I Feel Like I’m Fixing to Tie-Dye My Raggy Socks

 

16 January 2026, Friday

Wrapped tightly in her timeworn black shawl and warming her hands on the fleshiest parts of her goat, the toothless old widow who sits beneath the pomegranate tree in the square wailed a lament in old Bulgarian. As snow fell around her, jackals howled in the forest on the mountainside.

‘Is that an old battle song from the dark days of struggle for freedom from the cruel Ottoman Yoke?’ I asked her.

‘No, it’s I Feel Like I’m Fixing to Die Rag, by Country Joe and the Fish. Me and my Vladislav sang it at Woodstock in ’69,’ she replied.

 

17 January 2026, Saturday

It snowed again in the night. I was still without a computer and the desire or ability to leave the house.

In a second-hand shop in Castlebar years ago I bought a bundle of Edna O’Brien novels, and today I set about reading them. The feel and smell of old dog-eared brown pages soothes the mind as a fountain pen does. In my copy of Girl with Green Eyes there were no adverts, algorithms or Ukraine beauty queens asking for my bank details. But I did find Mrs F O’Riordan’s newsagent’s bill from August 1982. I love a good bookmark!

 

18 January 2026, Sunday

These January nights have been sixty degrees colder than last August’s afternoons were. The feathery snow that fell all day wouldn’t have warranted a mention had it not settled on a sheet of ice the size of an East European country.

However, the hiemal hellishness came with benefits, they being:

1. A potato peelings trek to the compost heap required six pairs of socks, so the sock drawer where they fester enjoyed a much-needed sorting out.
2. There was neither hide nor hair of a mosquito to be seen.
3. Thoughts of window washing were futile.
4. We didn’t have to talk to anybody.

 

19 January 2026, Monday

After nine years in the job, President Rumen Radev stood down as preparations began for this year’s general election to replace the government that resigned en bloc last November. Before hanging up his ermine boots he described our governance model as ‘a façade of democracy controlled by oligarchic mechanisms’, but he could have said that about any so-called democratic country really. He seemed alright to me, vetoing daft government decisions in all the right places.

He’s off to his mates’ place in Novosibirsk for a warm, apparently. Sam Allardyce will stand in for him for the rest of the season.

 

20 January 2026, Tuesday

We spent our final Bulgarian leva on dog food in Kaufland. We’ve still a few small denomination coins from the old times which are difficult to spend and will surely keep turning up like bad pennies, but otherwise we’re fully-fledged Eurozoners.

Already we’ve pockets full of small denomination brown coins from the new times which will probably also never be spent, but at least they’re shiny. Bulgarians’ hostile attitude towards the euro melted when they discovered this shininess. The wave of enthusiasm prompted the Finance Minister to consider adopting foil-wrapped chocolate coins from Christmas trees as our next new currency.

 

21 January 2026, Wednesday

Baba is our word for both grandmother and midwife, and today was the traditional feast of Babinden (Baba’s Day).

To mark the occasion, babies are bathed by the Baba and anointed in butter and honey (though we prefer toast). Young mothers provide bread, banitsa and wine that they’ve made. After the feast, the Baba’s taken to the nearest river, lake or well to be ritually bathed. Men may not participate, especially policemen. The day ends with Horo (community folklore dancing) in village squares.

Priyatelkata and I weren’t invited because we haven’t got a baby. Ah well, there’s always next year.

 

22 January 2026, Thursday

I self-diagnosed another acute attack of Turlough’s Wintery Abysmal Torture (T.W.A.T.). I’ve no energy, no enthusiasm, no appetite, constant nagging headaches, and I have hideous dreams if I manage to escape insomnia. Symptoms collectively contributing to an overwhelming feeling of wretchedness.

Restricted daylight, dank weather, and ground surfaces switching between ice and mud on a regular basis destroy all hope of getting any enjoyment from stepping outside. On the worst days (today being one of them) it’s a struggle to hold back tears. I hate winter and everything it brings. Apologies for the gloom. I’ll try to be cheery tomorrow.

 

23 January 2026, Friday

I briefly poked my head out of the door with the intention of doing some garden work to bring my mind and body back to life. What lay beyond the pile of snow that had slid from the roof seemed far from inviting, so I cleaned the fridge instead. There it was warmer, brighter and I found more things growing.

Outside, however, nature had struggled on, providing early signs of shoots and buds, and the uplifting sound of avian chirruping. In such harsh weather I was thankful to have been born a human rather than a bush or a tit.

 

24 January 2026, Saturday

By 8:00 a.m. I had already installed a new filter in the hoover. Success!

