Where did the summer go to? The skies are grey and dangerously reminiscent of England. Parties al fresco are a distant memory and even a healthy walk on the beach is blighted by chilling winds and freezing sea spray. The change in the weather, the dark nights and equally dark early mornings leave me contemplating some form of hibernation. I remembered that, as kids, we used to pack our pet tortoise into a cardboard box lined with straw and he would sleep the whole winter, then emerge bright as a button in spring when we unpacked him.
Obviously, the cardboard box approach to human hibernation is not the answer, but the idea of being carefully wrapped in a thick duvet on a comfortable bed, with a sign placed above my head reading “Do not disturb until spring” is distinctly preferable to the trials and tribulations that winter brings.
I was starting to adapt my lifestyle to cope with the dreary weather and the demands of house-bound children with a kind of semi-hibernation involving a duvet on the sofa, family flicks on TV and plenty of chocolate. It was proving to be a success: the kids were calm and the dog had joined us under the duvet. Every now and then, a board game would come out, more chocolate would be consumed and then we would revert back to vegetating in front of one of Disney’s classics.
And so, just as I am nicely settled into my prolonged period of semi-hibernation, events and Bulgarian bureaucracy take their unpredictable course and leave me forced from my winter nest, back out into the cold outdoors. The driving factor, a burglary. In the small hours of the morning, someone forced one of our windows and hastily, to the yapping of our little dog, removed two laptops and my son’s schoolbag. My response to the dogs barking was that there was no way I was crawling out of my bed until 6am. My sons reactions to the din was that our poor little pooch wanted a warm bed for the night and took her in with them. My husband slept through the noise; his hibernation started the minute the beach resorts closed down.
On venturing downstairs at 6.10am, all was revealed. An open window, wires and cables leading to missing laptops and the howls of my eldest son on discovering that the homework he had so diligently done the day before had been robbed. Of course, to him the loss of the computers was secondary to the loss of his schoolwork. Even I felt miffed after having slaved over a Bulgarian-English dictionary to fathom out what was required. I slipped – literally – through the mud to our neighbour’s to obtain the number for the police and was soon whisked off into a whirl of events that continue to haunt me over one week later.
The son whose school bag remained skipped off to the bus stop, while I was left to comfort a distraught child who felt like he had been stripped of his greatest treasure. Amid the tears, I managed to call his teacher, explain the situation and welcome four police officers into my home. Clad in muddy boots and armed with grey fingerprint powder, they managed to cause more mess and upheaval than the burglars.
Then the realisation that my passport, the dog’s passport, my internet banking login number, our company stamp and Bulstat card had also been stolen in my favourite H&M handbag sent me into an even greater spiral of despair. The incessant calls from well-wishing neighbours did little to revive my spirits – where would I get another H&M bag in a country devoid of such retail delights?
I was bombarded with troubled thoughts about the mass of paperwork that now ensued and the reality that my laptop was my livelihood and I began to daydream about full-scale hibernation again.
If only I had the courage of my conviction and had just closed the door behind me and given it a try... Instead, spurred on by the notion that maybe such a fantasy was best left to the inhabitants of mental institutions, I dashed around the countryside trying to fix my broken life. My first port of call was the bank, where I informed them of the possibility that my internet banking identity could be determined from the hard drive. The response was one of “Hey, chill out, we can sort this”.
The second stop was the police station, where I sat waiting for about 40 minutes before being whisked back in time to a 1970s-style office. The response here was “You should be more careful” coupled with undertones of “Did you plan this job yourself?” Why do the police here have the habit of making you feel like the criminal?
My next port of call was the insurance company, who, after establishing that I hadn’t just put my laptops down in the street, said they would sort the claim out. They called the police for the Protokol, but the police refused to give it. Then they gave some assurance that they would at some stage pass it on… A week later I’m still waiting. The insurance company’s response: “Chill out, we’ll sort it.”
My wrangling with the school system has had untold benefits, leaving me with a blissfully happy son revelling in the sudden reduction of homework. Knowing that this would soon backfire, bringing about the mother of all homework backlogs, I asked that his textbooks be replaced and offered money to pay for them. After two days, half of the books appeared in his bag, but not those needed for homework. I scoured the bookstores only to discover that such textbooks could only be provided by the school. After a week my son is ecstatic; I, armed with dictionary, am still waiting.
In the whole of this bureaucratic tail-chasing, Office 1 proved to be the most efficient of them all. They sorted out my son’s school bag and equipment and my company stamp – a credit to Bulgarian efficiency, they deserve an award.
And so, in all of this turmoil there are valuable lessons in Bulgarian life to learn. If you have contact with the police, remember you are guilty until proven innocent, Office 1 can solve your problems faster than the nation’s emergency services and if you are thinking of hibernating during the winter, remember to secure your doors and windows!
