Hello all from here in UK where I am adapting to life back in Britain. The longer I am here the more I realise how much I have learnt living in Bulgaria. The so-called poverty stricken and old-fashioned ways of village life are have been a good lesson for me. It astounds me how spoilt people in Britain seem to be and how they moan about being financially strapped for cash. Every new gadget seems to be essential and cooking now means filling the store cupboard with exotic herbs and spices that the family will probably not like ever again. I can easily live on my pension if I shop around and being happy with caravan life which seems to be the cheapest way to have a roof over your head, bills are no problem.

I don't understand why so many Brits insist on turning their new Bulgarian home and garden into little England. Watch and learn the Bulgarian ways and stress levels will drop. Why shop around for hours trying (and probably not succeeding) in finding something which is not on the Bulgarian wish-list? Why go to live abroad anyway if you can't adapt and integrate. The benefits of learning and adapting to a new life far outweigh the disadvantages of not having all British mod cons.

Of course I am generalising and if people get a buzz out of overcoming problems the British way, good luck to them. I should mention that I arrived in Bulgaria having lived in a very primitive Greek ruin with no inside toilet and using a bucket of chemicals before a friend dug me a soakaway and installed a toilet but still outside. I learnt Greek, managed a business and had many Greek friends before retirement and the EU meant that I needed to move to elsewhere. To actually have a proper house, even if it was primitive by British standards, was a wonderful luxury and was quite happy to learn everything the Bulgarian way including the language. That is why my FB friendship list is still 90% Bulgarian and we all keep in touch.

Soooooooooooo - my life abroad has stood me in very good stead here in Britain and even though I have my thoughts on life here, I am continuing a life of adapting.

As usual oldun a :Good post:and full of honest information

Hi Oldun

Really good to hear from you and to hear you are settled well back in the UK, that is great news. hope your hero is doing well too.

Now, with regards to your post I feel i must say that people including ourselves live according to our customes so to begin with when moving here naturally we want everything to be as it was in the UK our home comforts and we do our best to achieve this. However, as time goes on we then realise these home comforts are not so essential after all especially when we see how the Bulgarians live and tend to have a stress free life. So no matter how people start off life in Bulgaria I am sure they will learn a lot, like you did you were here for about 10 years or more. Just give us a little time to adjust to our new way of life. Many of the items we brought with us are of no use here but as I said we will only learn though trial and error - so don't be too hard on us. We are looking forward to life here in BG and as you say live the Bulgarian life as much as possible.

I don't mean to be hard on people Oddy but just offer a few words of what I have learned in the many years abroad. Most Brits do not ever travel well which has been noted throughout history and look how people behaved in the Empire days! My opinion, for what its worth, is that Brits still have this mentality that everyone in other countries should embrace all things British. Brits are leaving Britain for many reasons and one is that they are fed up with immigration who they think are the reason for all that ails the country from crime to job losses. Remember when you relocate to another country you are an immigrant and should not be surprised if there is a negative reaction to requests for anything imported.

One of my dear young Bulgarian friends is at this moment, messaging me to say she is very happy in Britain living in a caravan and fruit and veg picking with one day off a week. She is happy with her pay and is speaking wonderful English. She will be here for 6 months when she will return to Bulgaria.

Since moving back I have seen adverts in shop windows for jobs offering advancement into management like McDonalds, hairdressers and catering outlets so why are there so many young people unemployed? Are these jobs not good enough now they have been through university?

I rest my case but I am sure there will be some discussion for the opposite argument.

As for give you all time!...... I lived both in Greece and Bulgaria in places where no-one spoke (or would speak) English so I didn't have the luxury of time to learn as newcomers to Bulgaria now have. Nor did I have a phone or internet until 2003 and certainly had no access to forums like nowadays for people to help me. I have written reams of help and advice for others on forums over the years only to find that my optimistic approach to life abroad eventually attracted trolls and that is why I stopped posting. Maybe I am not alone.

Just received the following review/text from guests who left our villa yesterday. With all the doom and gloom in the world it's very uplifting and rewarding to get a five star rating for the villa, the local people the food etc. I hope forum members don't mind me sharing this review
Quote:-
Just had a marvelous 10 day break at this beautiful villa near Dobrich. This is a return visit for us and was even better than last time. It's so peaceful and beautiful all around. The actual villa is so comfortable and so very well maintained. The gardens were immaculate. Everything we needed was included. So we could sit back and have a totally relaxing holiday. I particularly loved hearing the cuckoo everyday!
Our trips into Dobrich and surrounding towns were easy to do. Everyone was very welcoming and fortunately spoke enough English for us to be understood. Local food is very tasty and inexpensive.

