The Fish on the Hill

 

The Fish on the Hill

 

1 April 2025, Tuesday

Instead of saying April Fool, the French say Poisson d’Avril, which means April Fish. Do you think they always say fish instead of fool? If so, it might have a strange effect on some well-known song titles.

Consider these:

• The Fish on the Hill, by the Beatles
• Kissing a Fish, by George Michael
• Fished Around and Fell in Love, by Elvin Bishop
• What a Fish Believes, by the Doobie Brothers
• Fish Rush In, by Elvis Presley

However, this suggests to me that yer man called Fish, who was the lead singer with 1980s popular beat combo, Marillion, was no fool.

 

2 April 2025, Wednesday

The stuffed shirts who sit in the marble halls at Veliko Tarnovo City Council have decided to extend the grounds of the municipal cemetery by twenty-six acres. As much of Europe prepares for war I feel that such arrangements are a little pessimistic and excessive.

I had to smile at the comment of the man who, in his letter to the local newspaper, suggested that our council members only ever cater for the tourists with never a thought for the needs of ordinary people.

Priyatelkata and I have made a reservation for two; the date(s) and time(s) to be confirmed.

 

3 April 2025, Thursday

Governments usually piss me off but ours, remarkably, has a cunning plan.

Recently we’ve been boycotting supermarkets at weekends in protest against their inflated prices and the pocketing of profits by West European chains.

Our government has announced significant investment into the retail industry so every village will have its own shop, as they did in Communist times. The range of available goods will undoubtedly shrink but an intensified rejection of the supermarkets will become a possibility.

Generally speaking, Bulgarian victuals are rarely processed and are significantly healthier than imported food.

But Mistress von der Leyen in Brussels is cross.

 

4 April 2025, Friday

Stressed by current world events, I turned to Netflix for light relief. However, the series Toxic Town and Adolescence respectively reminded me of my home town Middlesbrough and the madhouse school I attended in Leeds. To complete the set, I searched the channel for blockbuster movies about the spiralling cost of Jack Daniels’ so-called whiskey, and personal trauma suffered by unemployed Archbishops of Canterbury. On the blood sports channel, Israel vs Palestine had gone into extra time.

Meanwhile on Facebook, Don Stiletto Italian flick knives (they should call them Netflicks) were advertised for sale. So that’s my Christmas shopping sorted!

 

5 April 2025, Saturday

Our valley echoed with the sound of petrol strimmers so, eager to feel part of the horticultural community, I joined in. This one dry and bright day, tucked in amongst a dozen wet and windy others, seemed like a now-or-never opportunity to strike back against the rampant vegetation that threatened the loveliest of trees and assorted Balkan flora, and which gripped my ankles with its coiling tendrils in dreams.

As two-stroke engines died, the evening sun’s illumination of jays feasting on insects in the freshly cut field made every aching muscle seem worthwhile. Woodpeckers and bee-eaters couldn’t understand the fuss.

 

6 April 2025, Sunday

I marked International Wee Timorous Beastie Day, with ants in my pants and ticks in my knicks.

The ants were formicating in a kitchen cupboard but, using my masterful negotiating skills, I convinced them they’d be more comfortable at the protestant family’s house just up the road.

I wasn’t aware of the tick until I’d removed half of it with fervent scratching of my itchy arm. So now I’ve to watch out for Lyme disease, one symptom being insanity. I wouldn’t know how to spot this but my constant companion, Napoleon Bonaparte, said he’d keep an eye out for me.

 

7 April 2025, Monday

Oh no! Snow! If we’d gone out, we’d have got wet and miserable so we stayed indoors to be just miserable.

Turning on a computer without seeing the words ‘Trump’s Trade Tariffs’ is currently impossible so we added the USA to the list of things we’re boycotting. It already included Israel, supermarkets, Wetherspoon pubs and Boxing Day hunts. It’s easy really as there’s no evidence of any of these in Bulgaria, except supermarkets.

However, we’re excited about tomorrow’s supermarket trip to specifically boycott commodities bearing barcodes beginning with 060 and 729 which are sourced in the USA and Israel respectively.  

