“WHY don’t you take the boys and spend the August school holidays at the house?” my wife asked.

The “house” was a renovated farmhouse in a village near Veliko Turnovo, which we’d recently bought. The “boys” were my two sons, Mike (12) and Jamie (8).

The idea appealed. The renovations to the house had only been recently completed and I’d yet to spend any time there, so without much hesitation, I agreed to her plan.

So a bright Saturday morning in early August found me and my two offspring decamping from a coach at VT bus station to be greeted by Katy, Tosh and Margarita, my Bulgarian friends. Tosh is a big man, bearded and jolly, who immediately makes us all feel welcome. He and his pretty wife Katy are also great organisers and drive us off to pick up my hire car. Respecting my wishes for nothing too expensive, I pick up a rather battered looking Vauxhall Vectra. It lacks any luxuries...no radio, no airconditioning, but it gets me from A to B. In fact as it turned out, it got me from A to B quite quickly, on my first day driving it, I was stopped for speeding! The police officers involved triumphantly displayed my registered speed...85 km/h, their triumph turning to bitter dismay when my Bulgarian friends explained that I was a stupid tourist driving for his first time in Bulgaria. With sullen looks, I was dismissed. Chastened and driving more slowly, we eventually arrived at my new home and I discovered that it was obviously still a work in progress, piles of earth and bricks littered the road immediately outside my front door. Slightly concerned, I was introduced to Mono, the owner of the building company responsible for the work. He assured me that the house was habitable and that his builders would not be intrusive. He was subsequently proven correct on both counts. I dumped our bags, said goodbye to my friends, and Mono took myself and the boys for a tour of the house. I was impressed. The derelict farmhouse that I’d bought had undergone a Cinderella-like transformation. The summer kitchen that had housed my outside toilet and shower was gone. Mono and his men had worked some kind of magic and produced two lovely indoor bathrooms, one of them complete with a bath tub, luxury!

We had a basement kitchen-cum-dining room of extravagant proportions, a study, a living room and Mono had kept the best for last. The two-bedroomed farmhouse I’d bought had acquired a third bedroom! I knew that Mono and his team had been working very hard on the house, but this was so unexpected that it made the bottle of Glenfiddich malt whisky I’d brought him as a thank you gift seem quite paltry. Nonetheless Mono seemed delighted with it, and we parted with waves and smiles all round. My boys had vanished to inspect the grounds, I checked outside and after satisfying myself that they were in no immediate danger I went to the kitchen and made myself a nice cup of tea.

Then it hit me, how on earth was I going to keep two young boys entertained for a whole month?

You have to understand that my children are of the X-box generation. They spend most of their time in front of a television screen either playing console games, or watching MTV and Cartoon Network.

The house boasted neither an X box nor TV, they hadn’t seemed like priorities before, now I wasn’t so sure. Determined not to panic, I rounded up my “little angels” and took them to explore the village.

In truth, there wasn’t an awful lot to discover, the village boasts a small but pleasant monastery, and a pub which was really only a sort of covered seating area which served hot food and drink. Other than that, the village had a picturesque river running through it. Not a lot of entertainment potential you might think, but for me, in this case, less was most definitely more. The village had a certain atmosphere, it was a truly pastoral slice of heaven. I was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and have spent half my life living and working in London. At the grand old age of 50, I’ve obviously had enough of big city life. I found the village enchanting! Strangely enough it seemed to impress the boys. My 12-year-old enthused “It’s beautiful here, the roads are safe and look at all the animals”. He had a point, to someone more used to driving on the infamous M25, our main street was wonderfully devoid of traffic, of the mechanised variety at least. However, it was populated by almost every farmyard animal going. Goats, sheep, ducks, dogs cats and Turkeys! Bucolic Bliss.

My pleasant reverie was broken by Mike tugging at my arm and pleading: “Can I have a bike, Dad, please?” So later that day a bicycle was purchased, and without any qualms at all, I was more than happy to let Michael go out by himself, something I would never have done back home in England. I sat on my patio, drinking yet another cup of tea and as I basked in the late afternoon sunlight, mentally patted myself on the back for my investing in a little piece of heaven! If only I had known that a few days later I would be insulted, face-to-face by Simeon Saxe-Coburg!

– Colin Munro

A sequel to this letter will be published in a later edition of The Sofia Echo.