Grapevine Three
Autumn 2009
by Martin Jeffes
A shady corner at Camping Sakar Hills in Southeast Bulgaria
Introduction by Barry and Margaret Williamson
Martin founded, built and managed the Sakar Hills campsite in SE Bulgaria, before recently handing it over to his son Matt and retiring to the south coast of England. Near to the campsite Bulgaria meets Greece and Turkey, making a rare European triple point, which for forty-five years was the southern end of the Iron Curtain. It remains a place where cultures, languages, religions, histories and much else meet; a place where a bicycle takes you through the three countries on a magnificent circular ride. We should know!
What follows are just a few of the many words Martin has written over the years, words that create their own landscapes, populated by people whose activities are captured with a wry humour. Here we are at the interface of Bulgarians, English ex-pats and a heterogenous bunch of worldwide campers and tourists. Complementing this rich mix is Martin’s fascination with Bulgaria’s origins, using his trusty Land Rover to trace the remnants of Thracian and Roman occupation.
The following collection of Martin’s writings over the years is one of seven.
The other six collections are:
Martin in Bulgaria and the Balkans
Martin in England
Martin in Australia
Martin in his Land Rovers
Grapevines One and Two
Grapevine Four
As well as many Photographs
Martin founded, built and managed the Sakar Hills campsite in SE Bulgaria, before recently handing it over to his son Matt and retiring to the south coast of England. Near to the campsite Bulgaria meets Greece and Turkey, making a rare European triple point, which for forty-five years was the southern end of the Iron Curtain. It remains a place where cultures, languages, religions, histories and much else meet; a place where a bicycle takes you through the three countries on a magnificent circular ride. We should know!
What follows are just a few of the many words Martin has written over the years, words that create their own landscapes, populated by people whose activities are captured with a wry humour. Here we are at the interface of Bulgarians, English ex-pats and a heterogenous bunch of worldwide campers and tourists. Complementing this rich mix is Martin’s fascination with Bulgaria’s origins, using his trusty Land Rover to trace the remnants of Thracian and Roman occupation.
The following collection of Martin’s writings over the years is one of seven.
The other six collections are:
Martin in Bulgaria and the Balkans
Martin in England
Martin in Australia
Martin in his Land Rovers
Grapevines One and Two
Grapevine Four
As well as many Photographs
Round and About
You can usually sense the change of the season in this part of the world, as it goes from summer to autumn. The sun still shines and at midday the temperature will climb to around 35° during September, and still to the mid-20s in November but, gradually, the early mornings and the evenings get colder, and the length of the days gets shorter. In mid-August it was possible to drive home from Sakar Hills Camping in the dark in the old Land Rover with the roof off. By mid-September the canvas roof was firmly back in place.
This is the time of year when you feel in your inner being that, here, you are part of a large continental land mass, and that the weather coming your way soon is a sort of settled, slow-changing weather, not at all like the weather in the UK, which changes almost day to day. Here, when the cold wind starts to blow from the north you’ve got a pretty good idea that it’s going to be a while before warm weather returns.
Summer actually ended on the 6th of September this year. We had been given advance warning the previous day by Doctor Antony, who, with his better half, Zlatina, was at a lunch party at Vasil and Zhifka’s house, to celebrate Zhifka’s birthday. “This will be the last day of summer” quoth he, which, since it was a beautiful hot, sunny day, seemed a trifle off the mark, as weather forecasts go, but he was spot on.
The next day was cold and wet. The wet didn’t matter, rain being welcome for the garden, but it was really cold, which wasn’t welcome. We had to endure a further two days of the same before the sun came out again, but it didn’t get back to summer temperatures.
That day we had to drive to Sofia to pick up the editor-in-chief’s parents, Arnold and Beryl, who were flying in on their annual state visit, accompanied by their other daughter, Beverly, also with one of her daughters, Ceylan. The prospect of half the Spence family confined indoors at Grapevine HQ, due to inclement weather, weighed heavy on this correspondent’s mind all the way back from the airport.
