No Grapes, No Wine, No Rakia

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Back in the village I checked out my crop of grapes, which are to make this year’s wine and rakia. I was shocked to see that they were all scattered over the ground, hardly any remaining on the stalks on the vine. They had been invaded by a flock of starlings and the crop is ruined. No grapes mean no wine and no rakia this year. That is really bad luck.

Wham! - My FIinger Hit Buy Garden Hoe

Wham! The metal garden hoe was banging some plastic sticks into the ground and suddenly an intensive pain came to me. I had hit my finger with full force. Even with thick gardening glove on the pain was incredible and the swearing out aloud intense. Whacking a finger with a hammer doesn’t happen that often, but today the same effect was felt. I know the throbbing will last for days to come and what every hit me will focus on hitting that already injured left forefinger.

Bulgarian Garden Tool Snapped In Two

Digging the earth with my Bulgarian gardening tool, which isn’t that old it felt a big strange as I hit the earth with it. Something didn’t feel right, and then suddenly the wooden handle broke in half. It was only six months old but there was a weak point was where a knot in the wood was and this just snapped in two. This will now cost me another 10 leva to buy as this is un repairable. Another day goes by of more expensive. Why don’t things like this last forever?

Long Bike Ride Ends With Cold Shower

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After a long bike ride today I was looking forward to a shower when I got the village farmhouse so me 37 kilometres away, it was a really hot day. Having got there I stripped off and went straight into the bathroom only to find that there was no water running. Hot and bothered I cursed, as it was a trip to the garden and damp down under freezing water from the well.

Chopping Board's Handles Fall Off

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The weather was so hot today I thought I do Galia a favour by fanning her down with the nylon cutting board. She had been working all day and was exhausted, hot and bothered. It worked really well and lots of draught was made but then the handles suddenly snapped and the board fell on the floor. We now have a chopping board that has no handles and now no fan to continue the cooling down Galia.

Fetching Well Water - A Messy Business

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Today I went to get some water from the well. We use this as drinking water both in the village and in town. As the water flushed into the 10 litre plastic bottle the plastic cap on with the handle dropped off and all the water spilled over my feet and onto the ground. This was the least of the problems as the water mixed with the soil and turned into mud and this was now all over my sandals as I had to take them off and wash them being left with bare muddy feet to clean up as well. A simple task which turned out to be very messy indeed.

Lock Bought For Nothing

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The other day we couldn’t find a set of keys for my brother’s house. We search high and low but they were nowhere to be found. These are the only set of keys for the house there is no copy and we were trusted to look after them. We have no idea where they could be so we bought a new lock and key for the front door to fix on when we next visit. Three days later, after buying the new lock, we found the old keys as I when for a bike ride. They were in the pannier pocket of my bicycle. We’d never have guessed they were there. We now have spent money on a lock that has no use.

Banitsa With Paper

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I fancied a banitsa for breakfast this morning so I walked to the local bakery some 100 metres away to buy one. They had sold out and directed me to another bakery five minutes away, so off I go a little bad luck involved there. Getting to the other bakery they had plenty of freshly baked banitsa and I bought one. I decided to eat it there and then whilst it was still hot, beside there was a table outside the shop for this purpose. My first bite was great until I started chewing – I had taken a big bite of the paper it was wrapped up in as well!

All Talk And No Film

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We wanted to see a film tonight, an American comedy with subtitles in Bulgaria so the whole family could watch it. We sat in the garden up until it was due to start at 8:00, but we wished we didn’t. Our neighbours saw us sitting there and decided to come and talk to us. Three and a half hours later we were still talking and the film had finished. If we hadn’t sat in the garden we wouldn’t have been seen and would have seen the film.

60 Year Old China Plate Smashed

Image by Leonieke

Sometimes it just takes one piece of bad luck to undo something that has lasted for decades and that happened today. A china plate in which we serve cakes on had been in the family for over 60 years. Today as I placed the cake on it and lifted it to bring to the table, it slipped and fell on the ceramic sideboard and broke into several pieces. A 60 years old plate is now no use to anyone within that split second. It was far too fractured to repair and went in the bin along with the cake, which was also ruined.

Mobile Phones Both Out Of Action

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My spare mobile phone was called into use today as my first choice on was flat and I had no charger as it was left in the town this weekend. Two hours charging up the spare one then trying to log in I had forgotten my password, which I hadn’t used for at least three months. After three tried it locked my out and I have to find the instructions on how to get around this problem now, Of course these are stored away in the town home as well!

Lada Car Conks Out

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Another Monday, another but of bad luck today with the car. Picking up Galia from work today the Lada suddenly backfired and conked out. After lots of dabbling with the electrics we had to walk the 3 kilometres back home in the sweltering heat of the afternoon with all our shopping for the evening meal. It will be a busy morning tomorrow trying to find out how to fix the car, and of course walk to work.

