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.

New Laws On Gas Driven Vehicles In Bulgaria

There is a new law that has been brought out this week concerning car and the use of gas. Now any vehicle that is powered by gas cannot be filled up at a service station without showing the official sticker on the gas cylinder that proves that is has had an official service check made on it.

Owners have to attend an inspection that cost 20 leva (5 leva for the label and 15 leva for the document) in order to be legally able to buy and use gas. This is another EU dribble that has come in making life harder for the Bulgarians. Most Bulgarian drivers use gas because they can’t afford petrol and this will force more to give up their cars. This is not the point of the exercise.

I was told not to pay anything other than 20 leva when I went for the test. If I was asked for more then I should refuse. The trouble was the guy who was doing the test and documents was a typical weighlifting built ox of a man who I didn't want to argue with. So it was a relief that I was asked for 20 leva and no more. This was after his professional services of putting washing up liquid on the gas connections to check there were no leaks. I think the correct charge to me he made has a lot to do with me speaking Bulgarian, I was also in blue dungerees Bulgarian village clothing and had a Lada with me. The reason I was warned about being overcharged was that many other British expatriates have already been charged 50 leva or more and paid it without question many with monster 4x4 vehicles.

May I add that once a year vehicles go through a test for their roadworthiness anyway and get a sticker on the window screen to prove it. Why introduce another test when everthing is meant to be checked yearly anyway? Another money-making scheme to fill the pot form the EU. Another tax that has been introduced, what's next? I'll take a guess at tax on well water, more parking charges in towns and cities and fees for municiple rubbish to be taken away.

Another 20 leva a year to pay for a gas driven car in Bulgaria, to be quite honest I really could do without a car from the point of expense. A car is a luxury for me here and something I feel quite guilty about considering the lifestyle I have chosen to live here.

Why Move To Bulgaria? - World Blog Surf Day

It is World Blog Surf Day today (28th March) and Golden Prague has organised just that. A series of blogs written by expatriates especially for this special day. Essentially a world surfing tour from many expat bloggers telling why they are where they are.

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Why did I become an expatriate in Bulgaria? This is often a question asked and not an easy explanation either. There are so many reasons that this happened, but the main reason was perhaps running away from a previous life that had made me ill. It has taken some time to work out that answer and many other expatriates if they are honest with themselves will own up to that fact.

To know what I see and have now found in Bulgaria you really need to know the yearnings of the past so forgive a little history into why I live in Bulgaria

Every since I was a kid aged 6 or 7 years old I'd see a hill in the distance and I wanted to go to that hill. Later as a teenager in London the 70's, green living got a hold of me and the combination of wanting to be somewhere else and self-sufficiency was a pipe dream.

It wasn't until I was 46 that the opportunity came to pass. Owning and working a smallholding I thought was an impossible dream. England was too expensive, then Wales and Scotland became beyond my means and finally France, which was affordable during the 80's and early 90's was left too late and we were priced out there as well.

It was now 2004 and eBay was being surfed, a house was being auctioned and there was only 8 hours to go, and the price was under £2000 with no reserve. I thought it was a scam or a joke and followed the auction through. The house with land was sold for just over £2000! I didn't believe it, but did after I looked into other property in Bulgaria going for roughly the same value It was quite a revelation and an affordable opportunity that I thought had hit a brick wall.

Within 3 months of seeing this site I had done masses of research on Bulgaria, visited it and actually bought a farm smallholding online! Within 6 months of viewing that auction and indeed knowing where Bulgaria was, eBay I escaped the financial and rat raced rut that I was was living in the UK and was living as an expatriate there. It wasn't panic or a mid-life crisis, but a sudden realisation that Bulgaria and me just clicked.

Now there are many things I regret in life, many based on not acting quickly enough, but moving here was the best solution for me and my lifetime ambition. I have sacrificed more than most can ever imagine to get here and many said I was crazy to make the move. To me now on reflection the poverty and simplicity of live here is the great appeal, it was only poverty based and a complex life based on mortgages and credit through a material based culture in the UK.

Many other considering it may prefer more 'up market' countries to move to. Bulgarian life is very rough at the edges for most people here, the infrastructure here is quite unstable. Politics is corrupt in the main and a sense of helplessness from the everyday Bulgarian know there is nothing they can do about it. Mafia infiltrated industry is the only reason it survives as it does here. There is four levels of living here, the rich, mainly Mafia based businesses, the town folk who work for a living and the old pension people in the villages. Then of course there is the gypsy community were in the main live on the fringe of Bulgarian society. Please excuse the generalisation, but that is how I see it here in a snapshot.

Bulgaria is it's own monster and you live and get on with the monster or you try and fight it from your foreign perspective. I gave up fighting the monster quite early on after meeting it face to face everyday.

The Bulgarian countryside is beautiful if you ignore the rubbish that is thrown everywhere. The wildlife and nature excels here and is a major attraction along with the Black Sea Coastal resorts, not totally spoilt from over development yet if you look around. And then there is the skiing resorts if you like skiing and can afford it.

The people seem to be very cold initially, but once you get acquainted you will have a friend for life who can't do enough for you. All you need to do is talk and the thaw starts straight away.

Finally, I am indeed luck enough to now have a Bulgarian partner whose family I know live with. This truly is the most Bulgarian of adventures one could get. A very simple life now is led day to day as that is how most Bulgarians live, on a day to day basis.

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Please now can you consider surfing onto Ricky Yates Weblog. He is an Anglican clergyman who moved to Prague to become Chaplain to the English-speaking Anglican Episcopal congregation in the Czech Republic. A great insight of this Chaplain Brit now living and working there. http://rickyyates.com/