Moni The Bulgarian Kitten Needs a Home

UPDATE:
EXCELLENT NEWS JUST IN.......
- MONI HAS NOW BEEN FOUND A NEW HOME! -

There is a call for a new home for a kitten that has nowhere to go right now and is being carer by Keith who took them on after taking in a stray pregnant cat. I know there are thousands of kittens in Bulgaria that have no homes but this one hopefully will be lucky.

You can see a photo below of the mother and 3 kittens, Moni is the top ginger cat in the picture and the only one who hasn’t been found a home yet.

Moni is nearly 4 weeks old and in very good health, he apparently is the first to turn up at feeding time and rather mischievous. He will be ready for his new home at the 4-week-old mark and should be fully trained at that time. Keith has kindly offered to pay for a castration if required by his new carer and also for flu injection.

Obviously this is only practical to potential carers in Bulgaria. Please let me know if you can help and I will pass your details to the kind, generous and caring Keith.

Strangling Freedom In Bulgaria

Image via Wikipedia

Living in Bulgaria was the best ever move for me, but only because I take the rough with the smooth. It is not a country for the faint hearted other those who are of a sensitive disposition. It is a wild country with many issues that outsiders feel are not morally correct and that is trying to be tamed by the EU. Interference with Bulgaria’s culture and ways of life are being destroyed right now. It is always outsiders who feel they know what is best when they can’t even manage their own backyard!

I feel very strongly about interference in other cultures coming from those who have probably never even visited the country they try to dictate to. I’m talking about foreigners who criticize a country from afar believing that their views are the only views that are on the table. There are so many instances of things that go on in Bulgaria that are looked with total distaste from outsiders. Smoking, litter, health and hygiene, corrupt politics and policing, illegal trading and counterfeit goods, cruelty to animals etc. Yes many of these things are facts here, but to Bulgarians this is what happens and is accepted as part and parcel of life here. Then there are outsiders who see this a culture shock and want to change things in line of what they think is right.

Whether it is s right or wrong is immaterial is just different at the end of the day, but that is not accepted. Why do they want to change Bulgarian into becoming another boring EU state with the same petty rules and regulations all built on making money from fining those who break them? It is Bulgarians that live in Bulgaria and they should be allowed to decide what needs doing and deserve a degree of autonomy, but this is been taken away right now.

I live here and see things changing very fast on a day-to-day basis, the freedom is disappearing before my very eyes and that’s not good. I came here to live a Bulgarian life not a European cloned life, which is what it will become. Hopefully the full transition to EU reforms won’t be trance into place until I am resting peacefully six foot under in a Bulgarian cemetery.

Fishing In A Secret Bulgarian Lake Location

Fishing in Bulgaria is enjoyed by millions, but as a hunt for food not just sport. Many use nets and devious ways to gather fish from lakes and rivers and although a blind eye is turned to this, most decent Bulgarians, including Galia’s family and friend here look down on that as an unfair way of hunting for food. Both Galia and I love fishing, but we just never have the time to go and practice it. It must be about a year ago since we last went and that was only because her son who is a keen angler insisted we take a break from farming at the weekend.

Well this weekend her son was with us again and the plan was to go fishing early in the morning before it gets too hot. The alarm was set for 5:30 and all three for us were off by 6:00. We knew there was lots of work to do with harvesting and preparing food gathered for winter this weekend so we planned to get back by 11:00 giving us time enough to complete the chores when we got back.

Now the place we visited was not know by many people here, not even local people and I am not going to give the place away now, but only to say that it is some 3-4 kilometres off road to get there and only accessible by Lada in the dry season due to the state of the track. We found it by accident one day after getting lost and kept the location in mind. It is the most beautiful and unspoilt spot of crystal clear water and the wildlife is everywhere you look in every direction. We were the only people there and apart from a hiker who passed up remain the only anglers there all morning.

