Is Kerry Katona a Cat Owner?

 

Is Kerry Katona a Cat Owner?

 

1 March 2026, Sunday

She’s a feisty old girl that Baba Marta (Баба Марта, meaning ‘Grandmother March’) bringing nice weather for her spring cleaning. But if her brothers Golyam Sechko and Malak Sechko (January and February) mither her, she summons the bad weather back. In folklore it’s the beginning of spring and any snowflakes seen after today are only feathers from her mattress as she shakes it outside.

Bulgarians exchange red and white bracelets (symbolising health and fertility) worn for luck or hung in trees until we see the first plum blossom, or the storks arriving home.

Working in the garden all day was only gorgeous.

 

2 March 2026, Monday

It took only five days of sunshine to initiate nature’s vernal explosion. As our little horticultural babies wake up, invasive monster weeds become the dominant species intent on asphyxiation. So, armed with the deadliest secateurs, we began our struggle.

It’s strange that one definition of the word weed is ‘someone who is thin and physically weak’, while Bulgarian weeds are strong and virile. However, some might be better described as wild plants. Those we encourage as long as they behave themselves.

For the next four months our labour of love will provide that exhaustion we need to ward off insomnia.

 

3 March 2026, Tuesday

On the annual Day of Liberation of Bulgaria from the Ottoman Oppression we walked to the village square to hear the mayor’s sombre words as carnations were laid by the war memorial, and to watch schoolchildren in traditional Bulgarian dress and Adidas trainers dance to Fat Boy Slim remixes of the battle songs of our glorious revolutionaries.

We didn’t understand much of what was being said but we know the history, and the villagers seemed very pleased to see us there.

Malki Chiflik can’t afford involvement in another war as there’s no space on our war memorial for adding names.

 

4 March 2026, Wednesday

Our downstairs toilet spends its winters crammed with plants and power tools that would freeze to death if left outside or in the shed. We can still get in there and sit down but there’s little space for manoeuvre, so the situation could be considered a bit unhygienic. And, as it’s only marginally warmer than outside, you wouldn’t want to loiter there for long.

But spring being upon us, the wee room was cleared out today, hoovered and mopped to restore the lavish comfort that’s expected of it. I then spent ten minutes finishing a crossword I’d started in October.

 

5 March 2026, Thursday

We made our first visit to the Kira Sushi restaurant at the modern steel-and-glass top end of town for lunch with our Glaswegian friends. Hearing Bulgarian descriptions of Japanese food was always going to be entertaining so we enjoyed the ordering as much as we did the eating. And Bulgarian Japanese restaurant staff don’t smirk at our ten-thumbs chopstick malfunction as much as Japanese Japanese restaurant staff might.

In Japan, ramen is a noodle dish but in Bulgaria ramen is an adjective meaning ‘pertaining to the shoulder’. The ramen that Priyatelkata ordered was cold. Was that a subtle multi-linguistic hint?

 

6 March 2026, Friday

 

All the leaves are green

And the news is black

All the world is worried

Where will Trump next attack?

No one’s safe from harm

If they get in his way

Apocalyptic dreaming

On a Balkan springtime day

 

I called into the church

The preacher said ‘hip hooray!’

He’d been at the rakia

Could I come back on Sunday?

There’s going to be a party

To celebrate Doomsday

Apocalyptic dreaming

There is no other way

 

Don’t miss my forthcoming album that includes other classics such as Khomeinian Rhapsody, Scream a Little Scream of Me, and Don’t You Bomb Me Baby!

 

7 March 2026, Saturday

Fire in the carpometacarpal area caused tremendous suffering. After a long shift of garden work the arthritis in my thumbs (always just the thumbs) had me wondering if I’d ever use them again. I’d given up hope some years ago of becoming a classical pianist or a successful hitchhiker, but this evening I couldn’t peel a potato, fill the kettle or turn the pages of a book without going ‘Ooh, bugger!’ I had become less like a chimpanzee and more like a cat. Priyatelkata suggested I be consigned to light duties here at the Malki Chiflik Home for Declining Gentlemen.

 

8 March 2026, Sunday

At the year’s first Hotnitsa village bazaar I bought a rather natty copy of Orwell’s 1984 and a Bulgarian Army Cold War era soil testing kit. The former was to bring me up to speed with world events and the latter solely for novelty value.

