This Sort of Thing - March 2024 - La finale

 

16 March, Saturday

Despite the return of the sun to our valley, I was unable to labour on the land because of lower back pain. Assembling new flat-pack furniture, a joint venture enjoyed with Priyatelkata in her creativity hut, seemed the perfect alternative though not the antidote.

The standard of our conversation fluctuated with each turn of the free Allen Key. How strange that spasm, orgasm and sarcasm rhyme. Almost poetic!

Would it be cruel to expect six-year-old children in Vietnamese sweatshops to assemble the furniture they’ve already done a 15 hour working day to manufacture?

Free Allen Key! Why? What’s he done?

 

17 March, Sunday

Iris is 80% Irish.

Today, to justify wearing green knickers and leprechaun hats, the whole world claims to have had an Irish granny. Plastic Paddies waving Côte d'Ivoire flags and bawling out traditional Bing Crosby songs about good luck and smiling eyes make eejits of themselves while Ireland looks on thinking if they could just have their six counties back they’d be grand. 

Senior Irish politicians are away in America to celebrate, maybe expecting an Oscar like Cillian Murphy. Surely McMullan’s Central Bar in Cushendall would be an altogether better place for the craic.

And please don’t call him Patty.

 

18 March, Monday

It’s the Eastern Orthodox first day of Lent. Strange that Ireland too didn’t consider seeing out Patrick’s Party Day before beginning the fasting. We’re also midway through Ramadan, so that must also be a Catholic thing. For me, every day is one for neither fasting nor feasting.

In Ireland (maybe Australia too) it’s St Sheelah’s Day. Historians suggest she was either the mother or sister of Patrick but aren’t sure because they were all so hungover from the previous day’s strong drink shenanigans.  

A welcoming Sheelah Na Gig ancient stone grotesque (complete with engorged vulva) hangs perpetually above our door.

 

19 March, Tuesday

I empathise with brown bears’ trepidation upon emerging from the hibernation den each spring. Will the world still exist and, if so, will there be sustenance available? I have similar concerns wondering if the petrol strimmer will start. But today it did and my heart purred in time with its two-stroke engine. The wheelbarrow’s never a problem.

Any flora enjoyed by pollinators, I allow to grow. But Bulgarian gardens in March are known to go a bit mental and there exists great danger of being overcome by Sticky Willy (Galium Aparine) and friends. Only a good thrashing can prevent this.

 

20 March, Wednesday

I love the Bulgarian Health System. Within two hours of seeing Dr Khrushchev this morning for the annual safety check I was back home with the wheels in motion to hopefully ensure I’d survive another twelve months in this mad world.

An electrocardiograph seemed like a good idea. The nurse who is always by his side, and who looks remarkably like the woman who changes over our winter/summer car tyres twice a year, attached her jump leads to my erogenous zones and I started first time.

The blood test laboratory woman looked like Amy Winehouse and took the piss… literally!

 

21 March, Thursday

It was the vernal equinox today, or yesterday. Only Wikipedia knows this for sure. I’ve long admired those purple druidy people for building their megalithic stone structures without the use of JCB’s or cheap migrant labour, but I’m astounded to know that they must have had internet access 5,000 years ago.

I replanted some of my Empress Tree seedlings at the edge of our weather-damaged neighbouring forest.

Priyatelkata told me it’s lucky to stand in a pile of dog shit on the first day of spring. Had I not done, I might have strimmed it which would have been messy.

 

22 March, Friday

The black flies from hell that suck sizeable quantities of blood from my flesh (nearly an armful) whenever I venture into our garden at this time of year were cursing their luck today. These beasts hate bonfires but I love them. I lit one on the patch of land we are battling to semi-cultivate.

With my vampiric assailants subdued by smoke I could graft all day without having to shout profanities to scare them away, which don’t work anyway probably because of the language barrier between us. They don’t bite our Bulgarian neighbours, which I consider tantamount to racial discrimination.

 

23 March, Saturday

In Moscow more than 130 people died in a terrorist attack on a rock venue.

The world is shocked but not horrified. Social media isn’t awash with users declaring ‘I stand with Moscow’. Charlie Hebdo didn’t even get out of bed. Innocent people died but they were only innocent Russians.

Meanwhile in Gaza, far more than 130 people died. Well I assume so as that appears to happen on most days. The world no longer seems shocked. Innocent people died but they weren’t even Russian. They weren’t white or Christian.

Lviv was on fire too.

These warmongers everywhere sicken me.