The big news since the last issue is the setting-up of ‘Chateau Kolarovo’: Ivan, the yoghurt man’s much-heralded vinery enterprise. During communist times the state-owned wine-producing business was called Vinprom so, as far as this publication is concerned, this new business will be referred to as Ivanprom henceforth.
In the first week of September, three artic-loads of stainless-steel wine-making equipment arrived: large, circular tanks capable of holding eight tonnes of fermenting juice; smaller ones to hold the wine once it has finished fermenting; conveyors; mobile access stairs; pipes and pumps. All in all a wallet-whacking amount of stuff.
By Saturday 19th everything had been installed, most of it manhandled in by local ethnic labour, and commissioned. It only remained for the priest from Rogozinovo to give the new business his recommendation to the Lord to keep an eye on it, then we were all off to the canteen for sparkling white wine and nibbles.
Guests then had the opportunity to watch Ivan, ex-yoghurt supremo, marshalling his troops around the conveyor system and putting the first batches of grapes down the production line. That was at about 2 pm and all those engaged in the process, which was pretty much Ivan’s wife and his new partner, plus a couple of helpers, seemed buoyed up with enthusiasm. Eight hours later, when we checked back there, they looked somewhat less motivated, and somewhat more bored and cold.
News from the Antipodes
Senior Constable Ben Jeffes is now, apparently, a member of the Western Australia Space Debris Re-entry Recovery Team. It can’t be too long before bits of the Mir Space Station, or similar, will start to appear on Ebay.
Back Issues
Unfortunately, due to complete incompetence and a cretinous inability to master the sending of emails properly, the dispatch department of Grapevine HQ hasn’t got the faintest idea about who has or has not received Issues 1 and 2. If you were one of the lucky ones who did not get them, but are running out of bog roll in your virtual downstairs loo, contact us and we’ll do our best to send them. Similarly, if you actually do receive this and don’t want any more, email us, please.
Visitors
At the end of August a bus carrying thirty-three young people arrived at Sakar Hills Camping. They were from Prague and were on their way to Turkey. The place was awash with two-man tents for a couple of days.
Early in September, group organisers, Johan and Riny Peeters brought their eight-campervan party to stay for a few days, again on their way to Turkey. They were to reappear at the end of November, on the return journey to the Netherlands.
At the end of September, Rob and Rachel Ayres pitched up for ten days with their eight delightful children. They are on the closing stages of an extended trip that has seen them all backpacking in Russia, Mongolia and Vietnam, to name but a few of the countries the have visited. They arrived at Sakar Hills in two campervans, Rob with four children in one, and Rachel and the rest in the other.
Last visitors to Sakar Hills this year were Mike and Judith Annan, together with their Dutch friends, the Neiwenhaus’s, who stayed for three nights at the end of November, on their way to a rendezvous with other members of a group who are going to Nepal and back.
Michelle’s first guest, Alex Luther, with his carer, Steve, came and spent a week at the Bulgarska Polyana Wildlife Park, and endeared himself to all those he met. He must have enjoyed himself, as he has already booked to visit again next year.
And Locals
Hayden came from New Zealand for three months to advise Daniel, a vineyard owner, on the finer points of producing good-quality wine. As his wine was being processed at Ivanprom, it is likely that they also benefitted from his experience. He certainly asserted that he had never experienced anything like trying to work in Bulgaria.
We have met several Brits lately, not a few of them in the Verona Pizza Restaurant in Harmanli, where, on a Friday lunchtime, they seem to congregate. It seems that every village now must have at least one Brit family. In a future issue we may produce a list of the Brits and their villages.
Mervyn wandered off on his annual migration in September, to New Zealand to work on the grain harvest.
Mayor and neighbour, Stefka, unfortunately lost this year’s Kolarovo Cabbage Competition when Vasil’s flock of sheep got into her garden one day and ate the crop.
Kolarovo Hot Air Balloon Club
The second meeting of the KHABC was held at the Castra Rubra Vinery construction site on Saturday 29th August,in the late afternoon, which afforded good photo opportunities for pictures of the village, lit by the sinking sun, not to mention Stefka Groseva: Pioneer of flight.
