The Evolution of the Lettuce

 

The Evolution of the Lettuce

 

1 July 2026, Wednesday

July Morning is an ancient Bulgarian festival dating back to 1980. Initiated in Varna by young people as a subtle protest against the Communist regime, it’s currently marked by those who mistrust corrupt socialist, capitalist and religious people in power.

Bulgarians congregate by the Black Sea to meet the sun’s first rays on the first of July, gathering around fires and playing music as they wait. Others who can’t make the journey simply get up early to observe the sunrise at home.

Named after British rock band Uriah Heep's 1971 hit ‘July Morning’, this growing phenomenon so far remains uncommercialised.

 

2 July 2026, Thursday

Thunderstorm Routine:

• Our valley falls silent.
• The warm air becomes hot.
• Birds, bees and butterflies finish their shifts early.
• Skies darken.
• Our minds darken.
• A breeze becomes a gale. 
• Our dogs, Snezhinka and Gaïa, hide under the bed.
• Cars are moved to shelter from hailstones.
• Snezhinka whines incessantly.
• The first raindrops fall.
• Steam rises from hot stone surfaces.
• Gaïa pisses on the kitchen floor.
• Steam rises from the kitchen floor.
• From windows we nervously watch the raging storm.
• Our housebound cats start fighting.
• The deluge suddenly stops.
• We perform a damage assessment.
• The kitchen floor is mopped.
• Underwear is changed.

 

3 July 2026, Friday

Demonic weather forecasting had us wondering if we’d made a mistake in buying tickets for Verdi’s Rigoletto in the fortress grounds, but a ticket office man said they were working hammer and sickle to find an alternative indoor venue.

A late afternoon website announcement said we’d been moved to the Palace of Culture and Art. It turned out to be a grand and dry affair but less than half of the expected 1,500 audience had got the message.

The cast included Julian Clary and Daniel Farke lookalikes, and the leading lady took forty minutes to die, as in all operas.

 

4 July 2026, Saturday

We bought a new hoover manufactured by the mighty Bosch. The one we liked was available in two formats, they being dog and non-dog. The only noticeable differences were in the colour and the price. The dog variety cost €35 more but for which, we were told, we’d get an extra small plastic brush attachment for hoovering dogs. Any attempt to hoover our dogs would have caused a canine rage incident, and we’d seen much better bits of plastic for much less money. So we opted for the cheaper model. Its black finish suggested it might be undetectable by radar.

 

5 July 2026, Sunday

I read that Nigel Farage had been making fat wadges of extra cash by moonlighting from his Member of Parliament job to promote gold bullion sales. This made me wonder was there more to it than him telling potential gold bullion customers that if they could find cheaper in Asda or Morrison’s he’d match the price. His slogan perhaps ‘Farage’s bullion - now even shinier!’

I’ve never been to Clacton-on-Sea. It’s Farage’s constituency but he never goes there either. My son’s horrible ex-girlfriend was from Clacton, but apparently she’s recently moved to Burnham-on-Crouch, so it’s probably safe to visit now.

 

6 July 2026, Monday

Lyme disease is the gift that just keeps on giving you the feeling that you’re going to fall over and / or sleep forever. The tick responsible for my problem met its death in a vigorous scratching episode more than a year ago but I struggle on in the armchair with copious amounts of tea and David Bowie records. I’ve struggled for so long I’ve even listened to his dreary 1987 album, Never Let Me Down.

Bowie never came to Bulgaria because of the ticks and the fact that Buster Bloodvessel from the dodgy ska band, Bad Manners, lives here.

 

7 July 2026, Tuesday

Hospital! In the shower late last night I discovered half a tick buried in the flesh at the back of my knee. At 7:00 a.m. a friendly nurse squeezed it out, sterilised the region and told me to return if things got worse.

I watched the football on a dodgy streaming site. It was the first leg of the first qualifying round of the UEFA Champions’ League and Levski Sofia earned a well-deserved 1-1 draw against Borac Banja Luka in Bosnia. Support your local team has always been my mantra. Sofia, although 225 kilometres from my home, is considered local-ish.

 

8 July 2026, Wednesday

Returning to my car in Kaufland’s carpark, I was approached by a dishevelled man who asked if he could return my trolley to its bay for me and keep the €1 coin from the lock mechanism. He said he was skint because a large tumour prevented him from working and then thrust his groin towards me so I could see the bulge. He was either in a very bad way or he’d shoved his jumper down the front of his Y-fronts. I suspected the latter but I didn’t challenge him in case he decided to disrobe to prove me wrong.

