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Our
adventures in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus continue....
 
Last evening we went out to the Grapevine Restaurant with Derek and Sandra. They are having a long weekend break from Lardy Dars before the season starts proper, they have been doing some sightseeing and just fancied an evening out.
This evening we were at Henson's restaurant, this time with Ian Williams and his mother Muriel. They have both bought houses over here and had contacted us via the web and been round to us to discuss various aspects of life here. Ian's house should be ready for delivery on Monday so he is staying for a further 4/5 weeks to get furnishing etc sorted out. Mum goes back this week and Ian's partner is due to arrive next Saturday, so maybe we will get a chance to meet up again soon
Today, Joan and I finished off some new borders in the garden, were Joan wants to plant out geraniums and petunias to give a splash of summer colour. Speaking of summer colour, if you do come over here to live and are a lover of roses, then you will be pleased to know that they grow very well and are never without blooms. In fact we have been reading recently, that in a Mediterranean garden you need to give them an enforced rest early in the year, by cutting them back to around 12 inches from the ground in January. Then because the weather is now so nice and warm we were able to eat outside, late afternoon, before I went off to watch Liverpool/ Middlesbrough with Michael. Its getting quite late in the season and Liverpool need to stay at least in the top four to get in to European competition next year
Sort of a normal week really, nothing very interesting to report as I have been busy trying to finalise the detail on Australian Constructions website, which Nic, at Bassett Green in UK and I are revamping. On thing I did get from them yesterday, were some cardboard model villas for a new project they are starting. These are superb models and I had an interesting time balancing them on our balconies and trying to get mountain background, to some sort of scale, to create website pictures. Spot the difference. Today I had to go over to Nicosia to take the Mazda for servicing. I left the car at Tasas, borrowed one from them to go in to town and when I picked mine up, the bill for a full service was £40.00-and- the car got a full valeting. I seem to remember that it cost very much more than that in UK.Whilst I was in town, I finalised the link on our Info Tab, with Egemen Ltd. They supply and maintain computer equipment and are useful people to know if and when you get into trouble with your equipment over here. They also have a very nice range of keenly priced laptops etc. and their prices compare very favourably with the UK high street shops
Want a funny story? Many of you who read our diary regularly will remember that we have a cat, a sort of striped thing called "Tiggy". Well for the last few mornings we have been getting up and her biscuit bowl has been almost completely empty and one morning she had even jumped on me at 5.30 a.m. because she was hungry. As she has a cat flap and comes and goes at will, we had accused her of having all night parties. Well this morning, Joan was doing something near the fridge and said, "I'm sure something moved behind there". Well out came the fridge and there behind was a little mouse, obviously brought in from the cornfield at the back of us; and it had been having a grand life. Under the bottom of the fridge, by the compressor unit, were a couple of clip in plastic trays, one had a small amount of water, from the auto defrost we assume and the other contained about 1/2 lb of cat biscuits. Clearly this little mouse had been building up a store, when all was quiet during the night, carrying these biscuits, one by one, behind the fridge. Well it's now back in the cornfield and lets hope it doesn't get caught again.This evening I went alone to the Limassol restaurant, to meet a crowd of other friends. Joan had not been feeling 100% so declined the event. The lady who owns this restaurant is Turkish Cypriot and will cook traditional food for a party if somebody organises the whole thing. Well Lorraine and Anne-Marie had done just that. It was a real change to get away from the standard kebabs etc and eat something really delicious and different. It was basically just like a very big mezé, a couple of dishes with beans, some chicken in a very strong flavoured vegetable, fresh stuffed vine leaves and a meat borak which was the size of havana cigars and delicious, but the fact that it ahd been all specially cooked fresh for us made it very good.
