Thursday, February 29/2024

Courtesy of Gündem Kıbrıs

 Notice in the Turkish paper thanking those who helped acquire donated blood for a man undergoing treatment for cancer:

"Thank you very much to everyone, the blood was enough, thank you to everyone who donated blood and tried to find it"

Appeals for blood donations for specific recipients are quite common here, and not only when rare blood types are required. There is a blood bank but it usually only extends to emergencies. Families and friends are expected to find blood donors for surgery or medical procedures and it is quite common to see appeals, often including the patient’s name and condition and usually including the blood type. Frequently an age limit is included, such as under 50 (usually donors are under 60) and sometimes gender is specified. Family members may offer to provide transportation.

As with most newspapers accidents and crimes are standard fare. But the news isn’t always serious. A recent edition tells us that “a person walked around the street naked in Girne” and “the locals recorded those moments”. 

Wednesday, February 28/2024

Chinaberry Tree

 Trees are changing as spring comes. Most of the flowering ones are still rather winter bedraggled though the blossoms are coming out on the patio buddleia - despite something chewing holes in a few of the leaves. Haven’t spotted insects or caterpillars at work. 

The fig tree across the road is practically stark naked. Looking like a warning not to go deeper into the forest. Probably close to two months since we were eating figs each time we passed. Lemons still flourishing everywhere though fewer oranges visible in the orchards and those in the shop looking a bit less confident . 

Chinaberry trees give the neighborhood a touch of the exotic - for those who aren’t used to seeing them, anyway. Look from a distance like trees sporting chickpeas. 

There are some almond blossoms out but the ones nearest us seem a bit on the slow side. Definitely more exuberant last year.

Tuesday, February 27/2024

 Lovely sunny day. Temperature close to 20, but as usual much warmer in the sun as we sit reading on the patio looking down at the Mediterranean. Love the way it changes mood. Sometimes a smooth deep sapphire, other times a stormy grey. Sometimes streaked blue and green tones. Or a grainy off-white, looking like roughly graded snow. Or whitecaps on dark blue. Today it’s a deep blue but not smooth, reminding me of Tennyson’s line about “the wrinkled sea”.

J reading from the poetry anthology we picked up at the market on Saturday. I’m reading William Dalrymple’s From the Holy Mountain, a book in which he recounts his journey in the late nineties tracing the travels through the Middle East of a monk called John Moschos in the late sixth and early seventh centuries. The book is also recording the very last of many Christian orthodox communities as the monasteries have crumbled and villagers have left hostile surroundings.  In a couple of places Dalrymple’s travels have overlapped with our own as he recalls staying at the Baron Hotel in Aleppo, Syria - more famous for playing host to the likes of Lawrence of Arabia and Kemal Ataturk. And there are also Damascus and Jerusalem and Alexandria. Dalrymple is a brilliant historical writer - lucid, informed, with an eye for quirky detail. And a super podcaster as well.

Monday, February 26/2024

Dolmuş in to Girne on a couple of errands. Stop at Mr Pound. We haven’t been before and, like the pound and dollar stores elsewhere the prices obviously don’t match the shop name. Here everything is 50 Turkish lira (€1.48, £1.27, $2.17 CAD) Obviously nothing of especially high quality but a wide range of everyday items, many at pretty fair prices. Had intended to buy conditioner anyway and J scores a pretty decent leather belt.

Walk down to the harbour front. They’ve been working on renovations on the charming harbour dating back to Venetian times, redoing the roadways and upgrading the infrastructure. However, mismanagement and delays have meant that a project that began in December 2022, with an expected completion date of May 2023, is still not finished. Stonework on the roads looking good but the quayside park where we strolled last time now closed for renovations. Park benches nowhere to be seen. Still a work in progress!

So back up to the old square where we have lovely lamb pitas. Warm enough but so windy that napkins are impossible and an empty plate is in danger of becoming a frisbee. The sandwich board sign in front of the restaurant blows over with a bang! 

