You may know the name if you are interested in modern Balkan literature. You may have read her short stories or poetry in anthologies and literary journals in Britain, Ireland and the United States; Selected, a trilingual volume in Bulgarian, Greek and English; or A Visit to the Clockmaker, a book of verse published in Cork, Eire.
A cold winter morning in the village of Rosen some 25 km from Burgas. What has brought me here is a letter from a Vagabond reader who complained about the inadequacy of the Bulgarian social services (see Vagabond No. 4). Along with her Bulgarian friend Tanya and another British expat, Susanna, Catherine Almond has been looking after a Bulgarian lady who is in a difficult predicament. She is immobile and incontinent and can't do anything for herself.
You know how it is. It's Monday morning. Your sleep has been shattered by the interminable bloody yapping of a street dog somewhere in the inky blackness beyond your window. Your alarm clock won't go off for another hour yet, but you know you'll never get back to sleep, so you drag your reluctant backside from between warm sheets and go make some coffee.
You think: Sigh.
Showered, dressed, and with sufficient caffeine in your system to approach the new day with a semblance of humanity, you step out onto the gritty Sofian street to walk to the taxi rank.
In the past few years, however, the mass destruction of nature has started again. First it was the Black Sea coast, now the construction has moved to the mountains.
Soon the coast will be one endless resort all the way from Durankulak in the north to Rezovo in the south, and all the mountains will be one giant ski run. And then, oh joy, we are all going to be millionaires. There will be no trees, no beaches, no nothing - just buildings, ski runs and resorts. Exactly which tourists will be enticed by this concrete jungle is another question.
For example the first stanza of the original written by Tsvyatko Radoslavov in the first half of the 20th Century was:
Proud Balkan Mountains (Горда Стара планина,
Blue North by their side до ней север се синей.
Vitosha shines like gold in the sun Слънце Витоша позлатява
Istanbul is white and far away към Цариград се белей.)
But the Communist rulers decided it was not good to mention Istanbul in the anthem - Turkey was an "enemy" NATO and capitalist state at that time. So it became:
What happened to the Polish plumber?
He now stands forgotten in the EU because of the scarecrow of the new kids on the bloc, the Bulgarians and Romanians. At this delicate moment, the old EU members are receiving disturbing news. Both Bulgaria and Romania are being targeted by their non-EU neighbours in pursuit of more convenient citizenship. Applicants in Romania are mainly from Moldova, while Bulgaria is welcoming its Macedonian brethren.
If you enter Bulgaria from Turkey through the border checkpoint at Lesovo the first thing you'll be greeted by after passport control will be some tanks lurking on both sides of the new, EU-sponsored road.
Don't panic. They've never fired on anyone, thankfully, except for drills. You can even stop to inspect them if you like. No one will halt you, which will lead you to surmise that the decrepit pieces of machinery have been abandoned, save for the clusters of snakes that have made them their homes.
Winter sports facilities in Bulgaria are enjoying a lot of investment interest. About half a billion euros has been put into hotels and holiday villages in Bansko alone. The Super Borovets project is expected to attract between 150 and 200 million euros by 2009 and there is increasing interest from investors. This is all to the benefit of ski enthusiasts, because Bulgaria now boasts magnificent runs and facilities at prices that are still much more competitive than in the Alpine resorts.
Mount Vitosha
You may not particularly like Bulgarian streets because of their narrow pavements, missing flagstones and parked cars, but you will probably not notice these shortcomings on 14 February. Shops and pubs are decorated with hearts and pink balloons, women are more beautiful than usual and young people are kissing on every corner.
And then you encounter a group of Bulgarians who are obviously slightly tipsy. The mixed company loudly praises Trifon Zarezan. Several yards further you come across a baffling scene.
"Is there no carnival in Bulgaria?" you may ask yourself on 17 February while watching TV reports about the start of the carnival season in Venice, Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans. The answer to your question will come on the following day, the first Sunday before Lent. In Bulgaria it is called Sirni Zagovezni and is the last day Christians are allowed to eat meat before the 40-day period of fasting. On this day, in a gesture long-forgotten in our everyday lives, people ask forgiveness from their relatives and friends for any wrong they may have done by kissing their hand.