I awoke at 3.30 am, as I often do, and noticed on my phone that there had been a terrible bomb attack in Manchester. Our eldest son and his girlfriend live in Manchester and so I was immediately worried and had a restless night until we got confirmation from Sam that neither of them had been near the blast. What a awful world we live in, where anyone can bring themselves to target children with a bomb to further their religious views.

Sarah noticed yesterday that Melek’s eye (remember he only has one) was looking very white where it should be black and it was also weeping. A thorough examination from our resident veterinary expert, Mrs. Sarah Higham, confirmed that his eye “was not right”.

It’s lucky that we are on such a well organised campsite, because a quick chat with Nicky, one of the owners, confirmed that they had the details of an English speaking vet in nearby Veliko Tarnarvo. Not only that but she would organise someone to ring in the morning and explain the situation to the vet. I addition she handed us a sheet with the details of the vet, including GPS co-ordinates, and on the same sheet were details and GPS co-ordinates for Doctors, Hospitals, Supermarkets, Cashpoint Machines; you name it and it was there. I commended her on her amazing organisation and she explained it was because she and her husband Nick were motorhomers and so know what will be useful to fellow travellers.

While I was talking to Nicky I asked about the memorials pinned to people’s front doors, which I discussed in yesterday’s blog. She explained that there is an amazing reverence and commemoration of the dead in Bulgaria. In addition to the memorial, which may stay in place for years and is usually pinned to the door of the deceased, there is also a black bow, which we have also noticed, which stays in place for 12 months. The relatives and friends of the deceased hold regular memorial parties at 3 months, one year, two years and at intervals up to even 30 years. She says their restaurant hosts some of these parties and you would be hard pushed to tell the difference between one of these wakes and a birthday party. They are joyous celebrations of the life of the deceased. In Bulgaria the dead are not forgotten.

After breakfast I went to reception and they had already been in touch with the vet. All the veterinary staff spoke English, we were told, and they were expecting us. We quickly got Basil ready to roll and drove 11km to the vet, via one of the cashpoint machines on Nicky’s wonderful leaflet.

The vets was much as you would expect in Britain. Clean, modern and with a lovely little pet shop attached. Melek, stoic as always, allowed the vet to put dye in his eye and the diagnosis was an ulcer on his cornea.

Before Melek lost his left eye, ulcers were a perennial problem, because being a Shih-tsu his eyes protrude and the lids don’t close properly. After his eye was removed we had the skin tightened around his good eye so that his lids closed properly and this is the first ulcer he had had since then, over 2 years ago.

Laid back or what?

The treatment is regular eye drops. Melek is so laid back that applying them is luckily easy. Unfortunately, even if it heals, which it should , he will be left with another scar on his cornea, each one reducing his vision slightly. The vet wants to see us again on Friday so we are going to be stuck at Camping Veliko Tarnarvo much longer than we anticipated. Still there are worse places to be stuck – the weather’s good and the campsite is excellent.

Melek takes his medicine like a man!

There was as another key stage of the Giro D’Italia today, the climax of which I watched with Melek, while Sarah took Mabel for a walk. The stage involved climbing three mountains, each over 2000 metres in height. Unfortunately it ended in controversy again, albeit with a slightly humorous side. The race leader was caught short on the approach to the final climb. The sight of him stripping off his jersey and shorts to squat by the roadside was not edifying. The controversy arose from the fact that often in these situations, the main contenders for the race will “sit up” and wait for the race leader. Sportsmanship at its finest. Unfortunately on this occasion there was not such sportsmanlike behaviour as his main rivals put the hammer down and left him disconsolately relieving himself in full view of hundreds of cameras.