You obviously all know about the referendum and the news that we remain a divided island, but that the Greek south became a member of the EU on 1st may. Well there had been a sort of plan to go across on mass waving EU passports, but we all thought better of this, as they might have not been too happy on the other side by an "invasion". Well we had heard that some people had been getting across without problem, despite what the journalists had been reporting, so Joan and I decided that we would give it a try, they could only turn us back at the border! Well we parked the car on the north side and walked through first TRNC passport control, where they looked at our passports and gave us a separate loose sheet visa pass and then we walked across no-mans land and were just waved through without any passport check. Makes you wonder were journalists get all this (nearly an Anglo-Saxon word inserted there) from, maybe they dream up stories at night.We found our way into the high street, a walk of about 2 miles from parking the car, sat in the sun and had coffee. As it was Sunday, most of the shops were closed but we did find Woolworth's open. It's a huge great department store, just like in UK except for one thing, it's actually Debenhams. They had all the brand labels that you see in UK, Casual Club, Maine, etc. So Joan had a lovely time wandering around there and even, surprise, surprise, managed to find a couple of things she just couldn't do without. We had a bit of a walk around the town centre and saw the remnants of the May 1st celebrations then sat and had a beer before walking back to the north side, again just waved through without a glance. An interesting exercise and clearly as a shopping trip, something that the girls could just go across and do any time. I think in a couple of weeks we will try to go across by car, maybe with Michael and Barbara to take a look at Limassol or somewhere
As of today, we had still heard nothing from the local council about the road damage, so as it was now two weeks, we have gone for the recorded delivery letter to see if this gets any response. It gets quite frustrating when you see these 20 ton lorries delivering and know that each one is doing more damage to the road, but nobody seems to care about it. This is one time when the saying "This is Cyprus" wears a little thin. Hans Doelmen is over from Holland again to supervise his property build and to start setting up his holiday company, so this evening we collected him from his hotel and went to the Padişha restaurant. As usual the food was great and Joan and I get a chance to keep practicing our Dutch
Today I was over in Nicosia, talking to Mr Omaç, who owns a large home furnishing company. I picked up the detail to start to write a simple website for him and that will appear as a link on our North Cyprus Information pages. This should give you another contact for buying for your new home over here. This evening we had Sue and David Walker over with their new laptop. Sue teaches Crèche and Reception classes at Sunny Lane School but both of them confess to being beginners on computers. We managed to get them a superonline connection and set up the system so that it is easy for them to use and also to download the Picasa software that I use for recording my digital photos. A nice easy to use package, providing you don't want to do too many fancy things with your photos. Hopefully they will gradually get the hang of things and keep contact with their family through e-mails etc.
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Sara, from the Tai restaurant in Lapta had called yesterday to say that they were planning to open up for the season today. This is a nice, local restaurant which is built on the upper terrace of their village house and for this reason they can only operate in the summer when the evenings are nice and warm. So we arranged to go there with Richard and Paul to give them some opening night support. Around about 6 p.m. the wind started to blow quite hard, but what the heck we had promised to go. Oh boy! we had trouble keeping the garnish on the plates, but despite this we had a good meal and could only laugh about it all. We all admitted that getting back to our house and having coffee etc indoors was a welcome opportunity to get some warmth back in the old bones.
Well it finally happened, somebody came down this morning to try to repair the damage, on a temporary basis, to the top of the road. They cleaned out the hole, where the phone connections are made and set a new concrete top with reinforcing to go over the top. About 4 p.m., long before the concrete had set a 20 ton lorry appeared, the driver took one look at all the warning signs that were around the concrete work, got out of his lorry, picked the whole lot up and deposited on the side of the road and drove across the open hole. Yes, you guessed it, we now have no telephone connections.
All we can do today is report the telephone fault, via somebody else's working phone and wait until Monday to go back to the council offices. The whole thing is bloody frustrating and now means that I am going to have to resort to taking my laptop into Kyrenia and connecting up there to do e-mails etc. So if you are awaiting replies, sorry but will try to get things sorted a.s.a.p.
This evening, Michael and Barbara had invited us down to enjoy a curry evening, together with some visitors who they have staying on holiday, at the moment. We all agreed to enjoy the food and wine and not to mention the word telephone all evening.