Again, due to the lack of a balloon, the tower crane was employed to create the effect of ballooning. This will be the last meeting of the club for some time, as the crane was demounted the following week.
The Priest from Rogozinovo
To meet the Priest from Rogozinovo for the first time is an unusual experience for someone brought up within the conventions of the Church of England. To meet him twice in one week, at very different functions was doubly agreeable.
The first meeting took place at the opening of Ivanprom, the almost miraculous yoghurt to wine business transformation recently completed adjacent to Grapevine HQ. It is customary in these parts to give a new business venture a bit of a send-off, with a short blessing service from the local representative of the Almighty. He alone must know that any new venture in this part of the world is going to need all the help it can get.
And so it fell to the Priest from Rogozinovo, a neighbouring village, which not only boasts a church but also a priest to perform the Lord’s work. A tall man, with a large face, made all the larger by a grey, reasonably well-trimmed beard and a full head of graying hair; only his black vestments and silver crucifix on a chain counterbalanced the almost permanent smile at the corner of his mouth, and the twinkle in his eye.
We stood around in a semi-circle in front of him, holding lit tapers, while he, holding a taper in one hand and flicking purposefully and rapidly through his prayer book with the other, droned a monotonous incantation that lasted about ten minutes. The service ended with the parsley-borne water-sprinkling on the head ritual, which the writer had not experienced before, but found most refreshing. Then it was down to the serious business, with champagne corks popping and food being handed round. All this seemed very much to the taste of the Priest from Rogozinovo, who clearly had no baptisms or funerals to get in the way of a good social event, as he settled in at the table for the long haul.
Our second meeting, the following Saturday night, took place at the Rogozinovo panair. A panair is a cross between a village fete and a funfair. The word is Turkish for funfair and, in the towns, this is what it mostly is, but in the villages it is still less commercialized. Every village and town has a panair; in towns like Harmanli, our local town, it lasts for five days, or more accurately nights, whereas in our village of some twenty souls, we just have a lunch in the village hall.
In Rogozinovo, a larger village, it occupies a weekend. On the Saturday night there is live music, and a singer, if the mayor of the village can find someone to pay for it. Rogozinovo, clearly a wealthy village, had an excellent band of four young musicians and two girl singers, who combined traditional Bulgarian music with a blend of jazz, which was a pleasure to listen to.
The writer had gone there with Stefka, who in her capacity of mayor of Kolarovo is expected to turn out for the panairs of neighbouring villages. Therefore we were treated as honoured guests and ushered to a special table set aside for visiting VIPs. Salads, cheeses, cold meats and drinks were provided. Other people came and joined us at this table, all of whom were known to Stefka, and, by and by, an attractive woman of a certain age came and sat opposite Stefka and joined in the general conversation. Some little while later arrived the Priest of Rogozinovo, still in his black robes, with his son, also a priest and also in robes, but looking more like someone's minder than a priest. The Priest of Rogozinovo sizes up the situation immediately and straightway plonks himself down next to the attractive woman. As he begins to engage her in an animated conversation, which she is clearly enjoying, he pours himself a large measure of rakir from a strategically-placed bottle, then pulls out a packet of cigarettes and lights up. The picture only improves as he continues to enjoy his conversation, while eating a plate of salad, with a cigarette in his hand, and his glass of rakir to hand. Verily it can be said that he is a man of the people.
Holiday Time
The Grapevine team took their annual holiday in mid-November and, this year, the destination was Tronc, on the third largest island in the Mediterranean (Cyprus), where they met up with old friends from the UK, Rob and Jan. Tronc lies on about the same line of latitude as Malta and Gibraltar, so, even in November, the weather was warm and sunny. Rob and Jan, who live in Equatorial West England where it rains so much every day that it is measured by the bucketful by the Meteorological Office, were all for swimming in the outdoor pool; we from sunnier climes didn’t remove our pullovers.
