Very unusual for a crow to come close enough to have its photo taken. Unfortunately through the glass as I knew that opening the sliding door would scare it away. Also a perch on the bougainvillea insecure enough to guarantee it wouldn’t stay long.
Local online query asking if anyone knows whether the mustard office is open in the village of Karşıkaka tomorrow. Interested enough to pursue the responses, though we don’t live in Karşıyaka, a village to the west of us, and aren’t looking to buy mustard. Mildly surprised to think that there would be anything much in the way of mustard production or distribution here. Doesn’t seem to be particularly popular and the jars we’ve seen have all been imported and not underpriced.
The explanation is that predictive text has been up to its usual tricks. It has an especially difficult time dealing with foreign words, although quite good at messing up English terms as well. A bit like being assisted in composition by a bright and enthusiastic six year old proofreader. Eventually it dawns that the poster is looking for information on the mukhtar’s office and predictive text has done its best. (The particular PT I am using at the moment invariably inserts an apostrophe in “its” whether it’s wanted or not).
The mukhtar is a neighbourhood elected official, a sort of lesser mayor whose signature is frequently required on documents, so not unusual to see inquiries re office hours. And interestingly the Greek Cypriots have the same name for the same position, presumably dating back to the time when the whole island was part of the Ottoman Empire.
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