Looks like a busy week ahead. Michael and I went up to the council offices first thing this morning, with our "I told you so" faces on. Trying to get through to these people that prevention is much cheaper than the cure is almost impossible. The mayor promised to stop the building works immediately until the road was repaired and the telephone reconnected. Guess what, at 4 o'clock, two 30 ton gravel lorries came down the road. Looks like we will be back up there again tomorrow. Some things over here are incredibly frustrating, but we just have to grin and bear.
Our friends, David and Glen who have a house up in Karaman, are over for a couple of months from their other home in Nairobi so we had to catch up on events. Glen's sister Val is also staying with them this week, so we all adjourned to The Address restaurant for a very pleasant evening.
On a personal touch, Joan and I find this restaurant to get very busy. The service is brilliant but the food only average and priced to tourist level, wouldn't be our first choice.
Today, Joan was at school all day because it was school sports day. She took the camera with her but unfortunately she was so busy writing out certificates for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners, that she was unable to get any pics for us. Maybe next year I will have to go with her.
This evening we had arranged to go to The Padesha restaurant with George and Sue as we had seemed to all have been so busy of late that we had not had time to get together. George had also picked up Keith & Fiona from the airport yesterday so they joined us all for the evening. Keith had also brought over some printer cartridges and a couple of cake boxes of CD's for me at UK prices, great stuff because these savings are quite big.
Keith and Fiona are here to have a couple of quiet weeks on their own, to relax in their new house and in the Cyprus sunshine. They even got me to book the Malibu Motel up in the Karpaz for a night.
Busy week all round and something I forgot to tell you. I need new specs, mine are about 5 years old and although my eyes don't seem to have changed much Joan thought I should try and get a little more up to date. Saturday we went to Akay Optik in Kyrenia and I picked out a very nice titanium frame, extremely light weight, very different to my old specs. Into these, they then had to put a varifocal lens and yesterday I got a call that they were ready, amazing. I went and collected these today and paid less than £300 for them, again amazing as I had priced frames like these in UK last year and they wanted that money for the frames alone. I will have to get used to the very light weight but already they feel comfortable.
Another evening at a restaurant. Hans, our Dutch friend is still over at the moment, but goes back Saturday, so we picked him up and introduced him to Bob and Maggie at Henson's restaurant. He experienced Maggie's home made Steak & Kidney pie for the first time and said he would be back for more next visit.
At last there are going to be some pics to add to the site, why, because today we went up to the Karpaz with Derek and Sandra. They had never ventured up there before and we had promised to let them benefit from our frequent visits. We booked our favourite Malibu Motel for the night and arrived up there about 11.30, after a coffee break in Bogaz.
Having dumped our overnight bags at the motel, we went on up to golden beach where we had lunch before lazing and swimming on the beach. Another brief coffee stop to wash out the salt etc and then we took Derek & Sandra on to the monastery and towards the tip of the peninsula and they even got to see some of the famous wild donkeys. These animals are really quite shy, they tolerate people but don't come too near.
We made sure that we got back to the Malibu in time to take a little walk around the harbour area and there we found to out amazement that the Titanic had been raised. We also made very sure that we had a good spot on the terrace to enjoy a G & T and one of the wonderful sunsets that we always seem to get over there. The boss of the motel had been over to the harbour earlier and got four really big, fresh sea bream for our dinner, grilled on the BBQ and served up with a fresh salad and the standard mezé. Life is a real bitch, long may it last and remain so enjoyable.
This morning Joan and I got up around 7 a.m. and went for a pre-breakfast swim, very refreshing but still a little early to be very warm. After breakfast we got Sandra a new sun hat, paid our bill and went back up towards the tip, but this time on the north coast. We had heard that the Oasis at Ayfilon had been taken over and improved. This is the site of the old roman harbour of Carpasia with it's 10th century ruined church, turtle beach and sunken harbour. Would be a lovely place to come with snorkel, must bring them next time. We walked up the track from the hotel/restaurant and found this really busy beach. The rooms on the beach and the restaurant looked really clean and comfortable, clearly well worth a visit and we spoke to the owner about his website www.ayfilon.com" target="_blank">www.ayfilon.com">www.ayfilon.com and hope that he may want to include it on our link pages in the near future.
