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Our
adventures in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus continue....
  
Well whatever you say about this particular date, Errol decided to open up his newly built restaurant in Catalkoy this evening. Drinks and a buffet, laid on by Errol and Caroline for some of their regular customers attracted lots of people and we must say that their new place looks just fantastic.
Lets hope that they have lots of success there and we will expect the same old superb quality that we have always had from them, but think we might wait until the first impact has died down
This evening, Joan and I met Hans & Trix for the first time, all the way from our other favourite country, Holland. Some two weeks ago we had received a phone call from Hans to say that he had e-mailed some questions and would we be kind enough to respond, we think he was more than surprised to find somebody responding to his call in his own language, but then how was he to know we used to live there. In fact he was so surprised he invited us out to dinner, so this evening we picked them up from The Villa Club and all went to the Grapevine. We learnt that they were here specifically to buy a house, as Hans had visited many times, loved the place and planned to set up his own business
The weather here is so lovely now, up to 25/26 degrees in the daytime, that we decided it was time to test out the BBQ again. Joan had invited Hans & Trix , as a return complement for the other evenings dinner. We learnt later that they had succeeded in finding a house to buy and are planning to return in August to check on progress.
It's been a busy week for going out already. This evening we renewed acquaintances with Owen & Sue Lelou and their friends Stuart & Lynn. Owen & Sue had bought kitchen equipment from Ertugral and we had learnt that they were both current serving police officers in UK. As a retired policeman himself, Ertugral wanted to meet them again and swap experiences and he plans to introduce them to the current chief of police in Kyrenia on their next visit. It was Stuart who took that superb photo of Lapta from out the aeroplane window, on his last visit.
We had booked to go to Cenaps restaurant in Alsancak, where they serve only meze, plate after plate of it, a real Turkish experience which is very enjoyable but also very filling. We had a super evening again only slightly spoilt by this dumbo forgetting his camera, but never mind, Owen managed to get a few pics and promised to send some on, so will insert at a later date.
What a social life we have. This evening it was dinner with Pat & John Creasey at the Veranda. Some six months ago we had introduced them to Richard as they wanted a property over here, at that time they couldn't find what they were looking for, despite the efforts of many Estate Agents, but this time had much more success and are buying a house through Richard, in Arapkoy. It looks as if it might be some 16 months before they get a completion, but they are quite happy with that and are content to wait for exactly what they want.
This afternoon we set off for a long ago planned shopping/weekend jaunt to Adana, on the mainland, with Michael and Barbara. Guess the idea is that the ladies go shopping whilst Michael and I sample the local waters.
It was a late afternoon flight, as they only seem to go over to this particular airport a couple of times each week, but we had pre-booked a city centre hotel and it was only 15 minutes by taxi. The ladies had spotted a department store on the other side of the street from the hotel, so we looked to be off to a good start.
We did find, that it was not quite so easy, to find a nice little bar for a couple of beers. We have now worked out that because we were in a very eastern part of Turkey, the religious beliefs were much stronger and for many, alcohol is a no-no. There were plenty of Cola bars and shops selling beer and wine, obviously to drink at home, but very few places to get a beer or two. But undaunted, Michael and I persevered and sure enough found a place that was also a restaurant, so we had, at the same time, found a place to have dinner later.
First call of the day was the department store, lift to the top floor and walk down floor by floor, Joan and Barbara were very happy. Us fella's also found a gents department, that did a super line in men's short sleeve, cotton shirts for £5.00 each so we seized the opportunity.
After depositing our purchases at the hotel we took a taxi down to the river and there we found this most beautiful Sabanci Central Mosque. The foundations were laid in 1988 and the whole was completed in 1998 with the external garden areas being finally completed in 2000. Much of the funding came from the people of Adana, The Turkey Devolution Foundation and the State budget, but the largest contribution came from the Sabanci family foundation, a total of £4 million, hence the name of the mosque. Inside was also quite magnificent and we would need many photos to show it off to the full extent. The fun bit was of course, take off your shoes and carry them round in plastic bags, cover your arms and head ladies - so the final picture is of the bag ladies + one. Don't suppose they will ever forgive me for this lovely photo!