I must repeat I did love the cuckoo. And also the opposite ends of farming.... An old man with his donkey and cart followed by a big gleaming transit van with John Deere on side! Amazing! Also saw what looked like two very large ferrets whilst I was out running! Not sure if that was what they were!

Thank you for a wonderful holiday...again

Ann and family (Halifax)

Wonderful review thanks for sharing. Well done Wiillow truly delighted for you.

:Hearts:Willowsend. Happy that your villa rentals are now back on track after what you went through.

To answer you Oddie - it is an expensive learning curve waiting years to finally accept Bulgarian ways. I still find it difficult to understand why anyone would want to live abroad if they so crave an English lifestyle. Bulgaria has its own problems so why expect it to be better and to be able to escape all the things you hate in Britain which depends so much on where you live? Here in East Anglia we have lovely weather and its a pleasant place to live. Yes, my Hero is doing fine and has found work in a restaurant although mostly in holiday season. It has been much more difficult for him to settle because he misses his Bulgarian family and all the local work wood chopping, gardening, strimming etc and helping the local folk. I guess we are more adaptable than most but I have really tried to help people on various forums to avoid costly mistakes but had little feedback (like now) because no-one believed me or wanted to believe me. I honestly think the main attraction - apart from investment of course - was that a house with land was so much more affordable initially. It is the main reason we had to leave Greece when I retired from business. However, we never wanted to have a house bigger or more English than anyone else so we kept within budget and again, integrated. I know this will still fall on deaf ears but no harm in putting my point of view.
I have to say that we have a couple of English friends who have relocated to Bulgaria and who have thanked us for our help with integrating which is lovely. They are doing well and enjoying their new life.

hi Oldun,
i am hearing what you are saying and in a way i do agree with you, i've bought a house in Bugaria and in away i've started to get it fixed up again to Bugarian standards it was a very good house but to me it needed work, so i fully understand.
i am putting a new balcony on to my bedroom and 1 for my kitchen so i can have my breakfast outside, i am using and much labour from the village as possible but i also know that i should not pay much more than anybody else otherwise every will want more money and that will cause a problem for everybody not just me.
what i have said is i intend to buy what i can afford as an investment with a simply rule,
the rule is that if a young couple from the village are looking to buy a house i will not bid for it, if someone else is and they have outbid the couple i will if i have the funds, will outbid the others and do a deal for part ownership or something like that as you have said you are a guest in there country and dont forget that.
this rule is in place because it has happen where i live and it is totally wrong as i've worked here for 35 years and despite trying i have been unable to purchase here but able to buy over in Bg unthinkable.
anyway you enjoy yourself and just whiched i had the B***s to do what you did and travel and set up business and speak another languge.

What a refreshing post Paddy and thank you. I didn't think I had the balls to do what we did at the time, but looking back, I surprise myself at how I managed it. I say 'I' because I was the motivator and my Hero (as I call him) was always ready to trust me. It has turned out alright for which I am thankful but nothing was ever easy so I wish you much good luck. So lovely to hear your views on village life. I am sure it will be appreciated.

hi oldun,
i went to the village in March this year because i like many others bought on ebay and paid up front, only when i made my visit the house well its there and it does have a roof and walls but close to the village well thats another story, if i went to sort that house out i would need a picnic every time i would need to go to the shop.
anyway the village and the people great so much so that on the day of my visit i met the mayor and some English and went to a party that night and stayed a week, and bought a better house.
i really hope i can help in the area as i have worked for myself for 35years since leaving school at 15 i say to my kids, that their was very little work at the time and thats why i went to work for myself but i think it was more to do with people and bosses making the job last so long that i could have done the job 3 or 4 times.
any way starting to waffle, thanks for your comment.

Oh Paddy you might be in for a bit of a shock - Things are not that cheap here now and the builders do not seem to know how to barter for anything, they just shrug their sholders and say - this is Bulgaria. I am using a local builder to build our garage and apartment above. The builder we have know for a while and Dougie says he has seen his work and it is good. However, I cannot get hiim to give me a price for the work he will be doing here, he gave me a price for the materials for 9500lev less the doors and windows and concrete and of course nothing upstairs calculated yet only the building and the roof. The concret he recons will be around 2700lev I have a feeling this build will be well over budget as at he moment everytime we need items the transport cost is 35lev that is in addiion to the 360lev already paid - when I asked for a price of all materials I ment all inc bathroom and room dividers etc. We have to get someone to make the doors for the garage and windows and fit the as the builder does not do this - Dougie and I will fit them ourselves and we will get the doors made in metal too by a local Iron man that made our other doors and window bars. He is good and very fair as well as being relable. We may have to finish off the apartment ourselves too - but it will depend on what the overall cost of the builder is. He brings 3 men wth him every day. the have worked 36 hours so far. two men are digging the septic and two are laying the metal ready for the boulders and bricks (see below)and they all shovel in the ballast when it comes. It's slow work. Once the bricks start go it we will see it move than. We do what we can to help to speed things up we even get the villagers in to help with the unloading. He has just told me we now need a 7mt batton for the ceiling - that appears to be a concrete lental for the ceiling - not sure if this is in the price or additional, I have no choice but to trust he won't rip us off. I keep my fingers crossed. People say you shoud get a price up front, don't let hiim start until you know the price, Don't trust them, You are being taking for ride with the transport etc etc but there are times you just cannot do anyting but trust their judgement and and honesty. It is not easy unless you have a translator with your 24/7. So we can only keep an eye on things and hope for the best.

