On a frosty night in late February, with the last remnants of snow still hanging from the tree branches overhead, a heavily laden Starex van lurched its way over the Malko Tarnovo border pass from Turkey and into Bulgaria.

The van and three of the five (human) occupants turned around and headed back after a week leaving two people and one sleepy dog behind in a little village just outside Bourgas at a house that hadn’t been lived in for years. None of the three spoke the local language, there was no wood at the house for heating as no-one there knew anyone was arriving and there was only an intermittent bus service. And so the adventure began…..

Since February me, my husband and our dog (clearly the brains of this outfit) have been busy discovering just how much we don’t know about living in Bulgaria. We spent countless hours researching facts and figures on the internet before arriving, asked for advice and tips from friends already here and made plenty of trips over to see if we felt Bulgaria could be our new home, but the reality of living here  - of course – differed somewhat from our pre-conceived expectations.

After living in Turkey for almost 5 years we were already familiar with unreliable electric supplies, ditto water, and we had experienced the pleasures and pitfalls of getting to grips with an unfamiliar language, foods and culture so we didn’t think that upping sticks over the border to Bulgaria would present us with too many challenges. In fairness, I think our stint in Turkey has given us certain advantages as much of the bureaucracy and paperwork is similar in both countries, but I don’t think either of us realised just how very different Bulgaria is in terms of the culture - and the so-hard-to-master Cyrillic alphabet.

It took me three months to master basic Turkish – and I am not a world class linguist by any means as my German and French teachers in school could attest to!. In eight months in Bulgaria I have mastered very little and have days when my understanding of the alphabet just vanishes from my brain as if it has been wiped clean. My husband is great with the alphabet – but can’t remember any Bulgarian words except the one for plaster!!

For the first time in our lives together we do the shopping as a team – he reads the letters to me and then I (hopefully) know what the word means! We have searched (in vain so far) for a phonetic dictionary, which would certainly make learning easier for me, and we valiantly try to talk to anyone kind enough to attempt conversation with us; I am sure that most of the Bulgarians we have so far encountered think we are either from another planet - let alone another country - or that we have St Vitus’ Dance, as we spend a good deal of time communicating with hand gestures and body language. Surely we can’t be the only ones struggling with the language?

Regardless of the snail like speed at which we are gaining a vocabulary we aren’t having major problems being understood and people have been warm, friendly and helpful. We’ve moved on from the unlived in house and bought one of our own which we are slowly restoring. Who knows, by this time next year perhaps we will have learned more and will be able to communicate better - I will be able to do the shopping on my own again. My husband will know more than the Bulgarian word for plaster.  No harm in trying…viva Bulgaria.