The good news and not so good news

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Plezier
Posts: 1643
Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2014 12:08 am
MGF Register Region: Europe
Model of Car: MGF 75th
Location: Ruse Bulgaria

The good news and not so good news

Post by Plezier » Sun Aug 06, 2017 5:56 pm

Sadly "Elsie" my 79 VVC has been sold to a breaker. We were just not in a position to get her sills fixed and rear bumper replaced what with the house sale and move. Blue the 97 Mpi was sold last year to a Doctor in Leciester. The house is now sold and the new owners have moved in so I am typing this fom the temporary rented house in our new home.

The good new is that even though we ran out of time the 75th Anniversary has a new MOT and hopefully that dratted K-Seal that made it reappearence causing over heating issues has been sorted by MG-Rover Mobile mechanics of Derby. She required a bit of welding to her N/S sill it seems and a brake pipe replaced. The nephew picks her up tomorrow and she is being transported out to us here in the near future. Am waiting on the date for that at the moment. Right now it's real top down weather with temps in the mid to high 30's centigrade maybe even a bit too hot. They say it will reach around 40 degrees mid week.

So where did we move to?? ............................. Bulgaria in South Eastern Europe and we have just begun the house search for our new home. As the 75th will have to be registered here it looks like we might need a Certificate of Conformity but am not certain about this as yet. Finding out concrete facts as to what is needed is difficult to say the least. Once she arrives here I will be swapping the headlights for soem new LHD ones.

The cost of moving and registering "Elsie" was why it was not posible for me to keep her.

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talkingcars
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Re: The good news and not so good news

Post by talkingcars » Sun Aug 06, 2017 10:17 pm

Is someone driving it out, could use the car train service to reduce the driving.
Home to black Alfa 159 3.2 V6 Q4, blue MGZR160, green MGF VVC and grey MGF 1.8i, and red MG Maestro T16.

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Plezier
Posts: 1643
Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2014 12:08 am
MGF Register Region: Europe
Model of Car: MGF 75th
Location: Ruse Bulgaria

Re: The good news and not so good news

Post by Plezier » Mon Aug 07, 2017 4:54 am

No the 75th and my Rover 75 CDT auto are being transported here as cannot spare the time to fly back and drive even one over plus cannot leave an 83 year old alone especially as she is partially sighted. Add that we are also house hunting that means transportation is our only option. It seems buying used here can be fraught with issues with many cars being "clocked" still. So bringing known vehicles seemed the best option.

Am not sure that the car train service extends here?

jaapaap1111
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Re: The good news and not so good news

Post by jaapaap1111 » Mon Aug 07, 2017 7:53 pm

Is there no forum member willing to drive it to you at the cost of petrol stay and flight? Or will that be too costly?

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-G920F met Tapatalk

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talkingcars
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Re: The good news and not so good news

Post by talkingcars » Tue Aug 08, 2017 11:24 pm

The service runs as far as Vienna so is getting close to you.

James
Home to black Alfa 159 3.2 V6 Q4, blue MGZR160, green MGF VVC and grey MGF 1.8i, and red MG Maestro T16.

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Phil Jay
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Re: The good news and not so good news

Post by Phil Jay » Wed Aug 09, 2017 4:04 pm

Hi there,
I'm really interested to know why you decided to move to Bulgaria, as it must be quite an upheaval and a lot more difficult than moving to say France or Spain? I really wish you well with the search for your new permanent home and for the future.

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Tipper
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Re: The good news and not so good news

Post by Tipper » Thu Aug 10, 2017 10:32 am

Certainly a brave move especially with an elderly relative.

Good luck for the future.

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Rob Bell
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Re: The good news and not so good news

Post by Rob Bell » Fri Aug 11, 2017 2:20 pm

Good luck - look forward to updates! :)

Plezier
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Model of Car: MGF 75th
Location: Ruse Bulgaria

Re: The good news and not so good news

Post by Plezier » Sun Aug 13, 2017 6:07 pm

OK I will try to answer some of the questions raised like Phil's why ..................... actually it was Mothers dream to live abroad. She had bene saying if Dad died and left he on her own she would move to France so when dad died in December 2015 we started talking about her wishes an dreams then started making enquiries then the house sale fell through in Jan 2016. It went bck on the market a couple of months later and a sale was agreed in May. We started the hunt for a rental house in France and one we found a likely one tried to rent it. It was then we discovered that the French do not want poor british pensioners and despite what the governemt says te British state pension is poor.

