I’m Only Happy When It Rains

 

I’m Only Happy When It Rains

 

17 May 2026, Sunday

Most Bulgarians had hoped we’d come second in Eurovision, losing out by a single vote. However, delectable Dara stormed it, so anybody down our way who wasn’t singing her song ‘Bangaranga’ today was singing ‘We are the Champions’.

Netanyahu’s boys claimed our victory was a vicious act of antisemitism while our own politicians asked how in the name of Elijah we’d be able to afford to host the event on home turf next year. Malki Chiflik Pensioners and Invalids Club had already put their glitter ball up. It’s been there since our region came third for tractor output in 1977.

 

18 May 2026, Monday

Purely by accident we visited Veliko Tarnovo’s newly appointed Scholars’ Square. In front of a former university building it’s always been a communal gathering place. For years teenage students have loitered there to smoke, vape, eat banitsa, and show off their tattoos and other things.

Now it’s a place to remember the more studious people from our city’s history. There’s a bronze sculpture of a Cyrillic typewriter on a table. Without the typewriter’s intrusion we could have sat there to study. Without the whole thing we’d have had the money to feed some hungry old victims of an economic downturn.

 

19 May 2026, Tuesday

Nasal torrents with bouts of sweating, shivering and pathetic groaning forced me into a horizontal position on the settee where my mind flew back in time to realise I must have left school fifty years ago this week.

With friends Kevin, Denis and Martin, I dashed from the exam hall to the Old Red Lion Inn on Leeds’s eastern edge. Four pints of Whitbread ‘Big Head’ Trophy Bitter cost exactly a pound. My first encounter with a beer garden umbrella aroused my curiosity and taught me that fiddling with its clippy thing makes it collapse and spill all the beer.

 

20 May 2026, Wednesday

Amazing Bulgarian Fact #1

Bulgaria is the oldest country in Europe. Down the centuries its boundaries have moved about all over the place as the Balkans’ turbulent history resembled a giant game of Twister, and it was even reduced to colony status for five hundred years, but it’s retained its name since 681 C.E.

Looking around these days at the abandoned buildings and the poverty, it’s hard to imagine that we have had empires and we have been Europe’s richest country. Strangely we’re still very proud of our medieval tsars, even though they abandoned us almost a thousand years ago.

 

21 May 2026, Thursday

Iconic television holiday show presenter, Judith Chalmers, was the same colour as Trump and also well known for ‘going into’ many countries, but she was a much nicer person. So I was saddened by her death today. I wish she was here!

In our garden, branches creaked under the weight of acacia blossom, the millions of nipplewort flowers (lapsana communisi) sparkled like a yellow Milky Way in every corner, and I received my first mosquito bite of the summer. I swatted the little sucker and from its crushed body, blood spurted onto my leg. My blood! And nearly an armful.

 

22 May 2026, Friday

Hasan’s smile was uncharacteristically missing. His wife, Slavka, was in hospital suffering from those complications of diabetes that crisps and ciggies fail to cure. He’d no money because he couldn’t work because every day he was visiting her to take her food. Nobody ever complains about Bulgarian hospital food because it just doesn’t exist. At Billa we bought a big bag of healthy victuals for the pair of them.

An almighty tempest raged all night and the river spilled over, flooding places formerly considered unfloodable, and our dogs whined incessantly but not as much as sleepless Priyatelkata and I did.

 

23 May 2026, Saturday

Our beautiful old city was clarted with mud as people stood open-mouthed, silenced by the spectacle of the unprecedented disaster that had struck in the night. Bridges were closed as dead trees and other flotsam accumulated in piles almost as big as the bridges themselves to threaten collapse. Heavy machinery struggled in vain to clear the blockages. Pumps in people’s living rooms were equally unsuccessful. Business premises, churches and the police station were filled with water and a temporary roundabout was washed away. It was utterly distressing to see.

Back home in our hillside homestead we felt safe but useless.

 

24 May 2026, Sunday

Ducks swam in the flooded grounds of the historic Church of the Forty Martyrs, much to the annoyance of the Cat of the Forty Martyrs who looked hungry and predatory but aquaphobic.