Home by dolmuş. 

  

Sunday, February 25/2024

 The buddleia on the edge of the patio, more familiarly known as a butterfly bush, is beginning to flower, and, as the name suggests it would, it attracts a butterfly. Lovely on the patio. Twenty-three in the shade but 40 in the direct sun. Don’t stay long in the direct sun but the clothes on the rack dry pretty quickly.

And, in the only in Cyprus department - well, some other countries are possible - an ambulance ran into a herd of wild donkeys on a main road on the Karpaz peninsula last night. Driver and passenger ok and the donkey they hit in good enough shape to run away. Ambulance apparently badly damaged. LGC news source adds a note: There is a population of around 1,000 wild donkeys. Which are under the protection of the Turkish Cypriot government. They are free to wander in herds over an area of 300 square kilometres (120 square miles) [Wiki].  We have in fact encountered wild donkeys in that part of the country but we weren’t driving at the time and they were just being curious - and hoping for handouts.

Saturday m February 24/2024

 Sad that the dried fruit and nut man is not at market for the third week. Fruit and nut supplies doing all right but now definitely have to buy garlic elsewhere and it almost certainly won’t be as good. Are thinking that we may not buy anything here this week when Beverly points us to the man selling packages of oyster mushrooms. He doesn’t speak. English but a German man next to us waxes enthusiastic and we buy a pack.

Beverly is here with the charity book shop that supports street dogs - of which there are quite a few, though undoubtedly not as many as street cats. The charity has a large regular stall at the market with quite a wide selection of books and B, knowing J was on the lookout for poetry anthologies has hunted a few out for him, so we end up acquiring a general collection as well as a smaller volume of World War I poets. 

Then chat with Xenia, from whom we bought the olive oil. She mainly sells pashminas and ponchos but also, on the side, a few odds and ends for charity. Three plates this time. Two of them, we’re amused to see, melamine ones saying Canada in big bright letters. There is a story. They belonged to an elderly Canadian couple Xenia knew who used to holiday here every year. The husband died and the wife no longer wished to return alone and gave Xenia some of her things to sell for charity. We forego the Canadian plates but do buy a pretty gold colored glass plate. It’s in a good cause.

Stop at our supermarket on the way home. What we take at first to be bread in the oven turns out to be  simits baking. Would be called koulouri in Greek. They’re bagel shaped and studded with sesame seeds, made from bread dough and baked until they’re golden and the sesame seeds are toasted. Like baguettes, much better the morning they’re baked, but these are the freshest we’ve ever had - and the best. Began eating as we walked home and had to take a photo while there was still only one bite missing.

Linguistic note. Simit for obvious reasons is also Turkish schoolboy slang for zero. As in: ‘How did you do on the test?” “Didn’t know any of the answers - simit!”

Starter at supper is sautéed oyster mushrooms and sautéed artichoke hearts (one of J’s specialties). Beautiful.

Friday, February 23/2024

 Down to the Blue Song in the afternoon. Meet up with last week’s lot plus four or five more. Beverly explains that a number of them are members of an amateur dramatic club and they’re making plans for a production they’ll be putting on six weeks from now. Some discussion re a woman whose car had been crushed by the huge supermarket sign that came down in the storm at the end of last month. Apparently she’d just got out of the car. The unlucky part is that her automobile insurance says it’s the supermarket’s insurance that should pay up, while they say it isn’t as it’s an act of God. Seems likely to be settled in court eventually. Meanwhile the woman is without a vehicle - but alive.

Sun going down behind the mountains makes sunset earlier than it would be with an unobstructed view, but the days are getting longer. Sky still rosy until nearly six now. Twilight always noticeably shorter here than at home because of the lower latitude - the path of the sun is at a higher angle.

