This month has been a frustrating one, stuck in Scotland arranging the sale of my house before opening a new chapter of my life. I had an exciting week selling a few of my old-timer cars on Ebay – a novel experience which showed the astonishing reach of this global internet auction. I had more than 100 bids from 10 countries on three continents and made many new friends. My bank balance has also improved.

I spent some time polishing and servicing my treasured 1930 BMW Dixi that I found and restored a few years back in Bulgaria. It is kept at my farmhouse on show to the public. It’s not as fast as a Toyota but its old-style cable brakes are better. The gentleman I bought it from in Sofia, who served as a young officer in King Boris’s army, celebrated his 100th birthday last June. The car was delivered to him new from Eisenach in Germany when he was 21.

When abroad I read the Bulgarian news every morning. The Government should think twice before accepting a soft loan from Russia to help us buy nuclear technology from them for Belene. We should be wary, however, about antagonising the Russians by letting the US place part of the missile shield here instead of in Poland and the Czech Republic. If we accept a prisoner from Guantanamo Bay we could train him in organised crime while he serves out his sentence – but perhaps not, as most of our experts in that topic are more likely to be still on bail than in jail.

Despite the rise in cigarette duty it seems the smoking MPs of all parties can’t bear the thought of restaurants with no smoking. So parts of the new law set for this June may be postponed indefinitely. I’m not sure if this will apply to public transport too – but at least we now know that Bulgarian trains are more reliable than Eurostar. It’s good that there’s a strong move to condemn attempts to allow genetically modified organisms in Bulgaria – a practice that leads in certain overdeveloped countries to all kinds of health risks.

Actually I’ve recently been trying out a fresh fruit and vegetable diet recommended by a Bulgarian friend, which is helping me throw off some unwanted kilos.

Bulgarians, like Scots, have infiltrated influential circles all over the world, so it’s no surprise that one of the candidates to succeed President da Silva of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, is half-Bulgarian. Should she be elected, Boiko Borissov would likely arrange an early state visit to show solidarity with this go-ahead country which stands, like us, near the top of the alphabet.

Another high-alphabet Bulgarian, the soccer star Berbatov from Blagoevgrad, watched from the reserve bench when Manchester United last week beat AC Milan whose "own" star Beckham slunk off the field covered in shame. The high-alphabet owner of AC Milan, Silvio Berlusconi, may fire their Brazilian manager, if not also David Beckham, but Victoria is understood to be pleading with him to let them stay on in Italy.

I have been reading lately about the probability that other solar systems, at least as developed as ours, exist in the increasingly vast universe out there. I wonder whether they have yet developed internet on the hoof (I can’t survive long without my BlackBerry). Do they take their shoes off in the house like we do in Bulgaria? Do families look after their elderly, like in Bulgaria, rather than expecting local authorities or the state to do so as in more developed countries? How are they handling climate change? Are their airline pilots and cabin crew dissatisfied? And are they pretty relaxed about being on time for meetings as Bulgarians are?