Friday, October 30/2026

Aleksander off today to St Petersburg and kindly leaves his excess vegetables with us - considerably more than the two onions and a potato I left with the girl across the hall in April, and includes the makings of a good salad for this evening. X

Friday afternoon is Blue Song time for us. Not as many round the table as last week, but John and Beverley are here and Criegan and Pat. Spot a couple of people paddle boarding past the restaurant. Initially take the first to be a man paddling a canoe standing up, with what seems like very impressive balance, but John’s assumption of paddle board proves correct.

Stop at Laptamar on the way home for fresh bakbread and yoghurt and fruit. There is almost always a dog or two - or even three - waiting on the steps. Sometimes waiting for a human inside but often just hanging out in an interesting place. Only the occasional very young dog tries to go inside. The others are friendly and well aware of the boundaries.

Thursday, October 29/2026

Rain showers in the forecast last night and there was quite a lot of lightning out over the sea to the north of us, according to those watching. We didn’t watch as our bedroom faces south to the mountains.

But this morning there is a single puddle outside our sliding doors, sunnily reflecting the mountain above.

Alternating showers and sunny spells and at one point a faint rainbow over the sea.

Today is Turkish Republic Day, the hundred and third anniversary of the establishment of the modern Turkish republic by Kemal Atatürk in Ankara in 1923, following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War. So seems like a good time to cook a fat local chicken and have one of the lovely chocolate covered marzipans Aleksander brought us from Russia.

And, with minor apologies, previous blog reflections on Atatürk:

We have reason to be grateful to Atatürk as it is down to him that Turkish has used a slightly adapted Latin alphabet since 1928 replacing a modified Arabic script that had been in place for the previous nine hundred years. It means that despite Turkish not being an Indo-European language and having unfamiliar vocabulary and grammatical structures it’s easy to look up words and - sort of - easy to sound them out.

Our travels have overlapped with Atatürk’s, albeit with a significant time lapse. Think it was 2008 we stayed at the Baron Hotel in Aleppo, Syria. Atatürk stayed there much earlier as an Ottoman officer and is said to have mounted guns on the roof to ward off attacks by the British and Arabs. He apparently occupied Room 201, in the days before there was a presidential suite (and in any case long before he was a president). We stayed in Room 203 - previously occupied by Agatha Christie as she was writing part of Murder on the Orient Express.

Wednesday, October 28/2026

A week since Mehmet left our water despite my missing him with the payment, and the water jug is getting a little low. So, repair to Google Translate to message Mehmet and ask if we can have a jug of water - and assure him that we have money for him. 

Actually, we’d be good for another day as the jugs hold nineteen litres, but prefer asking a day early just in case there is some problem on the last day.

And within a couple of hours of my messaging the white van pulls up and the teenager helper arrives, seemingly confused by my handing him two empty jugs and enough money for two refills. I say, in English of course, that last week he brought water but we didn’t give him money. He returns to the van with the empties and the lira, and it seems the transaction makes sense to Mehmet as the boy is back up the stairs with a full jug of water on his shoulder.

I’m always reminded, when I see the boy carrying the heavy jugs up, of my father. When he was a teenager in the 1930’s he had a part time job helping a man who delivered blocks of ice to the many people who had ice boxes rather than electric refrigerators.

The ice man didn’t have a van - believe it was a horse drawn wagon - and the winding outdoor staircases in Montreal in the thirties cried out for young legs and youthful energy.

Mehmet is sometimes on his own - possibly in the mornings - but when he has a helper the boy does the toting. Happily for him it’s water in plastic jugs and not hundred pound blocks of ice.

And it turns out the timing was providential, as we read that tomorrow is a public holiday. We’re fairly attuned to the major Muslim feast days, but the secular holidays, apart from New Year’s Day, can take us by surprise. So tomorrow, it turns out, is Turkish Republic Day. And there would have been no water delivery. Grocery stores should be open, but not much else.

Tuesday, October 27/2026

 J trims the oleander, with gloves, mask, and goggles borrowed from Aleksander. They’re pretty toxic. Don’t know that we’d have planted them in the first place, but here they are, and in need of a bit of a trim.

Also, A lends his saw so J can finish taking out most of the buddleia. Encouraging the honeysuckle to move into its place.

Followed by cigars and a drink. 

Monday, October 26/2026

 Knock on the door, almost too soft to be heard, and it’s Aleksander from next door.  He’s leaving a spare key with us in case of emergency and has brought us a couple of gifts as well - chocolate covered marzipan and a keychain attached to anß amber stone from his home territory in Kaliningrad. 

So we get out some smoked pork and cheese and a bottle of single malt and spend the early evening catching up and trading stories.

Sunday, October 25/2026

Hibiscus has its roots in the neighbour’s garden but happily flowers on our side. And quite possibly theirs as well. Hedge too thick to see through, which is all to the good.

Buddleia, unfortunately, all ours. A most unloveable bush. 

Leggy, as buddleia tend to be. It does, in all fairness, produce lilac style clusters of flowers, but without the lovely scent. Not only that, but by the time the last pale petals on a cluster have appeared the first ones are already dead. As a bit of saving grace, it does attract butterflies, as its nickname, butterfly bush, suggests it will.

J is trimming it as well as he can with secateurs, but will really have to acquire a saw for the sturdy lower branches. And - cheerful note - the buddleia has not succeeded in choking out a honeysuckle occupying more or less the same territory, so with luck it may flourish, and it’s much more attractive.

Daylight savings time ends in the early hours of the morning. As usual an inexplicable week earlier in Europe than in Northern America. Not that everyone changes on either continent.  Sunlight on the marble mountain an hour earlier, but sunset will now move from six pm to five - and noticeably earlier part way up the mountain side.

Saturday, October 24/2026

Courtesy Kyrenia Animal Rescue 

 Saturday is local market day, and usually, weather permitting - which it mostly is in Cyprus - we go. This summer the market moved and expanded. It’s slightly farther away - almost exactly a mile from us. Which Google Maps has the nerve to claim is mostly on level ground when we’re on a mountain side and will be walking down to sea level. Not complaining - just indignant. Actually there might be a short cut from the previous market location, but the humans haven’t spotted it yet. Apparently the dogs have! Entirely possible the doggy route involves ditches and fences though.

Can see why Beverley, one of the movers of the new market, was excited. It’s bigger and more impressive and features an actual bookshop for KAR’s second hand books. Really quite impressive, and built by John during the two hottest months of the summer. We’ve been in Cyprus in July and August, during the Covid lockdown, and remember waiting to go to the supermarket until there were long enough shadows to walk along the building in the shade.

After the market the first priority is acquiring more Turkish lira. Mostly we use a North Cypriot debit card but the dolmuşes expect cash, and - obviously - lira, and we’re nearly out. Have brought Canadian as well as sterling, in the interest of not doing a double exchange. The second döviz, currency exchange, in Alsançak, is willing to deal with Canadian - the nice man at the first one said he couldn’t but that he loves Toronto and has been six times to visit his brother-in-law.

Last stop İleli supermarket. Cheese, Worcestershire sauce, smoked pork. No one objects to people buying or selling pork, but it’s not really part of the culture and it costs the earth. On the other hand so do beef and lamb. But chicken is lovely, likely to be free range, and not expensive. Wine somewhat cheaper than Canada or Britain. Pros and cons.

Dolmuş home.