I spent the next twelve hours removing the new computer from its box, plugging an octopus family of cables into the back of it, downloading things I didn’t know I needed, and saying words I wouldn’t repeat in the company of nuns. Ticking boxes to prove to robots that I wasn’t a robot was particularly irritating.

By the end of the day, I had a brand-new up-to-date machine that worked exactly the same as the old one except one or two things were a different colour.

 

25 January 2026, Sunday

Another innocent civilian was murdered in the street by so-called law enforcement agents in Minneapolis. My thoughts on how powerful men are destroying our world could fill volumes, but thousands have already written similar, so I won’t. The news is deeply disturbing. I can’t close my eyes and make it go away.

As a distraction from current atrocities, I read a book about what an evil shower the Catholic Church had been in Ireland during the twentieth century. I felt the urge to swear at a nun but there were none handy.

Outside, the freezing fog lingered. Sunday, Bloody Sunday!

 

26 January 2026, Monday

The fog was warmer today than of late. I wondered if it was really foggy or had I just developed cataracts. I checked in the bathroom mirror but saw nothing. I wondered if I had really developed cataracts or was the mirror just a bit mucky.

Johnny Ten Levs would know. He had poor eyesight and only ever asked for money because he was saving up for a cataract operation. It was minutely possible that any change from cheap wine purchases had gone in his hospital jar. I wondered if he really had cataracts or was he just constantly pissed.

 

27 January 2026, Tuesday

On a day in great need of brightening up, our visit to Boyar café facing Tsarevets Fortress came as a brief ceasefire in our battle against ugly fat. In this respect, the delicious homemade cakes they tempted us with were akin to weapons of mass destruction, and the hazelnut lattes with which we washed them down were like dumdum bullets exploding inside our craving bellies.

We swore that this would be an isolated incident but the cruel café lady gave us loyalty cards and the promise of free stuff on our sixth visit. She should be charged with inciting gluttony.

 

28 January 2026, Wednesday

Bulgaria’s provisional government voted to close down our short-lived Anti-Corruption Commission. The proposal for the closure had been tabled by three-times former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov’s GERB party. Had the Commission’s Caribbean island, luxury yacht and Leeds United season tickets been made available to GERB officials then none of this unpleasantness would have occurred.

Searching for a few positives from the political catastrophe, Priyatelkata and I agreed that Boyko would be a great name for our next cat, or for a pop group formed by young men whose music and image are designed to appeal primarily to a teenage audience.

 

29 January 2026, Thursday

Lady Melania has a film out but nobody’s watching it, possibly because it’s not a nudey thing, which is unusual for her. Illegal immigrants hiding in cinemas where it’s being shown feel safe in the knowledge that nobody will find them there.

A poorly-timed release date, critics say. Perhaps if Carry On Trumping had been made years ago, with Barbara Windsor in the lead role and Charles Hawtrey playing the nutty husband, Melania would have enjoyed greater success. But I’m sure she’ll put all the disappointment behind her when she picks up the glittering FIFA award for Best Pantomime Dame.

 

30 January 2026, Friday

On the wettest days, drinking enough coffee to float Thunderbird 4 cheers me. Marooned on my settee I imagine myself being a guest on BBC Radio Four’s Desert Island Djezves programme, clutching my eight favourite Balkan copper pots along with the Complete Works of Hristo Botev and Roy Plomley’s autobiography. My chosen luxury item would be the Dagenham Girl Pipers.

Today my mind took me to a place where I was cast away with Richard Harris, Richard Ayoade, Richie Blackmore, Richard Dawkins, Richard Clayderman, Richard Piñanez, Little Richard and Nigel Farage in the first ever episode of Desert Island Dicks.

 

31 January 2026, Saturday

We said goodbye to Golyam Sechko (Голям Сечко, meaning ‘the Big Cutter’) otherwise known as January. He’s renowned for bringing severe cutting cold. Tomorrow Malak Sechko (Малък Сечко, ‘the Small Cutter’) arrives. He is February and the smaller, less fierce of the two folklore brothers, so we can start to look forward to the spring.

It was also the final day of the lev that’s been Bulgaria’s currency since 1881. We’ve had to change idioms as well as pricing and accounting systems. Two stotinki short of a lev (describing someone who’s not very clever) sounded much better than two cents short of a euro.

 

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Image: My own photograph of Rumen Radev, President of the Republic of Bulgaria from 2017 to 2026. We bumped into each other in Sofia once in November 2024, though he's probably not aware of that.

 

Part One

I’ve Got a Gal in Tiramisu