Bring Me the Head of St. Paisius of Hilendar

 

Bring Me the Head of St. Paisius of Hilendar

 

15 August 2025, Friday

The frenzied behaviour of birds in a tree, as I observed from our terrace, was a metaphor for Balkan history during the twentieth century.

Fat Serbian jays were put in their place by smaller but more aggressive golden orioles representing Croatia. Blackbirds, like Slovenia, kept their distance while sparrows were the Bosnians of the re-enactment, viciously battered on all fronts. All that any of them really wanted was a branch of their own and a few figs to peck at.

Lounging in my chair with juicy grapes from our vines, I was the fat old bystander. Just call me NATO.  

 

16 August 2025, Saturday

During the night, Trump and Putin met up in Alaska but failed to end any wars and didn’t even stay for their tea. Priyatelkata and I would have done better, preferring slices of cake to Nobel Peace Prizes.

Whoever it was that coined the phrase, as one door closes another one opens, may have had our new cat in mind. While he wasn’t eating and drinking we weren’t concerned by his lack of awareness of the location of his latrine facilities, but today the input problem was resolved leaving us to worry about his output. And he’s a big cat!

 

17 August 2025, Sunday

All our news in August is hot news, but today’s was extra hot. A Ukraine truck driver drove seven kilometres without noticing that one of his tyres had burst. Sparks flying from the wheel rim’s contact with the road ignited dry grass on the verge at various points and flames spread to nearby trees. Eventually the truck itself ignited. So, right on our doorstep, we had four big fires in the same afternoon. Fortunately, (if that’s the right word) only the truck and nature suffered damage. The driver was detained by police which, I imagine, was a rather painful experience.   

 

18 August 2025, Monday

Bulgarians are a bit miffed that we’ll be adopting the euro as our currency next January, but discovering that it’ll be at least five years before Romania can make the switch cheers them. In the world of high finance and international protocol, we’re way ahead of our northern neighbours. Crossing that line between very shit and just a bit shit makes a massive difference.

Our cat Vlad is from Romania. He’s always seemed morose and underdeveloped both physically and mentally. We asked our vet if there was a reason for this. His diagnosis was ‘Of course. It’s because he’s Romanian.’

 

19 August 2025, Tuesday

A 20° drop in temperature was quite a shock to the system, as was the rain that accompanied it. Such splendid news for gardens, reservoirs and firemen who’d been battling with burning things across the country for weeks. It was also good practice for our forthcoming Irish trip.

However, wintry weather dictated we drop the diet nonsense and eat the sort of food that sticks to your ribs. Etno restaurant was a pleasant place to dine with its friendly staff and magnificent views of the slowly swelling Yantra river. And because local people had begun their hibernation, it wasn’t busy.

 

20 August 2025, Wednesday

The warm sunshine returned. Yesterday’s grey skies and old women in bus shelters grumbling ‘Ooh, isn’t it cold!’ in the Bulgarian tongue reminded me of past journeys to work in Leeds and other cities in the Britain region. If the old women in bus shelters spoke English, they’d tell you they’re sick of hearing my grumbles too. But isn’t that what bus shelters are for? Except in Essex.

The bindweed with gorgeous big purple flowers (convolvulus arvensis) kills everything, including me. Hacking it down from small trees brings on a painful condition in humans known as dorsum hortulani (gardener’s back).

 

21 August 2025, Thursday

Bulgaria’s big news was that we didn’t go to the vets’ today and, with speculators fearing us dead, the price of shares in the company that makes feline pharmaceutical products plummeted on the Sofia stock exchange.

The good thing about our recent difficulties is that I’ve become able to spell the word diarrhoea without having to think about it. What chance the vets can spell onychocryptosis? It’s something that’s been on the tip of my tongue for years. But they won’t care because with all the money they’ve had from us they’ll be in the Seychelles by now sipping cocktails.

 

22 August 2025, Friday

Summertime, and the living is tempestuous. Midday skies were cloudless but on our return from town late in the afternoon we found a storm had trashed our village. Fallen trees lay everywhere, even in places where trees don’t grow. In our garden, five large branches had broken from walnut and mulberry trees, two of which had made Priyatelkata’s art shed inaccessible.