hi Berni,
i think you need some help, with this builder, from what your saying
if i were you, i would go with Dougie and go to Ruse and look in Beu max and check the prices, yes the builder needs to make money, but you need off him a start time and finish date and also what materials are included, also get a hold of Richard sewage solutions he must know of someone who can translate i really do think you need to do this as from what you said i think they dont see a cesspit they see a money pit if you already have them started agree a price and say no more finished. find out what he is paying his workers also again it would cost more in the UK to have what your getting so from here its good value, from over there you can buy a house, also if he has to order something he forgot to order tell him thats his problem not yours, i know your small but i am sure you can hit him where it hurts, no Bernie i mean his wallet

First off - this is not what I meant when I headed this topic 'accepting Bulgarian lifestyle'. Back in 2004 the builders we used (recommended by our lovely translator lady) gave us a complete inventory of work and a final price which we accepted. Nothing deviated from this price and we were very happy with the renovation and soakaway which needed re-digging to EU standards (although only in sofar as there were now 2 holes!) They also did our second house renovation the same way and even did a little more for no extra cash as they decided to do some work on the upstairs which we couldn't afford to have done. There was a boss project manager who arrived most weeks and a good foreman. We kept up spirits with a few beers in break time (pochifka!!!)
Now our village has a local builder and his work seems good as far as I could tell. Maybe we were lucky with the village we chose, but we know everyone in it and everyone knows us. The Mayor keeps the peace in any dispute and does it very diplomatically because it is such a small community. This must be a difficult job. He has been voted in ever since we arrived 9 years ago.

You can tell we miss our Bulgarian village life a lot and I am still very defensive of the lifestyle. That doesn't mean that you don't have to take care and once again, it pays to learn the language or at least keep a dictionary by your side! When things don't always go to plan, treat it as a learning curve and make sure it doesn't happen again! That way you will gain respect.

Thanks for your concern Paddy - I am doing my best to ensure the builder knows what is needed and that I don't ike parting with my money - He is getting the gest of if now. My Bulgarian is not too bad and I get by it is a case of having to as there are no English, or Englsh speaking people in any of the three villages near us. I don't think he will rip us off as he is genuine enough and has a good reputation. He has come to help Dougie out a few times with floods etc and never charged hiim for anything. We are used to the English way of doing things now we just need to see how the Bulgarians do things and learn from them. So please don't worry Paddy it is probably me making a mountain out of a mole hole and taking me out of my comfort zone. He will be working out his charges and letting me know tomorrow or Sat. All the villagers have been here to help us with all sorts and they speak highly of him too.

Now back on topic Life here in Bulgaria is good, the villagers are fab, Baba Ginka and someone else pops down everyday just to say Dober Den and asked if we are ok - They divert just to speak with us. When we go out for walk we come back loaded with stuff, they don't like to let you go unless they give you something. It really is a completely different way of life, everyone looks out for each other they have very little but want to share it too. If we need somethiing they will find the right person for us there and than either make a call or get in the car and go see them. The bring their grandchildre to meet us so we have someone to speak English with. I am not struggling as I said I learned a lot for Baba Ginka and the longer I am here the more I learn, Dougie is picking up a few words too which is great. I don't want to go home yet - now when the winter comes we will see how that goes. The rain is depressing enough without it being cold as well. England is only a flight away.. Overall we it here. We have lots to learn and we can only learn though mistakes but the biggest thing we have to learn is to make the changes for our normal life to Bulgarian life and we will get there sooner or later. Small steps at a time.

that's good Bernie,
hope you did not mind me contacting Richard I normally leave it for a while but I thought you might need help and I am not in Bg but if I were I would have been there for you, unless of course peter was giving me directions lucky for me Romania is Romania in any language so I would know if I've gone to far, if need help I am here.
also how about a whip round for all your hard work and see how much we can raise to buy you your septic tank what do you think?