Fire and Rain

 

Fire and Rain

 

17 July 2025, Thursday

I loved our early evening thunderstorm despite it diluting my nice cuppa tea. Heavy rain refreshed all life forms, including Priyatelkata and I, but nothing was damaged. Frogs croaked all night and for the first time in weeks I slept (lay awake) under the bedcovers.

As a habitual insomniac I realised there were only twelve more sleeps until Christmas and even fewer until our Rodopi mountain holiday. However, despite having spent fifty years of my life wishing I was somewhere else, I’d lost that wanderlusting feeling and considered I might be happy just pottering at home during my twilight years.

 

18 July 2025, Friday

An email from our online pet food suppliers gave outrageously early warning of a Black Friday special promotion. It seemed that not even budgerigar owners were exempt from the year-round ravages of crass consumerism. I responded, asking them what perks loyal customers might expect on Blue Monday, Ruby Tuesday, Sheffield Wednesday, etc. and did they deliver to Israeli settlements in the occupied Nat West Bank?

No Warrington Dave painter man today. The task’s complete but for some outer windows he’s taken home to tart up. We’re expecting a windows update later in the month. Meanwhile we’re putty in his hands.

 

19 July 2025, Saturday

The annual week-long Veliko Tarnovo International Folklore Dance Festival kicked off tonight in the park and was spectacularly good, as always.

Performances from Argentina, India and Mexico were colourful and vibrant but Colombia outshone them all.

We loved the host nation’s performance because of our raging nationalism and we knew the music.

I’d never seen a dervish whirl quite like Egypt’s whirling dervish but he needed to know there’s more to life than just whirling.

The USA provided two women singing Take Me Home Country Roads and a bit of line dancing, and Turkey’s contribution was a bit shit too.

 

20 July 2025, Sunday

It seemed like today was the last of nine days’ graft to get our home shipshape for our eight-day holiday. The garden was super tidy and the fridge and oven were almost clean enough to eat from.

Our dear old Ottoman farmhouse was as good, I was sure, as anything that Airbnb had to offer. Strange then that we’d be paying Auntie Fiona to stay in it during our absence. However, I had to concede that although Airbnb regulations require visitors to keep premises tidy, it’s rare for them to be asked to deal with cats’ diarrhoea and weeping sores.

 

21 July 2025, Monday

At the Panorama Hotel in the Beklemeto Pass, stunning mountain vistas compensated for the absence of free biscuits with our coffee. Six kilometres further on at the colossal Arch of Freedom (a memorial to Bulgaria’s fallen heroes) a short walk amongst wild flowers and wild horses took us to the summit of the 1,595 metre (5,233 feet) high peak and an even better 360° view.

Koprivshtitsa oozed history, culture and architecture. At such altitude the weather was surprisingly hot. We’d been before, so we explored only a little.

Noisy ducks in the stream disturbed my sleep. The most loveable inconvenience.

 

22 July 2025, Tuesday

The rocky road to Devin (there are few rockier) saw us descend the Sredna Gora mountain range, cross the Plain of Thrace, and meander along the forested shores of the reservoir that fills the steeply sided Vacha valley as we climbed in our trusty Fiat to one of the jewels of the Rodopi mountains.

On arrival, further climbing took us to the clifftop Bornik Hill guest house where we were offered complimentary borovinki (боровинки, meaning ‘wild blueberries’) as we completed the registration palaver.

We’d travelled to the high Rodopis to escape the heat at home. Was Devin’s 36°C really an escape?

 

23 July 2025, Wednesday

We spent an absolutely joyous day in Yagodina (Ягодина, meaning ‘place of strawberries’). A beautiful village at the end of a narrow, winding road that follows a gorge that’s almost a tunnel in numerous places. It sits just below Durdaga peak (1,693 metres, or 5,555 feet above the sea) and is surrounded by meadows where the only activity is that of bees, bears, goats, gatherers, lovely smiley local people and the occasional jeep safari abomination.

A nearby cave, Dyavolskoto Garlo (Дяволското гърло, meaning ‘the Devil’s Throat’) is said to be the entrance to the underworld where Orpheus sought to retrieve his beloved Eurydice.

 

24 July 2025, Thursday

We ate breakfast in the old but touristy village of Shiroka Laka (Широка Лъка, meaning ‘wide bend in the river’) which is the home of the Rodopska Gaida (Родопска Гайда, meaning ‘Rodopi bagpipes’), Bulgaria’s national musical instrument.