 

24 March, Sunday

Breakfast in the garden was interrupted by storks. It’s hard to concentrate on a bowl of Lactobacillus Bulgaricus (the deliciously healthy yoghurt of the Republic of Bulgaria) when seven of these beautiful creatures decide to circle overhead. We’d previously seen several above our house but never more than three at a time, and never circling. Possibly just vultures in fancy dress that assumed my age-related deteriorating physical state rendered me decomposing carrion.

They flew off eventually, our cold coffee was replaced by hot and the rest of the day was spent working the land and further diminishing my physical state.

 

25 March, Monday

In cold Monday morning rain I returned to our doctor for the classified results read by James Alexander Gordon. I can’t boast elite athlete status but there’s nothing wrong with me that losing a few kilograms won’t put right. An ultrasound scan revealed a meze of internal organs all the right size and in the right place and I’m not having a baby but the possibility of an ingrown toenail can’t be ruled out.

I finished reading Sara Pascoe’s book ‘Animal’. This absolute eye-opener I found very funny and extremely educational in terms of bodily bits and attitudes towards womenfolk.

 

26 March, Tuesday

Cat Crado began the day with a lump almost the size of his head on his head. Near his bed wriggled a sсоlореndrа (25cm long venomous leathery centipede). Fearing a fatality, our vet drained a pot of gooey unpleasantness from his protrusion under general anaesthetic. It turned out to be only an abscess.

Our beautiful animal with long white hair looked utterly pathetic when part-shaven, splattered with blood and iodine and wobbling drunkenly in a state of semi-anaesthesia.

The sсоlореndrа, although displaying none of these features and having been found not guilty of inflicting the injury, didn’t fare so well.

 

27 March, Wednesday

We went to the KAT (Bulgarian for DVLA) to pay my speeding fine. Policewoman Plovdiv gave me a 30% discount, presumably because I’m a regular customer. Across the road we paid the annual council tax for our house, a reasonably affordable 32 leva (£14.50).

Dimitar at the metalwork shop said he could do amazing things structurally in our garden. He’d once been to Belfast on holiday with his SS Titanic obsessed father. They’d loved the craic in the pubs on the Falls Road but felt intimidated on the Shankhill. So I’ll be accompanying them next time as their cultural attaché.

 

28 March, Thursday

If every flower on our pear tree produces fruit there’ll be no room left for a partridge. Should we call the man from Del Monte? Whether fruitful or not, the old tree close to our house is currently one of the most beautiful living organisms that I have ever encountered.

A bridge spanning the top end of Chesapeake Bay near America’s Baltimore (the scariest and dirtiest place I’ve ever been) collapsed when a ship bumped into it. In 1977 I went under that bridge in a ship in both directions. It looked a bit rickety then. Luckily I wasn’t driving.

 

29 March, Friday

The Friday market in Gorna Oryahovitsa has moved from the town centre to the football stadium car park. Better organised but lacking the atmosphere and our favourite gypsy stallholders. We bought old Bulgarian stuff that would interest only the most eccentric.

Restaurant ‘Bulgaria’ in Gorna Oryahovitsa, closed by the disastrous effects of the global pandemonium, has reopened but lacking the atmosphere, tasty menu and our favourite staff. Perpetually hungry, we vowed to persevere with the new owners.

Our favourite garden centre in Lyaskovets reopened after winter closure. Well-stocked, as ever, but the boss woman still lacks the ability to smile.

 

30 March, Saturday

The day of the new asma (асма); the Bulgarian word for the metal structure for training grapevines. We intend training ours to bring cups of tea and sandwiches on demand.

With the temperature in the shade reaching 32° Celsius, Rado and his sidekick welded together large sections of metal in the sunniest part of our garden. He must already be accustomed to hardship looking as much like Wayne Rooney as he does.

In the cool of the early evening I tied our poor battered and bruised vines in place and they are happy again. I heard them singing Red Red Wine.

 

31 March, Sunday

Apparently the clocks changed at 2:00 am, but not ours. I had to change ours manually myself. However, the stretch in the evening super-compensated for this inconvenience. Green shoots sprouted all around, as if they’d been waiting.

Bulgaria was admitted to the Shengen Area so now we can wander willy-nilly within the European Union without having to talk to Border Police. I’ll miss the nice woman who mans the crossing near Durankulak. She taught me the Romanian words for hello, thank you and clinic.

We ventured no further than our gate. In our world the only borders are herbaceous ones.

 

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Image:

The welcoming Sheelah Na Gig ancient stone grotesque (complete with engorged vulva) that hangs perpetually above our door.

 

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Part One - This Sort of Thing - March 2024 - L'ouverture

https://www.abctales.com/story/turlough/sort-thing-march-2024-louverture