Thursday, February 22/2024

 And from the delightful translation department, Gündem Kıbrıs newspaper is pleased to announce a government “barley grant to small-headed animal producers”. Accompanying photo does suggest that the farmers may have normal sized crania. Animals pretty cute anyway.

Wednesday, February 21/2024

 Once, many years ago, took an education class on teaching ESL. Rather back to front as I had previously taught an ESL class of Hong Kong students and subsequently never did so again, as often seems to be the way of things. A couple of things stuck in my mind. One was an article I read explaining that not all languages divide the colour spectrum in the same way - as in whether you perceive indigo and violet as different colours may be down to the language you speak rather than your visual perceptions. Leading to more reflections on Homer and the wine-dark sea. 

Another observation was that people learn languages better when the vocabulary provided gives them the words they most want. Which is no doubt why such a high proportion of my very limited Polish vocabulary consists of food words. And the first few Turkish words I recognise are disproportionately food related. As usual the term for whole wheat nearly the first. 

Now a new one - adet. (Predictive text just done its best to rewrite that as adept). Means “piece” and is used in the produce section of a grocery store where the English would say each. Or the Greeks would use mono, as in one. If the word adet is missing then the price is per kilo and goes without saying. For some items - say a cauliflower - the price per kilo may be pretty well the same as the price for one. For an avocado not. So it matters.

Walking home from the supermarket struck as always with the grandeur of the mountains. The slope from the village to the sea is gradual over about a kilometre but the village rises steeply for a few blocks behind us and then gives way to near vertical rock face to the peaks.

Tuesday, February 20/2024

 We’ve hardly noticed it, because winter here is not what we really regard as winter, but the season is changing. When did the leaves on the fig tree disappear? Did notice that there were fewer figs within reach of the road, but put that down to passersby - including us - helping themselves to one as they went. And the oranges on the trees are sparser at the same time as the oranges in the store are cheaper ( about 20tl a kilo or less - €0.60, £0.50, $0.87 CAD). But they’re also more tired. It’s a winter fruit and winter is no more. 

Do notice that the birds seem to have been enjoying easier access through the orange peel though!

Monday, February 19/2024

Sign on the door at the Wild Duck

Today’s walk takes us west, down to the main road. It’s a sunny day with a bit of a breeze so we decide to check out a pharmacy that people have spoken highly of. All pharmacies here, as in the South, are small. That’s in part because they don’t really carry most of the items that fill the drug store shelves in Canada. No lipstick, magazines, last minute kiddie birthday gifts. Mostly medicines, prescription and otherwise. Many medications that would require a prescription in Canada don’t here. Others are verboten regardless of prescription. Pharmacies also have things like medicated skin creams - nothing sexy. A pharmacy - eczane - is where I went to buy hydrogen peroxide. Can see the reasons that foreigners like this one. For one thing the pharmacist is quick on the uptake - and she speaks excellent English.

Almost next door is the Wild Duck restaurant. That also apparently appeals to foreigners. And to us, in a way. Not particularly interested in the menu, which seems to run mainly to English comfort food, none of it underpriced. But the setting is a pleasure. A large fenced  park with a duck pond, children’s play equipment and plenty of outside tables - choose sun or shade. We pick a cool, shady spot and split a beer. Our walk is about two kilometres each way with this the midpoint. 

Stop in at Bestmar on the way back and buy a couple of artichokes and some sundried olives.

Sunday, February 18/2024

Courtesy of Gündem Kıbrıs

 

In the days leading up to and following the first anniversary of the earthquake in which the North Cypriot volleyball teams were killed a number of their family members have posted online or published in the newspapers what are less in memoriam notices than an open wound. As the lines from Les Misérables have it:

There's a grief that can't be spoken

There's a pain goes on and on

Except that the grief is spoken. With a poetic eloquence that survives all attempts of electronic translation to kill it. Gündem Kıbrıs has posted the following as 

Heartbreaking post from a grieving mother...

