Saved by his mother, at least should have been

After a few days of having nothing but what change we found in the streets or what Valeri begged or stole from drunk tourists, I was at his mercy and had to depend on him to even eat which meant him foraging for fruit, veg and nuts and making meals from next to nothing such as free range eggs he acquired from local people. Valeri was used to living off the land but I  wasnt. I didnt want to have to live this way but I was so close to giving up and accepting that this was my fate that I just went into autopilot.

I had hoped that someone from my family or the friends who kept telling me they would help me to get out of this situation and back to the UK to sort out the mess I was in would have done something by now but they hadnt and I knew that they were not coming to rescue me. My family was questioning my sanity but still did not see this as important enough to make the trip to Bulgaria so I just stopped bothering with them!

I was in this by myself and Bulgaria was my home through choice so I just had to deal with being broke and adapt to the life I now had which was to live as most Bulgarians lived.

It wasnt through choice and not the way that I wanted to live my life but here I was! It overwhelmed me to accept that this was my fate that I broke down one day and just lay in my bed for the entire day and cried and cried.

Valeri was surprisingly good and showed compassion and actually made me feel better!
He reassured me that he would take care of us and pointed out that we only had each other which sadly was the truth!

He managed to get a bottle of wine from somewhere and suggested we go to the beach to drink it and watch the sunset which we did.

I ended up drinking most of the bottle of wine and was drunk which consequently turned into me feeling sick when we got back to the apartment after dancing around like a pair of kids. I threw up and Valeri had to put me to bed with my only words being 'az sum bona' which means 'I am sick' before I passed out he would tell me the following morning with much amusement seeing as he had no idea I could say it Bulgarian and was so incoherent that I had trouble even speaking in English!

It was a day that I can look back on as a good memory!

Valeri was also very happy to tell me the next morning that our hard time was over and that he had got money for us from his mother so I had no need to feel down anymore! It certainly took the focus off my hangover!

His mother had wired us €150 which was approx 300 lv. Enough to pay 100lv to stay in the apartment for another 5 days as well as feed us extremely well for a good few weeks at least.

The money arrived in his account the next day and he paid the rent for the apartment and went shopping for the many different ingredients that he needed to cook us breakfast, lunch and dinner for the coming week!

For the first time in a long time I felt like a weight had been been lifted and I had been spared from having to take responsibility for our welfare for once! It felt great to have someone else take the pressure off and look after me for a change.

I was in high spirits and Valeri was in high spirits!

Valeri was clearly pleased to have been the provider and saviour in this instance and I realised that it had done wonders for his self esteem and ego to be respected and appreciated by me for proving that he could take care of us. He promised that he would not gamble with the rest of the money as he wanted to step up and take care of us and that was his priority now that he knew how important it was to me to feel like I could rely on him..

I was starting to come round to the idea that he would take care of us and could take care of us if we lived the Bulgarian way of life. I couldnt afford to live in my villa anymore and I just had to accept that but I just couldn't, especially when I became aware that he had used the other half of the money from his mother to gamble despite everything he had said to me the day before about not doing it!

Again we were in the highly stressful situation where for the next few days his gambling would take him from one extreme to another and I had no choice but to endure his highs and lows in all its intensity and walk on eggshells the entire time!