Inside the house there was no electricity. Grit and dust blown between ceiling timbers from the roof space covered everything in the upstairs rooms. Our new roof had held out but we felt desperately sorry for our distraught neighbours.

 

23 August 2025, Saturday

Feeling sure that fragile cat Django had escaped from an upstairs window made for a thoroughly miserable morning. We’d only opened it to waft his illness aroma. At approximately mid-afternoon he just turned up in the dining room. He’d probably been sleeping behind our life-size statue of Bianca Castafiore.

Whilst clearing up in the garden after yesterday’s storm I discovered that a combination of figs and blackbird feathers renders a sweeping brush inoperable; even one as robust as my Spear & Jackson Mark III with an ash handle. I’d never known wasps smirk before. They only sting when they’re grinning.

 

24 August 2025, Sunday

Washing machines with clogged filters kick up such a fuss! A flashing light would suffice instead of their awful noise and failure to drain. I wished that cat Django would fail to drain but he continued to ooze fluids. Outside, five injured trees whimpered in the breeze. Armed with the trusty chainsaw (which I don’t trust at all) I amputated two branches, returning to the house with all of my own limbs miraculously intact.

The storks had all flown off to Turkey or North Africa for winter, or maybe just the seaside for the weekend. And who could blame them?

 

25 August 2025, Monday

Malo and his four-man team of resourceful Roma lads arrived at 8:00 a.m. It took only two hours, one ladder, one chainsaw, ten cups of deadly coffee, two hundred even deadlier cigarettes and the ability to leap from branch to branch like squirrels to solve our arboreal problems. We were amazed that an ambulance wasn’t required.

Sadly, a lofty walnut in close proximity to our house had contracted terminal precariousness during Friday’s storm and required full scale euthanasia. However, its logs will keep our petchka burning all winter and its ashes will be scattered in beautiful places every morning throughout.

 

26 August 2025, Tuesday

A sneak preview of the new Bulgarian euro coin revealed it’ll feature the head of St. Paisius of Hilendar, a key figure of the Bulgarian national revival and author of The Slavo-Bulgarian History. Out goes St. John of Rila who’s been the face of the lev since 1999. It was a lot like finding out who’s going to play the new Doctor Who.

I harvested our red grapes so they’re ready for juice extracting tomorrow. We got a huge gardener’s bucket full but came nowhere near matching the bumper crop of 2022. Last year we’d none, so I mustn’t grumble.

 

27 August 2025, Wednesday

Yesterday morning, upon spotting an open back door, cat Django’s free gypsy spirit saw him make a bolt for it (a bolt for freedom, not a bolt for the door). Thinking we’d lost him saddened us but he returned in the evening, crying for food and aggressing our other cats. We’d planned to let him out eventually but not until we were sure his own rear entrance was functioning normally.   

In true Roma style, he’s since wandered and returned regularly but refused to cross our threshold. Where his lower canine tooth is broken we’re going to get a gold replacement.

 

28 August 2025, Thursday

Strange it seems, that on the evenings before we go away on a trip, the sunset is particularly beautiful, our garden seems more serene than usual, the neighbours are extra chatty, and all our menagerie members are playful and affectionate. Tomorrow we’re setting off in the direction of a place that I love but I know I’ll be slightly moist-eyed to be leaving this place that I love. Whoever it was that invented emotions can’t have ever gone on holiday or had a dog that seems to talk to them in a tone of voice that always suits the occasion.

 

29 August 2025, Friday

Journal writing ceased at the end of the 28^th day of the month because I never for the life of me know what day it is and I had it in my head that it was February. I knew there was a 75% chance that it wasn’t a leap year so I redeemed myself slightly.

 

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Image:

My own drawing of Bianca Castafiore. I would have preferred to have had Vesselina Kasarova but I felt I didn’t know her well enough to ask her to sit for me.

 

Part One:

A Different Tetsubin of Sushi

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