From the mosque we got a taxi out to a new part of Adana, where we found a Carrefour shopping centre, shades of Bolougne in France. It looked exactly the same, big supermarket surrounded by some quite expensive shops. Michael and I thoroughly enjoyed the very cheap offers in the DIY section, - now, how exactly do you get two battery operated electric drills, through Cyprus customs?
We had been recommended to go to a restaurant down by the river and the very helpful lady behind reception, booked a table and organised the taxi, with strict instructions to the driver about where the restaurant was. We were all a little surprised to find ourselves at a combination Chinese/Indian restaurant. Undaunted we went in, were greeted warmly and had a nice meal, although we all agreed that we had had better and hotter food. Oh dear, the prawn curry dish was obviously a big mistake. During the night, Joan was very ill and it was clear that she had eaten something very unsavoury.
First job of the day for Barbara and I was, find a chemist. We must admit the hotel were extremely helpful and sorted it all out for us and agreed to let us keep one room until 3 p.m., by which time we needed to head off in the direction of the airport.
Once we had settled Joan down to try to catch up on some sleep, we three did a bit more shopping around close to the hotel, had some lunch and then started to get the wounded soldier back to Cyprus. When we got back to the hotel, the receptionist who had organised the previous evening for us, was back on duty and apologising profusely, as the taxi driver had really screwed up and she was very cross about it all.
All in all we had a very enjoyable weekend together, just a little unfortunate that Joan ended up a bit worse for wear and missed out on some retail therapy.
Back in sunny Cyprus again and once again the social occasions start. This time Keith and Fiona Norton are over here, taking over their own house, which is as near to completion as you will ever get in TRNC. They had very kindly invited us out to dinner, together with George and Susan, who are looking after their home, between visits. We all went to the Acmenya restaurant in Alsancak and had an enjoyable evening. Thanks Keith and picture please, as once again I forgot my camera, must be old age creeping on. The late added picture from Keith.
Late this afternoon, Joan and I had a visit from Mike & Lynn Salt, who had contacted us a few times by e-mail and were now over here looking to see if they could find property or land to build on for their future retirement home. It is getting more and more difficult they realised, as land prices rise, either the property price rises dramatically, or the builder tries to put more properties on his land. We have seen some developments going up were the houses are very close together. Guess this is what happened over the years in places like Spain and Portugal and we believe even in the south of this island. We didn't hear from Mike and Lynn before they went back, so come on guys let us know, did you have success in your search?
Today I was having another blitz at the gazebo roof. It's coming along nicely but is quite time consuming because of the quality of timber and all the work that creates. A welcome interlude was created by the visit of Ian Williams and his mother. They are both buying houses in the Karsiyaka area, Ian's house is due for completion at the end of this month and Muriel expects hers to be completed at the end of summer. We had a long chat over coffee about where to buy what and I guess they will be back looking for further information soon. We are always happy to try and guide as we have had our time here and sometimes can help
I had an interesting morning out with Darryl, from Australian Construction, the guys who built our house. I am trying, together with Nic at Bassett Green in UK, to alter their website and bring it up to date and what we needed were some better photos to show off the gallery of bungalows they have built over the years. It is very interesting what varying ideas people have had, to alter the original designs and the various landscaping ideas people have had. So if some of you go into the boy's website in a couple of weeks and find your house shown there, just enjoy the publicity and realise that I liked your ideas a lot.
Today, being Saturday, the latest version of Cyprus Today came out. This contained a supplement which went into some detail regarding the final version of the Annan Plan. This version is going to be the subject of next Saturdays referendum and we are all anxiously awaiting the outcome. If both sides vote yes to the plan, we will suddenly find ourselves back in the EU again, which is probably what many of us ex-pats tried to get away from. We of course, have no voting rights and no influence over the final outcome, apart from telling all our local friends, don't do it, you will regret it. Maybe that's just a personal opinion, which I have no right to express, but I have always been a supporter of a sensible European Trade Agreement but not a huge great United Europe with the huge overhead costs involved.