"We used to make jokes, dance, and you would spread laughter to every particle of that house, what about in this hall? Now there is a silent wail here! Don't worry, only me and Burak brother hear it! We play different roles so that our brothers don't hear, where we should be most sincere! We would turn off the lights and say "let's choose a Dream movie". First you started with scary movies, I’d say “I’m scared”. You be like "mom, what are you afraid of? " of trouble. My real mother ... What am I afraid of honestly? I should be afraid of the creatures called humans on earth! I thought my heart couldn't handle the scenes in the movie. But look I'm starring in the greatest horror movie. I'm not afraid of anything anymore, like YOU!”

Less moving, perhaps, but still poetic are tributes and expressions of admiration or sympathy that appear on the Facebook pages of Turkish Cypriot friends of ours. Emotional, poetic, expressive in a way that leaves an Anglo-Saxon marooned in unfamiliar territory. They must think of us as pathetically literal minded, task oriented and unresponsive - and kindly make allowances. 

And I’m three quarters Celt married to a hundred percent East European!

Saturday, February 17/2024

Saturday and down to the market. Second week that the man who sells the nuts and dried fruit isn’t here. Ask a couple of the other vendors about him but they don’t seem to know, though one - the woman who sold us the olive oil two weeks ago - says that the fee for the stalls has been raised to 200 Turkish lira, so that could be the reason. Our guess is that it isn’t, though. That’s €6 (£5, $8.75 CAD) and he always seemed to have plenty of customers. Buy tomatoes at another stall for the same price as at the supermarket, but they’re nicer looking. 

On the way home stop as we’re passing the supermarket to get bread. Can smell it baking as soon as I walk in the door. It’s still in the big oven, but as I ascertain this the oven timer dings and the girl comes to take the loaves out. Zeytinli? I ask. With olives? And yes, the sourdough baguettes are the ones with olive. And she gives me two - oven hot and fragrant. So, early lunch on the patio with the bread and humus and J’s avocado spread and cheese.

Friday, February 16/2024

 Colour us astonished. Larnaca airport, the Cyprus Mail is pleased to announce, has been ranked in the top 20 airports in the world by British business website BusinessFinancing, whoever they may be. The ranking purports to be based on scores given by business travellers, who ranked Larnaca airport in 13th place globally and in fourth place in Europe. We have been through Larnaca airport many times over the past several years. It’s not horrible, but award winner? It doesn’t have free drinking water, which many greener airports now do. Has made no attempt to provide adequate charging points for phones and tablets, and if one were to arrive as far before the flight as they request - which admittedly no Cypriot would dream of doing - recharging might well be necessary. And you can’t put toilet paper down the flush. This is, unfortunately, standard in Cyprus and Greece and is down to small bore pipes employed, but considering that the present terminal building is only fifteen years old and is outside the city proper they should have been able to do a little better. 

Happily, no rain in the afternoon, so we walk down to the Blue Song for a drink and a chat with a few of the foreign residents. An interesting, friendly, and amusing group. 

Thursday, February 15/2024

 Turkish is not an Indo-European language. Meaning English has less in common with Turkish than it does with French or German or Spanish. Less than it does with Welsh or Punjabi. Thus  few Turkish words seem obvious to an English speaker the way Germanic or Romance language words might. Except of course for the odd borrowed term. When, twenty-three years ago, we first came to North Cyprus we took a bus across the south of Türkiye to Taşucu to catch the ferry. The driver wanted to know where in Taşucu we wanted to alight. We said we wanted to take the ferry. Ah, feribot! And much discussion amongst the passengers on the best stop for us. 

One of the most disconcerting aspects of the Turkish language is the lack of gender specific pronouns. There is no difference in Turkish between he and she. Not really a problem in itself. The difficulty comes in translating from the Turkish. Like the Chinese students I taught many years ago, Turkish people sometimes choose the wrong English pronoun with confusing or even startling results. These days a computer program may have done the choosing with little concern for effect.