We stayed ten days and spent most days exploring the archeological treasures of the country, such as the Salamis ruins. We had hired a Ford Fiesta on a special deal of fifteen pounds a day, all-in, we just had to put petrol in it. (Gunray Car Rentals, highly recommended). One of the treats for us was the cuisine; those used to Bulgarian food will understand that to be able to order lamb cooked in a variety of ways is something to be appreciated after a diet that pretty much revolves around pork and chicken. Mezes, brought to your table as starters, included humus, tahini and pastirma, a spicy sausage, while kebabs such as sheftali, shish and iskende provided mouth-watering and economical sustenance.
On our journey home Rob and Jan drove us to Ercan airport, where we caught a plane to the domestic terminal in Istanbul, Sabiha Gokcen airport. We got a shuttle bus from outside the arrivals building, which took us the 40 kilometre journey to the Asian shore of the Bosphorous. Here we embarked on a ferry for the fifteen-minute crossing to the European side.
Once ashore, we dragged our luggage a couple of hundred yards to the nearest tram station and caught a tram, which took us to the Metro, Istanbul’s underground railway system, on which we travelled to the huge coach station at Esenler. Our next mode of travel was, coincidentally, also called Metro but, this time, was a luxury coach which carried us back to Harmanli, where we got a taxi back to Kolarovo. That made eight different forms of transport in one day, plus a wander round the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Bazaar in Istanbul. Try doing anything as interesting in one day in the UK!
Recipe of the Month: Melon Surpise
By this time of year fresh fruit has lost its appeal, so here’s an idea to brighten up a dinner party, preferably one where each guest contributes a course, but make sure you do it in someone else’s house.
Take one very ripe melon. Make a small hole with an apple-corer. Insert a ‘Silver Cracker’ banger (available from Harmanli Gun Shop, 5 lev for a box of 36. Excellent value.). Sellotape the fuses from a couple of other ones onto the one in the melon, to give yourself a bit of time. Replace the bit of melon you cut out, leaving a short piece of fuse visible. Coat melon with something sticky: peanut butter, chocolate or marmalade are among my favourites. When the time comes to present the dessert, light fuse, set the melon in the middle of the table and quickly duck below table level, before the fast-accelerating particles of the melon equivalent of the big bang arrive. In the ensuing general panic, and while gobbets of melon detach themselves from the ceiling, walls and fellow guests, make a hasty exit.
This recipe is great for making new friends. You’ll have to, as you won’t have many old ones left.
On a Completely Different Note
If you really want to find out the political leanings of any of your Bulgarian friends, I can recommend this question as being a sure-fire winner. ‘Do you think that Mickael Gorbachev’s actions in bringing about the end of communism in eastern Europe was for the better or the worse for the people involved ?’
The Grapevine team, ever searching for the truth in all things, has received answers from friends ranging from ‘He was a traitor to our country’ to ‘He released us from the empire of evil’.
I can almost guarantee that you will have a lively debate.
Ten Pin Bowling
The editor-in-chief, who likes nothing better than a bit of organizing, excelled herself during the state visit of her parents, Arnold and Beryl. This year’s highspot was a trip to Haskovo to go ten-pin bowling. Nothing unusual about this you might think, and, indeed not, except for the fact that of a party of fourteen people, two were over eighty, three were under ten, and one was in a wheelchair. Heyho.
And Finally
As Christmas approaches, we would just like to wish all family and friends a Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.
Click: GrapeVine One and Two
Click: GrapeVine Four
You can usually sense the change of the season in this part of the world, as it goes from summer to autumn. The sun still shines and at midday the temperature will climb to around 35° during September, and still to the mid-20s in November but, gradually, the early mornings and the evenings get colder, and the length of the days gets shorter. In mid-August it was possible to drive home from Sakar Hills Camping in the dark in the old Land Rover with the roof off. By mid-September the canvas roof was firmly back in place.
This is the time of year when you feel in your inner being that, here, you are part of a large continental land mass, and that the weather coming your way soon is a sort of settled, slow-changing weather, not at all like the weather in the UK, which changes almost day to day. Here, when the cold wind starts to blow from the north you’ve got a pretty good idea that it’s going to be a while before warm weather returns.