We await the result with interest.
This evening the Lapta Layabouts descended on the Pegasus restaurant for their flamenco evening. Veli at the restaurant had decide to hold the event outside, "brrrrrr", the guitarist was great and the food very enjoyable but it did go very very cold, so a couple of quick pics later, because Barbara was missed out on the original and would only complain, we adjourned to Deano's Bar, in Lapta on the way home, which was indoors and warm.
Sunny Lane Primary School, school fete day. The PTA had organised to run a fete to raise funds for various things needed round the school. There were a number of stalls set up to prise money off visitors and parents as a total of 800 million TL was needed to pay for the costumes for the summer national children's day, when the kids will put on a show. Joan managed to set up a lucky dip stall, with prizes from many friends and local business people, the children had been making painted pots and things over the last few weeks to sell, many parents had baked cakes and made other goodies and Mark & Hayran brought in their bouncy castle to help with the fund raising. All in all a successful day and we understand that they exceeded their target.
This morning, Michael and went down town to seek advice from a local solicitor. There are a total of four houses being built, one on the opposite side of our road a little further towards the main road and a further three in the fields opposite Michael and Barbara. Now the building of the houses is not the issue, we had always expected that the land opposite would one day be sold, but the problem lies in the total unsuitability of the unmade track down to our properties.
Some of you may recall that when we had the telephones laid on some 12 months ago, it had cost us a total of £3,000, to have trenches dug, pipes laid, telephone inspection pits built, every 50 metres and the council had taken advantage and laid their water pipes down the self same trench. At no time has any attempt been made by the council to complete the roads by laying asphalt, probably due to lack of funds. Now huge great lorries full of sand and gravel are coming down this track. The first thing to go was our telephone logger cover, followed rapidly by the council water connection pit.
We had been up to the council offices on three previous occasions and discussed this potential problem, but they don't seem to care too much and say there are many damaged road problems, because of all the building. The road does belong to the council and they say they will get the builder to repair, or repair themselves and then charge the builder, but they would never say when or take preventative action. Back to the old saying "This is Cyprus", meantime we are in danger of losing our phone connections etc, hence the visit to seek advice. It seems we have to write to the council and send the letter recorded delivery, to force a response and hopefully some action. Once again - Watch this space!
Today we watched the really heavy lorries coming down our road followed by this huge concrete pumping machine. Clearly the basic gravel track, that suggests it should be our roadway, is totally unsuitable for all these real heavy weights and before they are finished there is going to be some serious damage. On a very much lighter note, the migrating swallows are around again. They seem to hang around for 2 to 3 weeks at the beginning and end of summer and they use our pools as somewhere to dip their wings and preen their feathers. We get as many as 2 dozen at a time, sitting on the electric wires, swooping down over the pool and then back up to the wires. Even our cat sits and watches from the terrace, I think she has worked out that she has no chance of catching them and even if she does stray down there they just dive bomb her. It really is a beautiful sight, such flying skill; but the cat is not impressed
This evening was the opening of the new Jashan's restaurant. Jashan's is the really great Indian restaurant that used to be just up the road from the Hideaway in Edremit. He had to relinquish his old building back to the owners who apparently want to turn it back in to a house, so Riaz, the owner, has managed to find this really superb building, on the main road just out of Kyrenia going west. There is plenty of car park space, a large terrace area, ready for outdoor eating next month and the inside has been very tastefully altered.
We, together with Michael and Barbara, who had never been there before, decided to give his opening night a visit. As usual the food was superb and really Riaz, the decision to come and visit, had absolutely nothing to do with your half price drinks offer on opening! Riaz also asked me to try to look at his website soon and change the how to get there detail and add some new pictures. I will try to get round to that over the next couple of weeks. There is of course a link on our website which even gives his full menu. Definitely worth a visit when you are over here.