Galia’s son had boiled some wheat the evening before and this was both the ground bait and bait on the hooks on our lines, he said we were guaranteed fish with this. No sooner were our lines cast and the fish just came rolling in one after another. There was no relaxing here as we were kept active for a full three hours with fish being caught every minute or so. The fish we landed were all carp, they weren’t that big, but totally edible as the buckets we brought with us filled up. By 10:30 they were to the brim with fish.

We brought home well over 150 fish as some were given to our neighbour, some prepared for frying for this evening’s meal and the rest prepared for the freezer both here in the farmhouse and back in the town home. It took some two hours to de-scale, gut and de-head the fish, no problem with the future meals in mind when doing it.

The fish was cooked simply by dowsing the finish in flour and lightly frying in a shallow pan of oil. The flesh fell off the bone as we feasted on these fish that had such a clean pallet unlike many freshwater fish I have eaten in the UK with a muddy taste. It was a feast we all enjoyed from out labours and that made a major difference as well. Buying fish and eating it just isn’t the same. We knew where these came from and the environment was a clean as anything you can imagine and local. Food always tastes better when local in any case.

We talked now about getting me a fishing license so Galia and I can go other times when her son is not there. Before you ask, yes you do need one and Galia and I were fishing illegally, but this is what goes on in isolated areas in these parts.

The best thing of all is having a female partner (Galia) who absolutely loves fishing as well. It has always been a fight to get permission to go fishing before now and fishing with guilt has always been the case, no longer!

A Bulgarian Birthday Without Fuss

A birthday is something both Galia and I both can’t wait to get over. There is too much fuss made with it, especially that we are both getting on a bit. Bulgarians love celebrating things and birthdays is an occasion where this is more than just an excuse to have a get together with food and drink. Such an occasion was last Friday with Galia’s birthday.

Our normal plan on Friday is to zoom off to the farmhouse directly finishing work at 5:00 and even though it was Galia’s birthday that day the plan still stood for us to do that. The reason were two fold, the corps needed watering that very evening and Galia just didn’t’ want to be around as she knew there would be lots of fussing an guests on here birthday, this is something she didn’t want so the village destination was on to get away from this.

It’s never that easy as Galia’s son turned up just before we were to leave and he was to travelled with us to the farmhouse as a guest with his girlfriend joining us the following day after she finished work in the evening. Then there were more people who were crammed in the car after we had been shopping for provision. Out village neighbours and their Labrador dog clambered in the Lada with the boot full of factory farm produced peppers for barbecuing and 75 kg of ceramic tiling which our guests wanted transporting as their bathroom was being renovated this weekend. We felt every bump on the road to Skalitsa as the Lada bottomed out on each bump and there ARE LOTS OF BUMPS!

Everyone knew it was Galia’s birthday but most people just wish Happy Birthday along with wishes of good luck, business, health and love, gifts aren’t always given and to be quite honest both Galia and I are quite embarrassed with receiving them as we know money is very short here. I had paid for an item of clothing a week ago and Galia insisted that was to be all she wanted from me as a birthday gift. Although we don’t want presents we both can’t help not getting each other a little gift. That’s all she got from me as she would become upset if I bought something else, I know I’ve done it before and I felt as guilty as Galia.

The evening was spent as a threesome with Galia son and me as we sat outside in the dark night sipping rakia and salad and went inside later to present Galia with a little cake with three candles which we use again and again for every birthday in Skalitsa. A Happy Birthday song sung badly a birthday kiss and the candles blown out and that was the entirety of the birthday celebrations. We were all tuck in bed by 10:00 – The reason? We were all going to go fishing in the morning and the alarms were set for a 5:30 rise!

Galia really enjoy the little fuss that was made on this day she calls ‘unspecial’. I know what she means. Birthday celebrations to Galia and I are to be celebrated but not lavishly with massive festivities and expense. The little cake and song along with the spoken wishes were just enough put a silver lining on an ordinary day and that’s all Galia wanted.