Hence a news item in Gündem Kıbrıs that reads “He pushed his mother down with whom he was arguing, causing his nose to break!” [exclamation mark theirs]

Wednesday, February 14/2024

Screenshot of radar at 03:00 Wednesday 

 Well, seems yesterday’s weather warnings had some validity but then so did my best guess - that eighteen hours worth of storm was not heading east across the Mediterranean. Call it a draw. About three this morning a storm was conjured up from nowhere. Nonstop thunder and sheet lightning, strong winds and (briefly) heavy rain. But sunny by morning and a sun and cloud mix the rest of the day. Blue sky and a sapphire sea.

Not sure whether Valentine’s Day trumps Ash Wednesday. Though did know someone who trained as a nurse in the forties under some pretty strict nuns who informed her that Lent notwithstanding one never fasts on St Patrick’s Day. In any case, we don’t normally observe Ash Wednesday as a day of fast or abstinence and really only celebrate Valentine’s Day in a kind of opportunistic fashion. Which leaves us deciding to go out for a late lunch. 

Altınbaşak is a small family restaurant about a kilometre from us. Mostly uphill, but then that does translate to downhill on the way home. Very friendly though we don’t have much language in common. J would really like to have lamb but it’s “finished”, so he settles for a chicken doner kebab. I’m always a little cynical - in a nice way  - about the use of “finished”, thinking it a soft way of saying that there isn’t any and possibly never will be. A bit like the Polish menu. Small restaurants in Poland do have menus but they’re likely to include everything they might ever be lucky enough to have in the kitchen. If you want to order you might as well start by inquiring politely what they recommend. 

Although I have been wrong about the “finished” response. When we were living in Gazimağusa in 2020 we sometimes ate, after the lockdown was lifted, at one of the outside tables at a restaurant around the corner. Şeftali sausages were on the menu and each time we ate there I would try ordering them and the waiter would say “finished”. Which I regarded as polite fiction, thinking they must be too difficult to obtain. Until one day he said yes. And maybe Altınbaşak does have lamb if you get there early enough - say brunch time. And to be fair it is three o’clock in a country where the main meal is traditionally at midday, leaving us alone if you don’t count the three cats. Cats ever hopeful, and not at all deterred by my having accidentally stepped on one of them.

Tuesday, February 13/2024

 Warnings false and otherwise. First for Saharan dust, warning for yesterday until today. But not so we noticed. Cloudy, but didn’t feel dusty. And didn’t have the reddish tinge that Saharan dust sometimes has. Then storm warnings. From evening until tomorrow afternoon. Heavy rain? Well, there was a little intermittent rain but both radar sources show it beating a retreat and heading up over mainland Türkiye. So unless there’s an about face….Gale force winds predicted over the sea north of us tonight. Who knows, but pretty light so far. Haven’t brought the patio chairs in. If they’re missing in the morning we’ll know the weatherman was right.

Monday, February 12/2024

Courtesy of Martin Shovel via X

 Certainly familiar with the strategy, and new examples popping up daily in western political scenes, but had had no idea of the origins. Though shouldn’t have been surprised to see this particular Aussie as the source:

The dead cat strategy was invented by the Tories’ election guru Lynton Crosby, but it was explained most clearly by one beneficiary of his dark arts, the then Telegraph columnist Boris Johnson, in one of his typical rants against the EU. The advice from Johnson’s “Australian friend” was that if you’re losing an argument and people are focussing on a reality that is damaging to you, your best bet was to throw “a dead cat on the table,” everyone will shout “‘jeez, mate, there’s a dead cat on the table!’; In other words they will be talking about the dead cat, the thing you want them to talk about, and they will not be talking about the issue that has been causing you so much grief.”

Unfortunately, there is an actual dead cat next to our communal rubbish bin. Next door neighbour and I regard it sadly. Not a great deal of language in common but I do know the word for municipality. Will they take it? Of course, she says. How soon may be another matter. And probably best pursued by someone more fluent in Turkish.