Summer actually ended on the 6th of September this year. We had been given advance warning the previous day by Doctor Antony, who, with his better half, Zlatina, was at a lunch party at Vasil and Zhifka’s house, to celebrate Zhifka’s birthday. “This will be the last day of summer” quoth he, which, since it was a beautiful hot, sunny day, seemed a trifle off the mark, as weather forecasts go, but he was spot on.
The next day was cold and wet. The wet didn’t matter, rain being welcome for the garden, but it was really cold, which wasn’t welcome. We had to endure a further two days of the same before the sun came out again, but it didn’t get back to summer temperatures.
That day we had to drive to Sofia to pick up the editor-in-chief’s parents, Arnold and Beryl, who were flying in on their annual state visit, accompanied by their other daughter, Beverly, also with one of her daughters, Ceylan. The prospect of half the Spence family confined indoors at Grapevine HQ, due to inclement weather, weighed heavy on this correspondent’s mind all the way back from the airport.
The big news since the last issue is the setting-up of ‘Chateau Kolarovo’: Ivan, the yoghurt man’s much-heralded vinery enterprise. During communist times the state-owned wine-producing business was called Vinprom so, as far as this publication is concerned, this new business will be referred to as Ivanprom henceforth.
In the first week of September, three artic-loads of stainless-steel wine-making equipment arrived: large, circular tanks capable of holding eight tonnes of fermenting juice; smaller ones to hold the wine once it has finished fermenting; conveyors; mobile access stairs; pipes and pumps. All in all a wallet-whacking amount of stuff.
By Saturday 19th everything had been installed, most of it manhandled in by local ethnic labour, and commissioned. It only remained for the priest from Rogozinovo to give the new business his recommendation to the Lord to keep an eye on it, then we were all off to the canteen for sparkling white wine and nibbles.
Guests then had the opportunity to watch Ivan, ex-yoghurt supremo, marshalling his troops around the conveyor system and putting the first batches of grapes down the production line. That was at about 2 pm and all those engaged in the process, which was pretty much Ivan’s wife and his new partner, plus a couple of helpers, seemed buoyed up with enthusiasm. Eight hours later, when we checked back there, they looked somewhat less motivated, and somewhat more bored and cold.
News from the Antipodes
Senior Constable Ben Jeffes is now, apparently, a member of the Western Australia Space Debris Re-entry Recovery Team. It can’t be too long before bits of the Mir Space Station, or similar, will start to appear on Ebay.
Back Issues
Unfortunately, due to complete incompetence and a cretinous inability to master the sending of emails properly, the dispatch department of Grapevine HQ hasn’t got the faintest idea about who has or has not received Issues 1 and 2. If you were one of the lucky ones who did not get them, but are running out of bog roll in your virtual downstairs loo, contact us and we’ll do our best to send them. Similarly, if you actually do receive this and don’t want any more, email us, please.
Visitors
At the end of August a bus carrying thirty-three young people arrived at Sakar Hills Camping. They were from Prague and were on their way to Turkey. The place was awash with two-man tents for a couple of days.
Early in September, group organisers, Johan and Riny Peeters brought their eight-campervan party to stay for a few days, again on their way to Turkey. They were to reappear at the end of November, on the return journey to the Netherlands.
At the end of September, Rob and Rachel Ayres pitched up for ten days with their eight delightful children. They are on the closing stages of an extended trip that has seen them all backpacking in Russia, Mongolia and Vietnam, to name but a few of the countries the have visited. They arrived at Sakar Hills in two campervans, Rob with four children in one, and Rachel and the rest in the other.
Last visitors to Sakar Hills this year were Mike and Judith Annan, together with their Dutch friends, the Neiwenhaus’s, who stayed for three nights at the end of November, on their way to a rendezvous with other members of a group who are going to Nepal and back.
Michelle’s first guest, Alex Luther, with his carer, Steve, came and spent a week at the Bulgarska Polyana Wildlife Park, and endeared himself to all those he met. He must have enjoyed himself, as he has already booked to visit again next year.
And Locals
Hayden came from New Zealand for three months to advise Daniel, a vineyard owner, on the finer points of producing good-quality wine. As his wine was being processed at Ivanprom, it is likely that they also benefitted from his experience. He certainly asserted that he had never experienced anything like trying to work in Bulgaria.
