Return to Bulgaria Has Finally Happened

The return to Bulgaria has finally happened. It has been painful wait for us, the full story will unfold in due course.

One of the last pictures of us in London March 2017

In a nutshell, unpleasant and unfinished business in the UK prevented our move for several years. This is still hanging on in the background, but we now look forward return to a simple life of pleasures where only people without blinkers can possibly know about. Technically I am now retired with Galia and living in Yambol

The only positive things about living in London during that seven year period was the fact that I loved the work I did working under many PCV Driving Instructor. It also helped me financially to sustain life in Bulgaria without having to work - although I can't see myself not doing that with writing or teaching. That is the only thing I will miss from UK life, helping people achieve life goals by training them up to a professional career in the Bus Industry.

In Skalitsa Village BG in May 2017

Now it is getting settle back into Bulgarian ways, try to forget the torrid time we had in to go through in the UK to get to this stage - including 3 months of being homeless. We don't have much money but we don't need it as we have no desire to lead a high life of hotels and restaurants. Again the way we do things on a small budget suits us fine although others cannot see why we don't want this. We are not in a mind that can live with the mental torture of expensive fashion and extortionate lifestyle.

More to come.. VERY VERY HAPPY COUPLE NOW!

5 AM 1st July- Watching the Sunrise (JULY MORNING)

In London Dead or Alive? Who Cares?

Everyday I live and work in London and see things that should shock but don't.

Cycling to work through Harlesden one morning, I see someone lying in the middle of the road, I think to myself that he was dead. Drivers were driving past not stopping but swerving to avoid running over him. Pedestrians walking past staring, but that's all. It was unreal as I approached the body,  I parked my bike and tried to drag him out of the middle of the road. It was a late to middle-aged Afro-Caribbean man wearing old clothing and he stunk of stale beer. There was no reaction to anything I did as his trousers began peeling down to the extent of embarrassment as I pulled him along on to the pavement. There were blood stains from a head injury left in the wake of the dragging. Someone seeing me struggling, stopped to help after firstly hiding his manhood by pulling his trousers up again.

Eventually amidst the stream of traffic rubber-necking a car finally had the grace to stop in front of us with his hazard lights on to stop traffic behind and rang for an ambulance. The body was eventually propped against a shop window out of the road and on the pavement, Moments later the ambulance sirens could be heard in the distance and that's where I left the scene with blood on my hands, still unsure whether he was alive.

An uncaring, selfish and disjointed community were evident with this occurrence. This is not the world I want to be part of. What hope is there for people living in this area? What have they to look forward to?

The worst bit? I am not shocked.......Why?

Why Back to the UK?

It has been quite few years now back in the UK working, but that's all I do here. The question as to why I came back is something that is quite difficult to answer, although many may suspect it is to do with money.

With life in Bulgaria is was really a quest for survival. There was never going to be any time when the worry about where the money was going to come for the next electric bill or repairs to the home let alone anything else considered a luxury. Let me stress though, this is how most Bulgarians live and you can totally understand why the draw to places that pay decent wages for work appeals so much. After all, it is a sense of dignity to try and do something proactive to find work and build for the future to many Bulgarians. When the walls of red tape went down for freedom to work anywhere in Europe look what has happened. It is still very difficult just to go to a foreign country and find work and even harder if you don't speak that language, but many have.

The question still runs through my mind on why I left Bulgaria. Part of that was with the same ideals as why Bulgarians leave. I have a duty to my family both in Bulgaria and the UK to find work and pay for basics and that was not happening in Bulgaria despite my best efforts. I of course had a head start, I was a qualified teacher with lots of work experience in many fields.

Well the decision was made and I left heading towards London where the streets are paved with gold but was never going to be my new home. The story unfolds.

Back to the UK and London? Not my home, hasn't been for nearly a decade!

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/