My wife then discovered that she could not get time off work around this time so my son, Jonathan, decided to go over with me.
We rented a house in Veliko Tarnovo and sorted flights with Wizz Air.
After hooking up with Ogi at the estate agents, Niko had gone part time and now managed a bar, we set off into the countryside admiring the blossom and glorious sunshine of a Bulgarian springtime.
It was a case of taking loads of photographs of the houses, emailing them and then going through them with the wife via Skype in the evenings.
We came across a set of three empty, renovated and suitable houses in a village near Polski Trambesh which had been done to a good standard by a Bulgarian builder. The price was right, they were ready to move into.
So, after a couple of days deliberation and hours on Skype, it was decided to sort out a deposit on our favourite and get the ball rolling.
Jonny and myself then had time for a couple of relaxing days exploring Veliko Tarnovo and testing out different restaurants before returning home.
Now the fun started.
My wife had informed us a couple of days earlier of a problem, we had been monitoring it but hoped for the best but, this was Easter 2010.
In true disaster movie fashion a volcano had erupted in Iceland, air travel throughout Europe was grounded. We were stuck, stranded, up the creek.
The English couple who we were renting the house from took us back to Sofia, an eerily quiet airport with just a few people stood at desks. We had seen the mayhem at Spanish airports on the news but, Sofia airport was dead. This was Saturday morning and at the desk we were informed that flights would resume Monday. They were all booked and the first available flight would be Wednesday morning which we had no choice but to accept.
What do you do in such times? Right! We got a taxi into Sofia centre and booked into a hotel, grabbed a bite to eat and decided to take stock after a sleep. It was now 5am Saturday morning and with travel we had been awake since getting up Friday morning.
Things look so much better after sleep and we realised we could do nothing about the situation except wait it out until Wednesday. If the situation was no better we were checking out coach and rail travel across Europe and a ferry back to the UK but for now it was stop worrying and treat it as an extended holiday.
Sofia waited to be explored.
That evening we grabbed a beer in the hotel before heading across to a Chinese restaurant we had spotted. On the TV up popped Snooker, from England, from the Crucible in Sheffield. The irony, that was taking place about 13 miles from where we live in the UK.
Anyway, I'll be doing Sofia in another post so to cut the story short, Wednesday morning we headed back to a very different airport. Crowds of people now, raised voices at the desks, lots of jostling. It turned out that all the previous flights had been cancelled again and we had tickets to the first flight out of Sofia since aircraft were grounded.
Mental note to buy a lottery ticket on our return home.
No joy there, my luck was left behind in Bulgaria.
At least we had a deposit on a place.
Would it all go through before we returned as planned in May?
Would we be staying in our own place in Bulgaria?
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