We have met several Brits lately, not a few of them in the Verona Pizza Restaurant in Harmanli, where, on a Friday lunchtime, they seem to congregate. It seems that every village now must have at least one Brit family. In a future issue we may produce a list of the Brits and their villages.
Mervyn wandered off on his annual migration in September, to New Zealand to work on the grain harvest.
Mayor and neighbour, Stefka, unfortunately lost this year’s Kolarovo Cabbage Competition when Vasil’s flock of sheep got into her garden one day and ate the crop.
Kolarovo Hot Air Balloon Club
The second meeting of the KHABC was held at the Castra Rubra Vinery construction site on Saturday 29th August,in the late afternoon, which afforded good photo opportunities for pictures of the village, lit by the sinking sun, not to mention Stefka Groseva: Pioneer of flight.
Again, due to the lack of a balloon, the tower crane was employed to create the effect of ballooning. This will be the last meeting of the club for some time, as the crane was demounted the following week.
The Priest from Rogozinovo
To meet the Priest from Rogozinovo for the first time is an unusual experience for someone brought up within the conventions of the Church of England. To meet him twice in one week, at very different functions was doubly agreeable.
The first meeting took place at the opening of Ivanprom, the almost miraculous yoghurt to wine business transformation recently completed adjacent to Grapevine HQ. It is customary in these parts to give a new business venture a bit of a send-off, with a short blessing service from the local representative of the Almighty. He alone must know that any new venture in this part of the world is going to need all the help it can get.
And so it fell to the Priest from Rogozinovo, a neighbouring village, which not only boasts a church but also a priest to perform the Lord’s work. A tall man, with a large face, made all the larger by a grey, reasonably well-trimmed beard and a full head of graying hair; only his black vestments and silver crucifix on a chain counterbalanced the almost permanent smile at the corner of his mouth, and the twinkle in his eye.
We stood around in a semi-circle in front of him, holding lit tapers, while he, holding a taper in one hand and flicking purposefully and rapidly through his prayer book with the other, droned a monotonous incantation that lasted about ten minutes. The service ended with the parsley-borne water-sprinkling on the head ritual, which the writer had not experienced before, but found most refreshing. Then it was down to the serious business, with champagne corks popping and food being handed round. All this seemed very much to the taste of the Priest from Rogozinovo, who clearly had no baptisms or funerals to get in the way of a good social event, as he settled in at the table for the long haul.
Our second meeting, the following Saturday night, took place at the Rogozinovo panair. A panair is a cross between a village fete and a funfair. The word is Turkish for funfair and, in the towns, this is what it mostly is, but in the villages it is still less commercialized. Every village and town has a panair; in towns like Harmanli, our local town, it lasts for five days, or more accurately nights, whereas in our village of some twenty souls, we just have a lunch in the village hall.
In Rogozinovo, a larger village, it occupies a weekend. On the Saturday night there is live music, and a singer, if the mayor of the village can find someone to pay for it. Rogozinovo, clearly a wealthy village, had an excellent band of four young musicians and two girl singers, who combined traditional Bulgarian music with a blend of jazz, which was a pleasure to listen to.
The writer had gone there with Stefka, who in her capacity of mayor of Kolarovo is expected to turn out for the panairs of neighbouring villages. Therefore we were treated as honoured guests and ushered to a special table set aside for visiting VIPs. Salads, cheeses, cold meats and drinks were provided. Other people came and joined us at this table, all of whom were known to Stefka, and, by and by, an attractive woman of a certain age came and sat opposite Stefka and joined in the general conversation. Some little while later arrived the Priest of Rogozinovo, still in his black robes, with his son, also a priest and also in robes, but looking more like someone's minder than a priest. The Priest of Rogozinovo sizes up the situation immediately and straightway plonks himself down next to the attractive woman. As he begins to engage her in an animated conversation, which she is clearly enjoying, he pours himself a large measure of rakir from a strategically-placed bottle, then pulls out a packet of cigarettes and lights up. The picture only improves as he continues to enjoy his conversation, while eating a plate of salad, with a cigarette in his hand, and his glass of rakir to hand. Verily it can be said that he is a man of the people.
