Meanderings of a Monkey Juggler

...with a Chinese Gun!"

Welcome back to all and sundry. 

I've been on another jaunt to Bg with K and there's stuff to be told.

In the first day or so we were supposed to meet up with Paula and Pete (visiting her house).  After numerous calls and SMSs we didn't hear anything so assumed they were ignoring us.

So instead of meeting them we went out with some friends for a slap up meal.  As we entered the restaurant I saw a couple of familar looking people and thought; "Hmm they remind me of Pete and Paula".  I mentioned this to K and she went to have a look.  Turns out 'twas indeed P&P.  They'd had a delayed flight and no sleep.  Thus when setting out to Turnovo they'd been all a twitter and left their phones in their hotel by the sea.  Hence no contact.

So a nice meal was had and the following day I went with them to have a look at P and ma's place. Very nice - need pics tho'.

The following week was me and K's first ever go at running our Bg business idea.  A colleague and her husband and 4 year old were due to spend a week at our house and being escorted around the region.

Problem 1: Our house isn't ready.  The electrics are not done and there are no working showers or kitchen wotsits.  Oh and no furniture.  Thankfully they were happy to spend their nights either at the flat or K's mum's place.

Problem 2: No car.  Actually there is a car but it's a 27 year old, gas-powered Lada which has problems of reliability.  So we got them to agree to paying for a hire-car and we'd pay the petrol.  Fair deal I reckon.  Sadly everywhere in VT that laid claim to being a "Car Rental" company had no cars to rent - at all.  One place - and this tells you so much of the Bg service ethic - sort of shrugged and told us that they had no cars.  Well actually they might have one 15 year old car but they couldn't say whether it would be available or not.  Handy.  The problem was eventually sorted by one of K's pals who knows everybody in town and he pulled some strings to get us a 10 year old Astra.

So we managed the basics and headed off to pick them up.  They were arriving early one morning so we were to stay at one of K's friends places in Sofia overnight.  This avoided me having to drive across country over-night.  (not a pleasant prospect in Bg).  The flat was pretty poo as well (that was supposed to say "poor" but I think I prefer the typo). Before showering I was told "Don't worry about the cockroaches; they won't kill you."!!!!??!  A hurried stab at a shower wouldn't have worked properly anyway as the flow was so poor as to render it nonsensical to call it a shower.  More a dribble.

The guests arrived on time and we started their week's holiday.

Spent the week looking at local sites and eating in cool restaurants. 

The title of this post is a direct quote from their son when he was waiting in the police station.  Katya gave him one of Yosko's old toy guns which turned out to be made in China.

The guests apparently had a wonderful time; least ways they said so and I doubt they were lying to spare our feelings.

What did we learn?  If we can get advertised well enough then we know that there is enough to do and see for potential guests.  Our plan will work!

I drove them back to Sofia over-night despite my reservations.  It turned out that there was one hell of a storm to the west and we were driving straight to it.  Eeek.  That wasn't a fun ride.  Impressive though.

House stuff done afterwards and now I'm home again.  Back to work tomorrow.  Sigh.

And I checked my mail today.  "Genius" starts in Sept and my show will be on Radio 4 on October 5th at 6.30pm.  Turns out that's a Thursday.  They are cutting only 1 idea from each show so my chances of being on are better than I thought but I still don't know which idea will be cut. Fingers crossed.

Have fun.

PS  Many thanks for the extremely excellent search terms that are leading here.