Family Visit For Holiday, Happy Times,

Just had a great week :-) My daughter Claire, Granddaughter Hope & Son in law Tom have just been to visit.

I love it when my family come to stay & I love to show off my adopted country. It was a very emotional time for me as I hadn't seen them for 20 months & I am very much a family person. The hardest thing to deal with was leaving them behind when we moved here & it never goes away that is what is called home sickness. I always thought it was for the country you left but obviously that is not the case, how could it be for the UK????  I sometimes miss going to a carvery, a country pub & walking along the beach in Bognor Regis or along the river Severn in Worcester, but as far as the UK is concerned that is it. I miss, much more, the time I spent looking after my granddaughters, having lunch & shopping with my daughters, spending weekends with my mum & I miss my sister & being an aunty. Since we left the UK we have had 2 babies born into our close family & another grandchild is due in a couple of months. I have still not met my son's first baby & my third granddaughter Chloe. I am told she is a wonderful & funny little girl & has a gorgeous temperament. It hurts, it's HARD......... But this is where we live, this is our life & as our children are adults & have chosen their own life & where they will live so must we! Thank God for computers, facebook & when we have a decent internet skype & the free UK landline calls I get on my home phone, that is a Godsend!
So enough of the sad bit, the good bit is having wonderful memories to keep forever of times family come to visit. I am over the moon for my daughter as her life has taken a wonderful step in a loving direction, its been a long hard road, but life is just beginning for her, her little family are amazing & soooo very happy, it made my heart sing!!!!!
Hope's dad, Tom, is a wonderful daddy, I have not seen such a lovely relationship between father & daughter, its something I missed out on unfortunately & he is fantastic at the way he corrects her in such a loving way. Wonderful to watch, I love my kids so much & my grandchildren are my heart, to see them so happy is truly magical :))))) We had a lovely time as a family & though my heart is not broken, it will for a while be very lonely!
The time here in Bulgaria is notorious for dissapearing very quickly, it's not just me ;-) & so their time here was like a click of the fingers :(((((
Thankfully my daughter loved the house & property. Claire had been here with us before we moved in. We came for three weeks with a three year old Hopey & it was like staying in a squat. Hope loved it & we had a great time but Claire was not comfortable & it was very dingy. We have turned it into a comfortable home with a great outside living space in the summer & she loved it, Phewwww :))))))
They spent the first two days on the coast nr Varna, in a pool complex with the beach, so they were nice & relaxed by the time we met them all in Veliko Tarnovo McDonalds LOL.

I love that Hope is very adventurous in her eating, very unusual in a 6yr oldI

No we didn't commit the serious crime of eating there, but we had drinks & caught up before heading off to Ego's for dinner (Happy man was full outside).

Lovely, to spend quality time. Then it was a quick trip to Metro & back home to get them settled & meet Sophie & Kami. We put Reggie & Mini in their houses so they could meet them properly in the daylight the following morning, which worked out really well.
The first evening in the village we all went for a "stroll" around the village. It was a lovely evening, Sophie joined us on the walk & we stopped off to see friends. We then made our way to the Mehana for a sundowner. Claire made friends with a little puppy who was telling Sophie off as I think she wanted us as her family :-) It was a real joy for me seeing my little Hopey enjoying the countryside again & bumping into the wildlife. We saw Galia walking her dogs, Plamins horse grazing on the meadow & Baba Ivanka's donkey having a wander. We picked plums off tree's to eat, as we walked home, lovely!

To say Hope loves swimming is an understatement & she had so much fun playing in the pool with everyone & on her own, while Mummy & Daddy relaxed by it. She made dens out of towels & comforters & not once in 7 days did she play with her Nintendo. I love that, love that she loves it here & can have a great time without DVD's & games etc. She did some drawing & made up games. She loved the dogs & enjoyed playing with them & talking to them. I just wish she had the opportunity to do this more often, that we could have this kind of life & summer closer to her home, oh what a childhood memories she would have for the rest of her life. At the moment memories from this age are fragile & only few are kept, most forgotten. She has already forgotten all the lovely memories I have of our holiday here with her when she was 3, which is sad, thank goodness for photo's :)))))

Who knew a plunge pool could be so much fun for a child, I love it as it cools me down & I can float on my lilo in peace & quiet but I was so pleased to see it get so much use & provide so much fun! They all enjoyed time sunbathing & relaxing by our pool area.

We organised a relaxing garden party for them to meet our Russian, Bulgarian & English friends. Just a small gathering of 13 this time but really nice & chilled with an amusing game of Yahtzee after, Anton didn't know what the heck was going on :) Thank goodness for Peter who speaks English & translated to Anton what he was doing, it was good fun :)

I love this photo of Hope & Claire

We managed to get a day in Veliko Tarnovo & took them to Tzaravets hill. We had a lovely day with a small lunch at the new restaurant outside of the castle grounds (expensive tourist prices) & dinner at the Happy man :))))))))) The grounds of Tzaravets were hosting opera's every night that week. That would have been well cool as I have seen an opera in the amphitheatre in Verona under the night sky & I would have loved to add that to my experiences! The great thing was though as we were walking along chatting about how it would be great if they had people dressed in the clothing of the era living as it would have been we came across just such a scene, spooky!

It was really interesting & we watched mock soldier fighting, Horse riding & Nigel, Tom & Hope had a go at archery.

BTV were there filming I would guess for the news & we watched a little scene where a man was being arrested in stocks with his wife running in front crying NE NE

 It was really a nice change as we have been there many times now so it was great to have something different to experience :)))
Nigel had started an electrical job but took the last two days we had her off. We spent the day at a local pool/restaurant, it was a very hot day & lovely to relax by a proper pool while Hopey made friends & spent the whole day swimming & having fun.

 Then unfortunately it was off to Sofia to get the plane. Very sad but we had a wonderful time & they all enjoyed different aspects of Bulgaria so we now look forward to many more holidays together! I for one can't wait ;-)))))))