We ate mouth-watering patatnik, a local dish made from grated potatoes, onions, Bulgarian cheese and a type of very mild mint called gyosum. A delicious early morning dish that always instantly makes me want to go back to sleep.

The rest of the day we spent tootling around the big town of Smolyan and the tiny village of Mugla with it’s beautiful forested mountainsides and prison.

 

25 July 2025, Friday

Our plan to rise before the sun and trek the Struilitsa waterfalls eco-trail disintegrated before we’d even gone to bed as our friendly neighbours Rosin, Kamelia and family kept us up until 2:00 a.m. chatting and laughing with them.

We kissed goodbye. They went home to Razgrad. We wandered. On the road from Dospat to Greece we found the beautiful village of Dolen. The Romans had founded it two millennia earlier. A for sale sign outside an old house suggested €5,000. A viewing wasn’t possible as it was obscured by a hundred years of briars and inside a princess snored.

 

26 July 2025, Saturday

The phenomenal heat had us beaten. At our 1,000-metre-high retreat, 38°C was criminally insane and so were we for trying to enjoy ourselves up there. So we toddled off back to our smallholding two days early. Low level homesickness and a fishbone lodged uncomfortably in my upper digestive bits for more than two days were also contributing factors.

The return journey through more mountains was slightly blighted by more heat and a malfunctioning alternator. The car, having shown great determination and loyalty, finally died as we parked by our gate. Being reunited with my own lavvy was the day’s highlight.

 

27 July 2025, Sunday

A horrible noise from my phone woke me at 3:56 a.m. Irritated at first, I soon accepted that the government were kind to alert me about a wildfire burning near two residential blocks only five kilometres from my bed. By early afternoon it was under control.

A horrible noise from my cat (Manoushka, the new one) woke me at 4:56 a.m. Irritated at first, I soon accepted that she was in season (not seasoning). The irritation continued all day as at no point was the situation brought under control.

Our village Facebook page lady reported an afternoon temperature of 44.5°C.

 

28 July 2025, Monday

Over the phone, mechanical Nikolai sounded excited, he being only minutes away from embarking on a week-long trip to the seaside. So, until his return, our car would be on holiday too. Hot, bothered and frustrated we rented a Clio from a place in town. Maintenant nous sommes Papa et Nicole!

At the vet’s, with four of our eight cats, everyone was talking about diarrhoea, vaccinating, neutering, scabbiness, lumpiness. All he was saying, was give us some money and come back on Friday for results.

A black cloud passed over the house bringing thunder, lightning and hope… but no rain.

 

29 July 2025, Tuesday

Keir Starmer ‘threatened’ Adolf Netanyahu. He said that if Israel didn’t stop genociding people in Gaza, the British Government would recognise a Palestinian state. Zarah Sultana said that Palestinian self-determination was an inalienable right, not a bargaining chip. I was pretty sure I was with Zarah on that one.

The sewing machine that Priyatelkata bought in a reputable electrical shop today cost ten times as much as the one she bought in a field near Gorna Oryahovitsa a few months ago. She was appalled at the difference in price until I pointed out to her that the new one works.

 

30 July 2025, Wednesday

 

I couldn’t agree

Said little

Said nothing

Simmered

 

Their words, my thoughts

Conflicting

Beyond reconciliation

More simmering

 

Zillions of them

Only one me

They couldn’t all be wrong

It must have been me

 

Did they not see?

Or care?

Unable to cure their blindness

I simmered

 

Older now

Still I care

But not about them

So I smile as I simmer

 

No longer alone

We simmer together

Daring to speak

Of our fears

 

I’d worked with madmen

They’re still out there

Caring for themselves

And their bankers

 

Harum-scarum tongues

Calling us eccentrics

Their sticks and stones

Bring numbness, not pain

 

31 July 2025, Thursday

Other villagers weren’t aware that today was Malki Chiflik Appreciation Day. Doubting that anyone could love this jewel of Balkan nature as we did, I wrote a little, Priyatelkata did her art, and we moseyed round our garden together. Above us storks circled as bees and butterflies danced in scented air. Eating and drinking homemade eatables and drinkables we talked to our animals.

The sky darkened but only love could bring the rain, bouncing off stones and leaves to announce its arrival. The earth’s sigh of relief rattled down the valley and we laughed in the coolness of the afternoon.

 

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Image:

The hilltop Chapel of the Holy Mother of God, near Yagodina. My own photograph.

 

And if you'd like to see my holiday snaps, click on this...

Rambles in the Rodopis

 

Part One:

Violetta Are You Better?

Click on the link to read