecting upon my formative years in Western Europe I see many things have disappeared or changed beyond recognition. Vinyl records, pubs where food wasn’t the priority, FW Woollies, popular music with character and soul, silver paper wrapped KitKats, affordable and unpredictable football, places unspoilt by lairy lager louts, and even Coronation Street.  

Today’s Sandra Gough’s 81^st birthday. She played the part of Irma Ogden (Stan and Hilda’s daughter) and was married to Ken Barlow’s brother; he being a professional footballer. She was gorgeous when I was ten so I wanted to be a footballer too.

 

3 August, Saturday

In this money-crazed digital world, aren’t Bluetooth portable speakers a wonderful invention? For the price of a bucket of rakia I bought one today. In a joint venture with my mobile phone it produces better sound quality than the family stereogram of fifty years ago, which we could rarely listen to anyway because of my parents’ perpetual need to watch Kojak on telly.

A second consecutive evening dining with my dear Sicilian friend Luca and lovely partner Luana. He was the guide on my Aeolian Islands volcano climbing trip in 2013. They’re touring Bulgaria. I’m delighted we kept in touch.

 

4 August, Sunday

And now England’s burning too, but not because of drought. Suzanne Charlton’s granddaughter insists it’s damp there. Politically far-right people want the migrants (i.e. anyone lacking flabby white skin and a football tattoo) to go ‘home’. I migrated in the opposite direction. Please, somebody tell them I’m happy for my place to be filled by Kazim from Sudan and that torching a Middlesbrough chip shop won’t help.

My strong opinions are better discussed over a pint than in a wee white box on a computer screen, but in a nutshell I’d say these brick-wielding English patriots are flipping well horrid.

 

5 August, Monday

Some Gypsy neighbours have Bulgaria’s smallest garden so they closed our street, filling it with marquees, meat roasting on spits, flamboyant saxophonists and ladies in huge vividly coloured frocks. I walked through the proceedings to meet our French visitors in the square beyond. My hand was shaken, I was smiled at and I was offered beer. Although not officially invited, I felt very welcome. Due to linguistic differentials, thirty minutes was sufficient.

In Paris our medal-free Olympic team enjoyed an overdue flurry of success, excelling at weightlifting, wrestling and rhythmic gymnastics. I couldn’t partake because my leotard’s at the mender’s.

 

6 August, Tuesday

Being non-violent, left-wing and funny, our French visitors were the nicest nuns I’d ever met. Anna’s an accountant for their religious organisation in Paris. Sylvie has set up and runs a mobile library for children in Bulgaria’s poorest areas. We could respect their spiritual beliefs because they could respect our lack of them. They were on an ancient monastery spotting trip so Priyatelkata was their local guide for the day.

I very carefully strimmed our roadside jungle. The mayor saw me and smiled in a ‘you shouldn’t be doing that because of the fires’ way, but didn’t tell the police. 

 

7 August, Wednesday

‘Twas a grand day for the creepy crawly creatures.

Cats catch massive hawk moths and bring them inside where they are liberated because they’ve too much muscle for feline captors to contend with.  

I normally shout, ‘Ah shit, a scolopendra!’ when I see a scolopendra in the house but this evening I found a little baby one in the kitchen, my reaction to which was ‘Awww!’

Cicadas are becoming the dominant species. In our garden there are 96 of them, each with a high-pitched whine of 96 decibels, which makes 9,216 altogether (give or take a decibel) and sleeping difficult.

 

8 August, Thursday

Our spaghetti jumble of overhead cables look like Communist era antiquities but actually carry state-of-the-art fibre optic stuff. Our Wi-Fi is almost as good as our yoghurt. Hundreds (maybe thousands) of swallows gathered on them this morning, probably about to fly south to Africa for cooler weather.

Our neighbour Maria’s neighbour (we don’t know her name) gave us some of her homemade rakia. Her rakia isn’t as nice as Maria’s rakia but Maria isn’t as nice as her neighbour. We’d rather have some of her eggs but in Bulgaria it’s insulting to decline offers of the national spirit / pastime.

