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Hi folks,
I said earlier I would tell you all about my experience in Bulgaria so here goes, first of all I won't bother you all with the buying process because I think you will have all heard various stories of good and bad, however I will mention that mine was a walk in the park. Anyway lets move on, once I had bought the house I returned to the uk for a short while which was back in the end of 2006, once back in the uk I thought oh well I've done it now so now what am I going to do with it ? The house was only 7 years old and at the end of the village and quite private but this wasn't intentional, I just happened to like everything about this house and the village it is in. After a few months I decided to return and see what I would like to do i.e what changes if any I would want bearing in mind I had only seen it in the winter. I decided to drive to BG as I loved driving and thought it was a great way to see a fair bit of Europe which I did. As I arrived into the village and was approaching my house the dear old lady who must be very close to 100 was sitting on a bench enjoying the sunshine as I got closer she got up and stopped me and started to go on about something ? and not speaking Bulgarian I hadn't got a clue what she was saying to me but I did detect the smiles which led me to perhaps believe that I wasn't in any trouble. Once I moved on, I came to my house which I have to say looked very different in the summer, in fact to me it was my worst nightmare, I unlocked the gate and my first thought was Oh my god !!! and this is what I was greeted with .

I could see Green stuff growing in the garden from the gate I thought I was in the Amazon Rain forest
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And as I got into the garden there was even more
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I wondered down the garden to investigate and to see how I could resolve this unwated growth
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For me, it was a problem there was all sorts of food growing in my garden because my neighbour had been looking after it for me and said he thought I would need as much as possible for the winter, he had even tended the beehives, well what could I say to him but thank you although inside I was thinking what do I do with all this veg ? On that first day, I spoke to Angel that's my neighbour and asked him if he could show me where to turn on the water and one or 2 other questions I had for him but he simply waved his hands at me in a nice way so it became obvious that he didn't know what I was asking him? Silly me, so I tried with hand signals to explain what I wanted to know and slowly after about 2 hours I found out how to turn the water on. This made me think I am in trouble here one of the things I hadn't considered was the language, anyway later that day I decided that I should do some shopping so I drove off to Yambol so I thought but found myself in Stara Zagora emmmmm don't know to this day how I did that? Well I found some shops there so now all I had to do was to get some shopping, well that was easier said than done ? You guessed I was back to the language barrier ? I eventually left with some tea milk and sugar but no food as I didn't know what I was buying, this was slowly turning out to be a bit of a challenge. I needed to get some food or I would go on a diet ? Anyway once I got back I thought I'm going to have a nice brew and just chill and gather my thoughts, but I couldn't do this as I didn't have a kettle so it was decision time. When I was looking for my house I stayed at the Murcury hotel near Yambol so that's where I went for a cup of tea as I knew that some of the staff did speak a little English and I might get some much needed information, all I had to do was make sure I went in the right direction because I knew that once I was almost in Yambol I would find the hotel easily, so I asked the neighbour who doesn't speak English how to get to Yambol and he phoned his daughter who is actually an English teacher wooooopppeeeeee I thought. Anyway Krassemera thats Angels daughters name gave me the directions after about a 25 minute chat welcoming me to Bulgaria which that was great. I then set off to Yambol and got to the hotel and got myself a much needed brew. After sitting there for a while, I decided to ask some questions and the waitress I chose didn't speak English so she fetched another waitress who did speak some English, anyway I asked her various questions and at the end of it I decided the best thing for me to do was to stay at the hotel until I get myself and my house sorted so I booked in.

To be continued ...........

Yes I do understand, not eveyone can garden even if they watned to and it's certainly not everyone's cup of tea. I was simply struck by the irony that here was this well cultivated plot being covered over and other people having to work hard to reclaim wild and weedy ones! But that's just life isn't it? I expect the bees got a good home elsewhere in the locality, unless these were empty hives struck by the "
Disappearing Bee Syndrome"
. Nice to read your story anyway.