In France to ent a property you have to provide proof on uncome that is at least 3x the monthly rent and with a basic British widows pension which is about £550 PCM this in no where enough to rent anything in France now on the other hand the French full pension is around 1700 Euros PCM!! The other thing we found was the apathy of French Immobliers we must have made ove 40 enquiries and got about 5 responses. WE wanted to rent while we looked for the area and property we liked to then buy. So France was out and Bulgaria came up as a family member had been looking at properties online in Bulgaria for a long time and showed Mother what was available. So with the sale going through we had to find somewhere to live, firtly we looked around for a bungalow to rent in the UK and quickly discovered that any in our price range were tiny pokey little places and not suitable at all, so Bulgaria came up again and in mid June made the trip out to have a look at some properties. None that the agent showed us were suitable or fairly priced so through a lawyer here we managed to rent a house near the centre of the city.

Now we are working our way through the steps to live here permanantly. We no have Bulgarian ID and residency cards and are currently working to get registered with the health service. I am now registered in the Bulgarian tax system which I had to do when we changed the address on our bank accounts to here in Bulgaria. We have a house viewing trip planned for Wednesday.

Now many have said it's brave, others have said fool hardy, some even that were barking mad, but none of us are getting younger and if Mother is going to see something other than the UK she had to do it while still able to. Until this move she had been out of the UK twice and those were day trips to France! Others have said we will isolated due to not understanding the language well despsite speaking English fairly well in the UK we WERE isolated there. We saw our neighbour about once a week the lady who did her nails once every three weeks and the hair dresser once a week............... that was it! Due to our not beign able to go out when dad was needing our help which got more demanding over the eyars until it was 24/7 the so called friends just didn't bother with us so we found out exactly who our real friends were. None were in Lincolnshire and all were old friends from down south and Mum & Dad moved to Lincolnshire back in 83!!!

Have found some MGF's and TF's for sale on a bg web site sadly many are in very poor repair of being broken for parts. There is a Green LHD MGF for about £2,500 that I saw on there. I will try to find another photo hosting site and post some photos.

Phil Jay
Posts: 269
Joined: Sun Dec 11, 2011 2:01 pm
MGF Register Region: Midlands
Model of Car: MG TF 135
Location: Coleshill

Re: The good news and not so good news

Post by Phil Jay » Sun Aug 13, 2017 9:40 pm

Hi again. Thanks so much for your post. I do think you're incredibly brave, but it's brilliant what you are doing for your mom. I wish you Health and happiness in your new life. Do update us on future developments. Phil

Plezier
Posts: 1643
Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2014 12:08 am
MGF Register Region: Europe
Model of Car: MGF 75th
Location: Ruse Bulgaria

Re: The good news and not so good news

Post by Plezier » Sun Aug 20, 2017 6:50 pm

Will keep you informed ................. still no date for the cars transportation here!! getting miffed as deposit has been paid. Anyway we have been house hunting and Mother is in love with two properties one of which is in Lom National Park. It's a split level bungalow..........more of a cottage to my thinking but it's a bit small and the 4 steep stone stesp up the the top level where bathroom and loo is means we need a "granny annex" extension built and this is likely to make it beyond our budget.

The second property we just viewed today and it's much bigger and a real house typical Bulgarian with external stairs onto small balcony then into the upstairs. It has a garage with inspection pit and a largish stone barn. Ready to move into the issue is the distance from ground floor bedroom to bathroom so we need to add a shower room/toilet in the hall outside the bedroom and also one upstairs as there is washing or toilet facilities up there and no heating! Another item that needs addressing so some thinking and head scratching to do then the number crunching to see if we can achieve it within budget. The barn need a drive to it and doorway widened then doors added to fit cars inside out of the weather as am sure a metre of snow and -20 degrees C will not be good for soft tops.

Fraser
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Re: The good news and not so good news

Post by Fraser » Fri Sep 01, 2017 11:27 pm

No doubt you are aware that Bulgarian is a Slavic language very similar to Russian, and uses the Cyrillic script. When I went to Sofia on business some years ago it was a big culture shock because almost nobody spoke English. And this was the capital city ! It's probably better at resorts on the Black Sea where they get lots of tourists. If you smoke it's a smoker's paradise as fags are very cheap as is booze !!

Geoff.F
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Re: The good news and not so good news

Post by Geoff.F » Sat Sep 02, 2017 10:22 am

Ah. Eastern Europe.
In 1968, I drove to Belgrade to take a Posting for 3 Years. On arrival in Belgrade, I took out my street Map to find the Hotel Slavija. The Street names were were in Cyrillic but the map was not. Having learnt enough Serbo-Croation to live, I asked a Policeman for directions. Looking at the crazy Englishman, he pointed to a sign 30 yards down the road - in Cyrillic, Hotel Slavija.
It is essential to speak some local language if only to prevent paying Tourist Prices at Restaurants and the local shops.
I took out a new Austin 1300 Countryman. Spares were readilly available as CKD cars were assembled in Slovenia. An early job was to teach the local Dealership how to use their Hydralastic pump.
Geoff.F

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