Holiday Time
The Grapevine team took their annual holiday in mid-November and, this year, the destination was Tronc, on the third largest island in the Mediterranean (Cyprus), where they met up with old friends from the UK, Rob and Jan. Tronc lies on about the same line of latitude as Malta and Gibraltar, so, even in November, the weather was warm and sunny. Rob and Jan, who live in Equatorial West England where it rains so much every day that it is measured by the bucketful by the Meteorological Office, were all for swimming in the outdoor pool; we from sunnier climes didn’t remove our pullovers.
We stayed ten days and spent most days exploring the archeological treasures of the country, such as the Salamis ruins. We had hired a Ford Fiesta on a special deal of fifteen pounds a day, all-in, we just had to put petrol in it. (Gunray Car Rentals, highly recommended). One of the treats for us was the cuisine; those used to Bulgarian food will understand that to be able to order lamb cooked in a variety of ways is something to be appreciated after a diet that pretty much revolves around pork and chicken. Mezes, brought to your table as starters, included humus, tahini and pastirma, a spicy sausage, while kebabs such as sheftali, shish and iskende provided mouth-watering and economical sustenance.
On our journey home Rob and Jan drove us to Ercan airport, where we caught a plane to the domestic terminal in Istanbul, Sabiha Gokcen airport. We got a shuttle bus from outside the arrivals building, which took us the 40 kilometre journey to the Asian shore of the Bosphorous. Here we embarked on a ferry for the fifteen-minute crossing to the European side.
Once ashore, we dragged our luggage a couple of hundred yards to the nearest tram station and caught a tram, which took us to the Metro, Istanbul’s underground railway system, on which we travelled to the huge coach station at Esenler. Our next mode of travel was, coincidentally, also called Metro but, this time, was a luxury coach which carried us back to Harmanli, where we got a taxi back to Kolarovo. That made eight different forms of transport in one day, plus a wander round the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Bazaar in Istanbul. Try doing anything as interesting in one day in the UK!
Recipe of the Month: Melon Surpise
By this time of year fresh fruit has lost its appeal, so here’s an idea to brighten up a dinner party, preferably one where each guest contributes a course, but make sure you do it in someone else’s house.
Take one very ripe melon. Make a small hole with an apple-corer. Insert a ‘Silver Cracker’ banger (available from Harmanli Gun Shop, 5 lev for a box of 36. Excellent value.). Sellotape the fuses from a couple of other ones onto the one in the melon, to give yourself a bit of time. Replace the bit of melon you cut out, leaving a short piece of fuse visible. Coat melon with something sticky: peanut butter, chocolate or marmalade are among my favourites. When the time comes to present the dessert, light fuse, set the melon in the middle of the table and quickly duck below table level, before the fast-accelerating particles of the melon equivalent of the big bang arrive. In the ensuing general panic, and while gobbets of melon detach themselves from the ceiling, walls and fellow guests, make a hasty exit.
This recipe is great for making new friends. You’ll have to, as you won’t have many old ones left.
On a Completely Different Note
If you really want to find out the political leanings of any of your Bulgarian friends, I can recommend this question as being a sure-fire winner. ‘Do you think that Mickael Gorbachev’s actions in bringing about the end of communism in eastern Europe was for the better or the worse for the people involved ?’
The Grapevine team, ever searching for the truth in all things, has received answers from friends ranging from ‘He was a traitor to our country’ to ‘He released us from the empire of evil’.
I can almost guarantee that you will have a lively debate.
Ten Pin Bowling
The editor-in-chief, who likes nothing better than a bit of organizing, excelled herself during the state visit of her parents, Arnold and Beryl. This year’s highspot was a trip to Haskovo to go ten-pin bowling. Nothing unusual about this you might think, and, indeed not, except for the fact that of a party of fourteen people, two were over eighty, three were under ten, and one was in a wheelchair. Heyho.
And Finally
As Christmas approaches, we would just like to wish all family and friends a Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.
Click: GrapeVine One and Two
Click: GrapeVine Four