 

9 July 2026, Thursday

I read that Armstrong Oko-Flex, who scored Levski’s goal on Tuesday night, was born in Dublin and previously played for Arsenal and Celtic, though not at the same time. I struggle with Levski because, being the anti-government team during Communist times, they have nasty rude fascist fans.

Our tennis hero, Grigor Dimitrov, couldn’t match Dara’s glorious Eurovision victory for Bulgaria as he was knocked out at Wimbledon in the last sixteen stage. He lost to Arthur Fery, whose grandad used to be the singer in Roxy Music, whose 1985 hit Slave to Love was all about his poor first-serve return.

 

10 July 2026, Friday

There was great discussion about how to keep cool in hot weather. Staying in bed with the curtains closed, putting a hot water bottle in the freezer, suspending a bag of frozen peas in front of a fan, and replacing the Spandex with cotton clothes were some of the suggestions. An English newspaper reported that people had been putting pieces of frozen potato the size of a chip up their bums, apparently causing significant discomfort, especially if salt and vinegar had been added.

I stay cool simply by drinking iced slivovitz whilst discussing Chekov and listening to Romanian jazz music.

 

11 July 2026, Saturday

Tiny wriggly beasts crawled out of fibrous brown things I dislodged from the living room’s wooden ceiling. Internet research suggested they might be baby termites.

Recovering the ladder from the shed I disturbed a wasps’ nest from which angry daddy wasps came at me with venom but, having attained a Bronze Level Duke of Edinburgh’s Award in 1974, I knew how to repel them.

In the loft there were cobwebs like in the movies but no sign of Isoptera activity. Returning downstairs I squirted chemical warfare into the termite holes and prayed to Saint Trifon, the patron of insect infestations.

 

12 July 2026, Sunday

So… yesterday’s wasps!

At 6:00 a.m. they were supposed to be dozy, but ours must have been hard at the rakia last night, each waking in a hangover-style fierce mood. My tried-and-tested plan to scrape the nest into a big bucket of water wasn’t feasible.

Plan B involved a party-size can of Raid, which I spray on myself as an insect repellent during our hottest summers. I’m ashamed to say that all 247 of them perished.

Raid in Bulgaria is manufactured by a company called Bros. It’s interesting to discover what boy bands move on to when their popularity diminishes.  

 

13 July 2026, Monday

Snezhinka the Wonder Dog’s intermittent yelping, lethargy and appetite loss prompted a vet trip. It was difficult to locate a precise problem and we’re always conscious that it’s more than two years since they discovered her inoperable cancer. An antibiotic injection and a poke about restored her perkiness before she was even back in the car. Perhaps it was our brief discussion about euthanasia that did the trick.

Doctor Petrova’s probably the best of the five vets but she’s the least adept at spoken English. The fact that any vet is bilingual impresses me.

Snezhinka’s definitely the best dog… ever!

 

14 July 2026, Tuesday

On Rowntree’s Fruit Bastille Day France were knocked out of the World Cup. Madame Priyatelkata wasn’t aware of either occurrence as she was so busy preparing jars of flowers from our Mimosa of Constantinople tree (we call it Fatima for short), and a mixture of rosemary and sage leaves. Soaked in rakia for eight weeks, daily drops of these two concoctions will save what’s left of our sanity and memory.  

Marta my deer raided our garden again, digging up our Jerusalem artichokes. But for me she’s welcome to them because they truly are the vile-tasting root vegetable of the devil.

 

15 July 2026, Wednesday

Keeping the posh bits of our garden nice had meant neglecting our meadow which was invaded by wild lettuces behind our backs. I’d expected a wild lettuce to be just an iceberg lettuce in a bad mood on a hot day. But no, these monsters were two metres tall with a skin-irritating milky-white sap, and were a challenge for the petrol strimmer.

Did the domestic lettuce evolve from the wild? Perhaps someone once saw a wild one and said ‘We could have a bit of that for Sunday tea with a hard-boiled egg and a tin of John West shrimps.’

 

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Image:

This is the Happy Hour Banana Portulaca plant that grows in a gap between the stones on our terrace. We didn’t plant it and we don’t do anything to look after it but it comes back every year. I haven’t got a photograph of a lettuce, neither wild nor domesticated, because…   

 

Part Two:

Kazakh Stan and Kazakh Olly