Today is a Bayram date, dedicated to Children's Day. All the children in all the local schools were putting on some sort of gala performance, Sunny Lane was of course no exception. Joan stayed on into the afternoon and took some pictures of the very small children in reception class, the boys in their traditional costumes who also did a traditional dance and the older girls who seemed to enjoy their dance in the pink, with pom poms, just like American cheer leaders.
Today is a big day in the future of this island. Referendum Day. The local people, on both sides of the border get to vote on whether they want reunification or not. If the island does come together then we will also be part of the EU next Saturday, 1st May 2004.
We await the results with considerable interest. Apparently there is even an article in the Property section of the Saturday Telegraph, with pictures of Joan and myself and a report that actually reports some of the comments I made to a journalist who called up some 2 weeks ago. At least this man managed to convey some of the truth about the so called invasion by the Turkish army and clearly point out that it was really a liberation of a community threatened with genocide. That's the first time I have ever seen the truth in print, it is however disappointing to read that the claims on land and property, will only be made by the 168,000 Greek Cypriots forced out of their homes in the north, why no mention of the almost 100,000 Turkish Cypriots forced out of their homes in the south, do they have no right to compensation?
Well the results are out. 65% of the Turkish Cypriots voted YES to reunification and 75% of Greek Cypriots voted NO. This means that the island will remain divided and the south will go into the EU next Saturday all on their own and the Annan plan is dead. I wonder if we are going to be allowed to cross over with our EU passports, interesting!
Personal opinion is that this is the best possible result, there is now a very strong chance that the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus will be recognised by the rest of the world and the local people will at last see their struggle coming to a just end. We will just have to wait and see what happens over the next year or so.
The weather for the last week has been much cooler and generally overcast, there has in fact been some quite heavy cloud bursts in Kyrenia and Nicosia, but we seem to have missed them over here, although we have suffered from lots of electricity cuts over the last week. Today at least the weather picked up quite a bit, so when Wayne and Tracy came over for a meal this afternoon, Wayne and I foolishly decided that the pool should be warm enough by now for a swim. Now let me be the first to tell you, it's still bl***y cold in there, that's not really a smile on my face, more of a grimace.
Well finally finished it at last. The gazebo, version 2 that is. The roof is now made up of 40, 2"x1" slats which should allow any wind to whistle through, without lifting the thing off the ground. Here's hoping. It is our intention to try to get some nice striped canvas and stretch across with bungee ropes during the really hot months and then take this off and store during the winter, that should work.
Oh yes, for any of you interested in the banana saga, we still have about eight hands of small green bananas. A lot of the new formed bananas were falling off before they matured properly, so we sort advice. It would appear that, wrongly, we had decided that growing fruit needs water, not true, we should have left the whole tree dry and the bananas would have continued to form. Lesson learnt.
One final point that I must bring up. I am getting hundreds of e-mails every week which have potential viruses in them. Either superonline, my service provider over here, or my anti-virus software is deleting these automatically and anything that has a dubious attachment I am not opening up. So if I am not answering some e-mails, that you think I should, then please accept my apologies and try again, having first done a virus check on your system. I always try to respond to everyone, it's part of the fun of the whole thing, so I don't want you thinking I am being rude.
Not surprisingly, rumours abound about the island and its future position. The EU seem to be a little upset by the Greek Cypriot referendum result and are offering the funding that was to be made available, to aid the infrastructure here. There is talk about recognition of The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, opening up of direct transport links, freedom to export local products etc. etc. All of this will help immensely, to allow this part of the island to flourish as it should and give the freedom back to the people that they so richly deserve. The next few months will be interesting, maybe we will see cheaper charter flights direct into the newly rebuilt Ercan airport.Our friends David & Liz Brown are over here at the moment, determined this time to find the house that they really wanted. This evening we all went to Errol's new restaurant in Catalkoy and they were able to tell us that Richard had found them a house in Karsiyaka, down near a small sandy cove and with all the features they were looking for. Great news
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