 

9 August, Friday

I was pleased that Goritsa Grancharova-Kozhareva (Горица Грънчарова-Кожарева) today became the new acting Prime Minister of the Republic of Bulgaria. Efforts to send a congratulations card were thwarted as my biro ran out halfway through the second leg of her surname.

Rado the roofer came to our house with his assistant, Malo the assistant roofer, to calculate the cost of building a whole new roof. Did they have to go to the very edge to do the measuring? I’d rather they got the quote wrong by a few leva than fall off a precarious bit and die in the name of accuracy.

 

10 August, Saturday

You know when you’re cooking, do you ever accidentally get a bit of the sauce on your finger and just lick it off? It’s a common occurrence for me, but today it happened while I was scooping dog food out of a tin. As a would-be vegetarian, it was a distressing interruption to my plant-based dietary scheme.

What with meteorological extremes, and illnesses and disappearances within our menagerie, this summer has been unusually traumatic. Just as the dust was settling, the Glory Glory Leeds United football season began today causing an upward shift in the curve on my stress chart.

 

11 August, Sunday

The Olympics finished and our wee country came away with a respectable medals haul. During Communist times we’d win a great stack of the things but now that child abuse and performance enhancing drugs are frowned upon we don’t do so well.

The online newsreader lady said there are more square kilometres of land on fire in Bulgaria than in any other European country. We won’t be getting a medal for that but the people who live in those tinder dry areas certainly deserve one.

I wandered lonely as a cloud whilst trying to remember what a cloud looked like.

 

12 August, Monday

Our garden’s looking tidy at long last, probably because the flora that survived the June hail attack has since died in the drought. We spend hours every day watering to preserve precious lives, fearing that soon we’ll be told we’re no longer allowed. Other nearby cities have imposed restrictions. There’s a long history of government rules or advice being ignored so more drastic measures are imposed. In Pleven the water supply is off all day and in Lovech it’s off all night. I expect the cogs are whirring frantically in the minds of the members of their town twinning associations.

 

13 August, Tuesday

My new hobby is alcohol consumption. Past experiences remind me a cheeky beer can spark social intercourse with complete strangers. Talkative ones are usually interesting.

Really I’d never completely abandoned the beastly beverage. Declining rakia in a Bulgarian home is rude and resisting Guinness in Ireland is impossible. Since 2019 I’ve often gone months (up to twelve) without imbibing, but moderation is marvellous and sociable.

At a shady table outside Malkia Inter this afternoon I tried their craft beer. Nobody spoke to me so I talked to myself, complaining bitterly about paying six leva (£2.70). Local Bolyarka’s half the price.

 

14 August, Wednesday

From my normally happy haven I observe as nature’s miracle malfunctions.

Plants burn in the sun. We’ve abandoned watering as once per day is insufficient and reservoirs need love too.

Storks fly much lower over our house than usual. The scarcity of water sources probably has them eyeing up our cups of tea.

Jackals shriek nearby in the forest at night. A sound more disturbing than the banshee’s lonesome croon or Celine Dion’s Titanic thing. Hailstones and drought destroyed their home. Did they destroy our little cat?

My mouse perished in the heat. It probably just needs a new battery.

  

15 August, Thursday

Rado the Roofer quoted a price that’s less than an arm and a leg but more than four fingers and an earlobe. Over time, the human liver regenerates. Perhaps he’ll let us pay in instalments. We really need that new roof. 

With the water supply cut off late in the evening, I felt as dusty and neglected as the nasturtiums in our garden but much less fragrant.

Football heroes Ludogorets from Razgrad were knocked out of the Champions League by an Armenian shove ha’penny team. They can now look forward to playing Bromsgrove Rovers in the Poundland West Midlands League.

 

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Image:

One of my favourite views of Veliko Tarnovo, my favourite little town.

 

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