We came back via Famagusta and ate in Kyrenia town before going home. A lovely weekend, enjoyed by all.
Still no telephone, so Michael and I were back up to the council offices and again the mayor promised to get his men down today to clear out the telephone hole and call the telephone people to say that it had been done. They will simply not repair the cable until the road damage is repaired, so it's a bit Catch 22 that we find ourselves in.
When I was coming home around 4 p.m. there were some men from the council looking down the hole, so who knows! Fingers crossed.
Just a week of up and down to the council and the telephone offices to try to get something done, before I completely tear my hair out.
Tuesday morning came a promise to get the telephone men out to the road and to repair the line that day. Guess what nobody turned up, I suppose what they didn't tell us was which Tuesday they were going to turn up, silly me, should have asked, we know better.
Wednesday morning at 9.15 there were two men looking down the hole, having apparently first struggled to get the heavy concrete lid up. Tried to explain that the council had made that lid so thick and heavy because of the damage caused by 20+ ton lorries. I fully expected to have a telephone line connected by the time I got home because the two guys had shown me the severed cable and said "yeni" which is Turkish for new. I must have been dreaming because the phone still did not work.
Thursday. After numerous phone calls by my good friend Ertugral, we managed to establish that the telecom people did not like the concrete lid and would not repair the cable until the standard metal phone lid has been installed. Now that is a really interesting idea, because the standard lids over here are only designed to take car weights and it was the standard lid that severed the cable in the first place. So now we have to try to convince them to accept the concrete temporary measure until building work completed.
Friday. Back up to the council offices to talk this through with the mayor again. he wasn't in when I went up at 9.00 a.m. so Michael ventured up later. He made a few phone calls and told Michael that he had explained the situation to the telecom man who accepted the concrete lid was temporary and said somebody would be down later today to fix the cable. Did it happen, did it hell!!! Now its a case of, closed for the weekend all round, so nothing until Monday morning.
Decide to try to go over to the south again today, this time with Richard and Paul. We parked the car on the TRNC side again and walked across. We managed to get the original jobsworthy passport officer on the Greek side, who insisted in inspecting our passports and asking were we all lived etc., best to just humour them as they have no right to stop us. After a few minutes he gave us our passports back and we continued on our way, then got a taxi to a shopping centre that we had been told about. On the way we drove past a very large M & S store which had Joan's eyes popping out and then we found ourselves in a shopping mall, which resembled the sort of thing we used to see in France. Joan and I only bought a few bits and pieces but established that if we came over by car we could get many of the things that are a bit rare in the north or at a cheaper price. The other thing we found out, everything closes at 1 p.m. on Saturday, including M & S. So who's a lucky boy then?
It was a lovely late afternoon and evening so we had a swim and then got the BBQ going, with some steak and chicken kebabs that the boys had picked up on the way over.
Managed to finalise the deal on our Jeep Cherokee today. Another ex-pat, who lives in Lapta fancied it very much, but had a Mitsubishi Lancer that he needed to sell, so I had a trial in that and agreed to take it in part exchange. My feeling is that it will be easier to sell the Mitsubishi as it is a straight 4 door saloon and a very nice looking car. I am happy to keep it for a little while myself, but it is a manual gearbox and only 1300cc, maybe I'm just getting lazy in my old age and I fancy just a little bit more power, only 1500 or 1600cc. Strangely enough, I went down to my regular garage to fill the tank this afternoon and the owner there realised that it was not our Jeep that I was driving, so I told him about my deal, without giving him any prices and he immediately offered to buy it, for cash and for only £500 less than I had paid to trade it, so that bodes well if I want to sell it on.
Still no phone again, but then would you expect anything else by now. Guess its a start of a new month and more visits to the council and telephone offices.
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