No Bulgarian Shower - No Shower

Image by garethjmsaunders

After a really, really hot day working on the farm all we wanted to do was have a shower and relax. It was after 8:00 in the evening and we had finished our chores looking forward the rest of the evening doing nothing. We stripped and walked into the shower only to find that the water had been cut off. Damn! They tend to do this in the village on hot days when people want to water their crops. We just wish we have a Bulgarian shower system made up of a painted black oil drum on the roof that hade been warmed up by the sun all day – a warm shower guaranteed then!

No Holiday This Year Again

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There is bad luck all through this summer as I found out today that Galia hasn’t any holiday due until Christmas. This means that this is the second year we haven’t had a holiday of other than a weekends. We really would like to spend just a week at the Black Sea, but can’t because of this. The other bad luck is if we did get a week, we couldn’t afford to go anyway.

No Tea Bags

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The last day of the working week and I was looking forward to my daily cup of tea. Looking in the kitchen cupboard in the tea caddy there was no teabags left! I was sure that there was at least 7 or 8 yesterday morning. I found out later that Baba had made me some tea yesterday afternoon and when she opened the tea caddy all the teabags fell out into the sink, which was full of water. I looked outside and she had hung 6 teabags out to dry on the washing line. Of course they aren’t fit to use now. Bottom line – No tea this morning to wake me up.

Dropped Glasses First Thing - A Bad Omen

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With the day just beginning you know what type of day it is going to be by things that happen first thing in the morning. As I stumble out of bed at precisely 6:30 I reach for my glasses on a chair right next to me, they slip out of my hand and fall on the lino floor, they didn’t shatter or break, but always a bad omen for the rest of the day. And so it was as I got a note saying that I hadn't got the job I applied for a few weeks ago.

Rain then Sun - Wrong Order

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This morning it was weeding on the farm as I kitted out in my gardening clothes. As I started, so did the rain, just enough to make the topsoil muddy, but I carried on. After one hour I stopped at exactly the same time as the rain. Five minutes later as I got into the car the sun came out! Why does this ALWAYS happen?

Broken Traffic Lights And Car Overheating

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Today was a particularly bad day for luck as I set out to taxi my partner to work. Allthe traffic light where not working and we had to wait ages to get inot the main road as there wasn't any gaps in the traffic flow. Then I grazed my leg agains the shapr edge fo the car door when getting out. On the way back the engine was misfiring due to overheating so I had to stop for 10 minutes to let it cool down before I could get home. After some tinkling with the cooling system later I hopefully would have seen the last of the overheating unless more bad luck strikes tomorrow.

No Electric Means Mosquito Bites

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Mosquitoes strike again at night, but only because we had no electric all night. Anti-mosquito socket based contraptions just didn’t function without electric so the mosquitoes struck. Five bites, three on my face and neck and two on my thigh. Galia had all the good luck as she didn’t get bitten at all, why is this?

Stable Door Fell Off

Image by David_Turner

The was a sudden gust of wind before a storm came along and one of the stable doors fell off as a result. After the storm it was relealised that the wood was so rotten in the hidge area, it couln't be just put put in place simply. It was another job that took the best part of an afternoon after the sun had come out. No time for relaxing this weekend which was why we were there.

Translation - Technical Problems

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A member of the family came round this evening to ask me to translate some English instruction into Bulgarian using my laptop and online translator. As I typed out the text in English to paste onto the language converter all was going well, then Microsoft word crashed. I had to start all over again. Then one hour later it was finished and saved, we had a thunderstorm and there was no Internet. This will have to be finished next week.

Trainers - Wait Too Long, Size Too Small

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I have been waiting five months for some new trainers I bought on eBay that were due over from England by a guest who was coming here for a holiday. Their trip was cancelled so they ended up posting the trainers to me. The shoe box with the trainers inside arrived today and I was all excited as I opened up the packed, but only to find that they were the wrong size and too small. I had to give them to another family member here who was very grateful.

Lada Car Brakes Fail

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Bad luck now back with the car as a pipe feeding the brake fluid had split and the brakes failed as a result. I had to use the handbrake to stop the car and without quick thought and reaction could have smashed into the car in front of me. More time, cost and inconvenience if you have a car.

Two Hour Wasted - Socket Not In Properly

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Power cuts are frequent here; you get used to it and do other things to work around it. Today I thought we had a power cut so I left my computer and did a bit of gardening. I kept checking to see whether the power was back on every ten minutes or so, but seemingly nothing for two hours. It wasn’t until I heard the fridge started purring and my computer still wasn’t connected to the Internet that I realised the plug in the socket wasn’t in properly. Two hours wasted.

Key Problem - Access Denied

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I was given another key to get back into the house today as my one was with someone else. As I arrived with Galia what we didn’t have was the garden gate key. This was locked I we couldn’t get to the front door. We had to drive to a cousin’s place on the other side of town to get a spare key for the gate before we finally got in.