And, in the crime department, a man has been arrested and charged with both theft and impersonating a police officer. He apparently went to a bureau de change in Nicosia, announced that he was a policeman, and asked for £1000  in exchange for Turkish lira. Then left with the thousand pounds without providing the lira. The police tracked him and it turns out that he had an astonishing 224 previous convictions. None of them must have been major or he’d still be doing time. May also explain why he compounded the offense by announcing untruthfully and quite unnecessarily that he was a police officer as well as why he didn’t ask for a larger sum than £1000 while he was at it. He’s simply addicted to crime.

Sunday, February 11/2024

 Red sky at night sailor’s delight. And indeed after last night’s fire red sunset it is a lovely morning. And quiet, as it usually is here. Though we do hear two or three gunshots. Presumably because hunting season consists of a number of Wednesdays and Sundays through the winter. It’s not legal to hunt in the village, but we’re not far from mountain roads and trails where it should be legal.

And what gets hunted? Wood pigeon, wild pigeon and woodcock. Sounds normal. Also crow and magpie.  Our friends, though admittedly we haven’t made friends with the local crows. True, crows frequently not beloved of farmers, though they don’t seem particularly interested in the orchards around here. Can understand regarding them as a nuisance. But - there are instructions online for cooking crow. Not Turkish instructions. American? Quite enough to make me vegetarian. 

And also song thrush. The fact that they’re songbirds is sad in itself. They are also hunted in the South of Cyprus as well as in Spain and France. In the South it’s legal to hunt them but not to trap them. Illegal but not unusual. They are frequently trapped by using sticky surfaces - which of course traps any other birds that land there too. The payoff is that they are regarded as a delicacy and secretly served at restaurants to select clientele. The hunters and restaurateurs charged if caught. Have no idea what the law is here in the North - other than that hunting them is legal.

Saturday, February 10/2024

Snail more or less actual size 

 On the way to the market we spot a lovely little snail shell. At least assuming it’s only the shell. Once took one home only to find to my dismay some time later that it had been inhabited, though the resident was no longer alive. In any case too fragile to take on a market trip, but maybe on the way back. Leave it on a stone wall.

Had been expecting to buy peanuts from the man who sells dried fruit and nuts. He’s been there every other week but today his stall is empty. Hope this is a one off. We’d miss him. He also has the best garlic we’ve bought in years.

Do buy honey from a woman who is usually there. She’s quiet and nice and two  non-local men have been messing her about (non local as in neither Turkish Cypriot nor foreigners regularly staying in the area). They’re loud and look like they’re trying to scam her - I should get the last one free, I’m paying in sterling - as the jars get shuffled about. She tells him that she needs to sell at full price as she has no one supporting her. Hope that he didn’t manage to cheat her. I mutter ‘wide boy’ as we leave.

Snail shell still on the stone wall as we return so take it with us. It’s small but the design is surprisingly intricate, well beyond what camouflage would have required.

Friday, February 9/2024

Courtesy of Gundemkibris.com

 The price of gas for cooking - and the cost of electricity and of petrol - is government controlled in North Cyprus. There has just been an increase of 10 Turkish lira in the cost of a ten kilogram cylinder of gas for cooking, bringing it to 390 lira (€11.78, £10.05, $17.11 CAD). Actually don’t know how long a cylinder lasts as we didn’t finish one when we were here for two and a half months last year. Have had this one for over two months and suspect we’re cooking more this year than last. Most sites say that gas is usually less expensive to cook with than electric, though obviously this would depend on local energy prices.

We have reached the point of preferring it to electric though. It is much more responsive, though seems slightly less willing to keep a pot on a very slow simmer. Also very handy in the event of a power cut, though somewhat surprisingly we haven’t experienced one this year - knock on wood.