Our own best cat Sam, who never fights, required emergency treatment at the vets on account of an abscess on his head almost as big as the head itself and no doubt caused by a cat attack. I was still feeling ropey from my cold as Doctor Petrova lanced the lesion and putrid mess cascaded onto my hand. Sam’s pitiful bleating worsened the situation, but the sun shone.

 

25 May 2026, Monday

My post-snot return to the garden in hot sunshine was a sad affair. Limbs of trees that had previously groaned under the weight of record-breaking clumps of acacia blossom stopped groaning and said ‘Oh fuck!’ as added weight from heavy rains snapped them off.

All those petals that make the whole country smell utterly divine at this time of year lay in a blanket on the ground. I was feeling sorry for myself and the trees, but even sorrier for the bees. Acacia honey is the finest thing a person can eat and no summer would be complete without it.

 

26 May 2026, Tuesday

In the two weeks since our first trip to our latest favourite restaurant, the lush green pitch in the FK Lokomotiv Dryanovo stadium across the road had been transformed by flooding into a quagmire. It was how I imagined the Somme battlefield might have looked had Millwall been playing there.

We returned to Velkovtsi to pick up accessories we had bought from Claire. Millwall had played in her garden too. Priyatelkata bought more stuff from her so another trip would be required.

Where on earth would she put a life-size statue of Gjergj Kastrioti? You might know him as Skanderbeg.

 

27 May 2026, Wednesday

Deserted streets marked the occasion of the first day of the 2026 fierce heat season. Guest House ‘Vani Rooms’ was also deserted when I arrived but in a phone conversation with Mrs. Vani I was told that a little man would soon appear to let me in. He turned out to be little only in height and he wobbled significantly, as did the table, the bed, the chairs and the toilet in Room 5 where I would spend the next two nights alone. Sofia’s Zhenski Pazar quarter (женски пазар, meaning ‘women’s market’) is such a remarkably cool and peaceful place to stay. 

 

28 May 2026, Thursday

At the Micro Roastery in Bacho Kiro Street, delicious coffee and local pastries served by quirky hairstyles with big smiles make it the perfect place to start a day in the capital.

Tramping city streets is something I love, especially in Sofia, a place I’ve come to know and love. Time passes so quickly amongst friendly faces, eccentric characters, historic landmarks and shady watering holes.

My evening destination was the old velodrome to see Scottish-American rock band, Garbage. For thirty years I’d loved their singer lady, Shirley Manson. I’m only happy when she sings I’m Only Happy When It Rains.

 

29 May 2026, Friday

The wobbly wee man wasn’t around when I left the guest house but I said goodbye to the wobbly flatpack furniture that had all but returned to its original flatpack state under the weight of a coffee cup.

Sofia Central Bus Station was celebrating its twentieth anniversary with special twenty-year-old cheesy banitsa. My digestive system was accustomed to better so I threw most of mine to the pigeons who scowled at me in deep disgust.

It’s always nice to go away to see Shirley Manson but it’s even nicer to get home to the warm welcome of Priyatelkata and Snezhinka.

 

30 May 2026, Saturday

We were surprised at being able to watch the Paris Saint-Germain vs Arsenal Champions’ League Final free of charge on a Bulgarian telly channel, and then shocked that after an hour they said we’d have to cough up an annual subscription fee if we wanted to watch the last bit(s). So we switched off the laptop and switched on the kettle instead. Please don’t tell me the result because I’m getting the DVD for Christmas.

Doctor Tatchev’s an Arsenal fan. He could barely contain his pre-match excitement as he pumped antibiotics into Crazy Ludo, our street fighting cat, this morning.

 

31 May 2026, Sunday

We spent the morning relaxing in the sunshine so that we’d be raring to go with some heavy-duty garden work in the afternoon and evening. We spent the afternoon and evening relaxing on the settee because of the unexpected heavy-duty thunderstorm that battered the world outside. With all the sophisticated power tools that the man in the Stihl shop sells, I’m surprised he doesn’t have a petrol driven mangle for drying out sopping-wet gardeners.

I mustn’t grumble though because we’re already at the end of May, so only June remains before the Balkan earth begins its two-month crispy singed phase.

 

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Image:

Shirley Manson, the front woman of the rock band Garbage, singing I’m Only Happy When It Rains. My own photograph.

 

Part One:

Strimmer Time and the Living Is Easy