 

8 April 2025, Tuesday

According to the social media lads, today was International Romani Day but our neighbours knew nothing about it. We decided it must be something only for the posh Gypsies living in eight-bedroom detached caravans with state-of-the-art ponies in leafy Berkshire. Today was probably just another day corrupted by Clinton Cards for consumerists to cash in on, like with Hallowe’en and Patrick’s Day. Fortunately, we don't have card shops in Bulgaria.

Our Roma people do have their special days, all based on folklore and tradition. On these days the mountain fills with lit candles and all the songs weep for love.

 

9 April 2025, Wednesday

Hearing that Blondie’s drummer, Clem Burke, had died a couple of days ago saddened me tremendously. I never met him but I'll never forget him. They were a band accused of the Torvill-and-Deanification of new wave music but they were still bloody good. I saw them at a gig at the Deeside Leisure Centre in North Wales on Saturday 19th January 1980. My ticket cost me £4.25. I still have the stub pasted to the cover of my copy of their Eat to the Beat album. The occasion was tarnished only by my having to stay overnight in St Helens.

 

10 April 2025, Thursday

If airline pilots, surgeons and soldiers worked to the same level of accuracy as weather forecasters, we’d all be dead by now. They can predict any old bollocks and when it comes out wrong they just chuckle and crack on with the next day’s fairy story. Yesterday’s ‘mostly sunny with a little light rain at teatime’ turned out to feature gale force winds, thunder, lightning, hail and snow. Do they use tarot cards?

For tomorrow I’ve done my own prediction of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and a collision with an asteroid in coastal areas. Anything different will be a pleasant surprise.

 

11 April 2025, Friday

The toothless old widow who sits beneath the pomegranate tree in the square confided in me, ‘Snow and ice in April will hurt the tender shoots of our hostas but they’ll return even stronger under the Balkan sunshine’s healing rays.’ The old man sitting beside her with a cigarette lodged neatly in one of the gaps in his front teeth casually added, ‘Hosta la vista, baby!’

Our hostas were in a sad state though. Leaves that looked so green and strong yesterday now bore an awful resemblance to the boiled cabbage you’d have found on a 1960s Middlesbrough dinner plate.

 

12 April 2025, Saturday

Ten years ago I slept my first ever night in Bulgaria. Within twenty minutes of landing in Sofia I’d been conned by a taxi driver and car hire people. I vowed I’d never return. But you should never judge a country by its airport staff.

Arriving on the back of a hastily cancelled USA trip, there’d been little time for research. A Rough Guide book bought from the Heart Foundation shop in Devizes described the historic city of Veliko Tarnovo as unmissable. That was probably the best pound I’d ever spent as this beautiful place captured my heart within days.

 

13 April 2025, Sunday

Hotnitsa Village Bazar is always a place for surprises. Today I gained a log splitter, an apple turnover, muddy feet and a new Bulgarian teacher. Priyatelkata’s surprises were unsurprisingly different to mine, apart from the muddiness.

Local homemade curry’s a bit like rice pudding with bits of chicken in it, but we encourage their efforts. As we luncheoned at the summer garden restaurant in Arbanasi, in the warm sunshine I think the waiter thought he was in Varanasi. 

Strange but true… Bulgarians wobble their heads from side to side when saying yes, just as natives of the Indian sub-continent do.

 

14 April 2025, Monday

An official ceremony was held at the Graf Ignatievo air base near Plovdiv to present the Bulgarian Air Force’s first F-16 fighter jet. My combined pacifism and pessimism told me that there are many things our country needs more than it needs a swanky killer machine, and that one won’t really be enough unless we’re at war with Cleethorpes. I imagined all the pilots squabbling over whose turn it was to go next with the new toy. And how did our Prime Minister, Rossen Zhelyazkov, not notice that it had a USA barcode? I bet he still drinks Jack Daniels.

 

 

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Image:

The bottom of our field is a marvellous place for finding cherries and ticks. My own photograph.

 

Part Two:

Introducing Turlough Ó Maoláin, Performance Poet

Click on the link to read