The kit contains a light, a tiny spade, chemicals and Petri dishes for checking radiation levels. It also has a handy leather shoulder strap so I’ll look the bee’s knees carrying it around at parties.

I tried it out on the contents of the cats’ litter tray. No wonder their eyes glow in the dark!

 

9 March 2026, Monday

Bulgaria’s stand-in government has agreed to buy four missiles from the U.S.A. at a cost of €640 million. I’m never entirely in agreement with the ownership or use of long-range weapons but I think if we’re going to have any at all then four isn’t enough.

Should we be invited to join in at a war we’re going to look like a scruffy kid with a packet of Poundland sparklers at a posh fireworks party. I wonder if our rockets will come with huge milk bottle launch facilities and have the words ‘light blue touchpaper and retire’ printed on them.

 

10 March 2026, Tuesday

Had the long hot summer of ’26 already begun? The thermometer boasted 25°C, the busy bee nation buzzed noisily on the purple flowers of our carpet of dead-nettles, cracks appeared in dry soil, and we were already commenting on how the garden could do with a drop of rain.

I’ve no idea what the bees did in the evening but I sat in front of the fire with a hot brew. As the sun set it had left a scarlet sky, a plummeting temperature, and appendages blue with cold. Luckily, today’s bees all appeared to have been wearing woolly jumpers.

 

11 March 2026, Wednesday

The call to boycott the FIFA World Cup to be held this summer in the U.S.A., Canada and Mexico has been gathering momentum. Bulgaria’s ahead of the field, having not attended a World Cup Final tournament since the last time it was held in the U.S.A. in 1994.

On the other hand, as we’re a poor country, we can only afford to enter Eurovision once every four years, and Dara (not Dana) singing Bangaranga (not Boom Bang-a-Bang) will be representing us this May. With so many other countries dipping out for anti-genocidal reasons, there’s a chance we might win it. 

 

12 March 2026, Thursday

Crazy Ludo’s been in a feline razor fight again. A significant event that I won’t enlarge upon as it’s repetitive and we’re weary of him. Planting seeds in small pots and trays is much more interesting so we did that all day.

Accompanied by estate agents, people noseyed round the plot to the west of our lush meadow. There’s really only neglected trees and empty plastic beer bottles there to see. Our proximity to the medieval capital city makes land in our village more expensive than elsewhere, but still only €28 per square metre. Some carpets cost more than that.

 

13 March 2026, Friday

Aparaskavedekatriaphobic Adelina the Bulgarian teacher and I didn’t want to employ the same tactics as last month for warding off that Friday the thirteenth bad luck as they’d surely worn a bit thin, so we agreed that cracking an egg in a granny’s hairnet would be just as effective.

Meanwhile, Dr Gunchev suggested that Crazy Ludo’s latest gaping wound may have been caused by cannibalism. A series of severe injuries had left the skin on his leg thin, fragile and irritating (a bit like me) and that his only way of dealing with it was to have a hearty chew. 

 

14 March 2026, Saturday

Following years of study I concluded that the standard of second-hand books on sale at village bazaars reflects the intellect of the immigrant population of the host village. In Hotnitsa last Sunday authors Danielle Steel and Wayne Rooney dominated, but in Gostilitsa today I picked up copies of works by Beckett, Dostoevsky and Hemingway for a pittance.

Gostilitsa’s homemade samosas also won over Hotnitsa’s greasy burgers and, with its spectacular view of the nearby snow-capped Botev Peak and adjoining mountains, it was certainly deserving of the title Best Car Boot Sale in the World, had such an award ever existed.

 

15 March 2026, Sunday

Considering the terrible state the world’s in at the moment I thought I’d heard the worst, but this morning I turned on my computer to discover that Bruce Springsteen had recorded a cover of that beautiful Pogues’ classic, Rainy Night in Soho. Springsteen’s version is bland, awful and every word listed on the ‘travesty’ page in any half-decent thesaurus.

I also discovered that angelic songstress, Kerry Katona isn’t a cat owner.

In the afternoon sun I dismantled and cleaned the chainsaw whilst imagining a Guns N' Roses rendition of ‘Dôme épais le jasmin’, the duet from Léo Delibes' opera, Lakmé.

 

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Image:

Veliko Tarnovo’s favourite cat, at the gate to the Tsarevets mediaeval fortress. My own photograph.  

 

Part Two:

Was Danielle Steel in Steely Dan?