Dental appointment. J’s plate is finished. Apparently only one technician in Lefkoşa (Nicosia) still doing the metal ones and people from the South as well as the North go to him. As always, we find ourselves looking forward to the visit for the talk more than anything. Always philosophical and over a wide range of subjects - photography, history, culture. He’s apologetic that prices have gone up. There is, of course, a particular problem with the Turkish lira - now worth only about a third of what it was when we were locked down here in March of 2020, but apart from that prices have gone up everywhere. He has recently come back from a month in Istanbul where his wife went for surgery and says not only has the city changed, lost some of its distinctive character, but it has become very expensive - especially a month of hotels and taxis. Must have been over ten years ago that we were last there and prices were quite reasonable then, but seems that world may have gone forever.
Stop in the square outside the mosque on our way back. This square too has changed but mainly because when we lived in the old city during the lockdown it was a throwback experience - no tourists, few businesses open, quiet enough to hear the morning rooster. Now getting back to its jaunty self, with tourists coming to the cafés, and designer brands (fake or otherwise) displayed on tables and racks in front of the shops. But still an undercurrent of life beneath the tourist facade. A wooden table in a little alley with a half dozen knitted baby garments for sale, pale pink. Pots of plants along the pavement in a side street carefully watered daily. A man with a bicycle taking a short nap on a bench.
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