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Our
adventures in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus continue....
   
This evening was to be the first game for Dean's ladies darts team at the cabin. The sad news was that there had been a falling out between Dean and Edna and their Turkish Cypriot partner. The result is that Dean and Edna are no longer in the cabin. Very sad for the Lapta Layabouts, as the place had become our favourite watering hole.
Dean has managed to come up with a temporary solution. The local Celebrity Hotel is undergoing a total refurbishment and they have a bar area which is unused at this time, so we will be able to go there until Dean finds an alternative for him and Edna. The problem for them will be that this bar has no outdoor area and summer is rapidly approaching.
After lots of round robin telephone calls the two ladies teams were able to meet and play out a drawn match in the new bar area.Dean's ladies played a team from The Aphrodite restaurant. The opposition was very competitive and insisted on one extra game as a decider, which they won, on the double one, after much effort and time.Joan played darts probably for the first time in her life, but did manage to win her game
Michael and Barbara had been on a trip to Egypt organised by the BRS and came home late last night, much to the delight of their cats, who had to put up with our company for the last 9 days.
Obviously they had much to tell us, so we all four went down to Jeannette's restaurant, The Seranada Court, here in Lapta. They have only just started to open up evenings again, in preparation for the summer season to come. The food is always excellent there and it is only sort of round the corner for us. A good job really as Jeannette's husband decided we ought to have a few local brandies to start off the season, not a good idea if you have an early start the next morning.
This evening, Joan and I were invited out to the new Capitano restaurant. The invite was from Richard and Paul as it is Joan's birthday next week and we have a full week ahead, so they thought to get in early. The Capitano, as the name might suggest, is a seafood speciality restaurant and we where all four very impressed with the food served. Included with your main meal you get a seafood meze starter with things like calamari, mussels and prawns, amongst some of the regular dishes such as humus etc. The whole was quite delicious and not overly expensive and for those of you who are not fish eaters they do a couple of standard lamb main meals.
After a day of sorting out the garden, the final touches to the patio table etc. Joan and I went out for a fun evening with the Lardy's. That is Derek, Sandra, Lorraine and Annemarie Vigus who own and run Lardy Dars Tearooms. We all went to the Dunya restaurant which on the way into Kyrenia from here. They do one of those fixed price meals, meze starters and lots of them, followed by chicken, sheftali and lamb chops, with as much local drinks as you want for £12.50 per person. Always when we go out with this crowd there is lots to laugh about and this time we all got together as they are going to UK next Friday and will miss Joan's birthday do on the 14th.
I spent the morning trying to get all the mud and muck off the two cars. There is so much building work going on everywhere that you end up driving through mud on almost every road. Unfortunately whilst checking things like tyre pressures, I discovered a valve problem on my offside front so had to replace it with one of those funny little emergency wheels, so it will be the slow drive down to the tyre man tomorrow.
What the papers say time I think!
Obviously the front page news is the murder of Reece and Anne Mahoney. What an absolute tragedy and these two will be sorely missed by so many here in TRNC and all of us here are stunned by the whole thing. These two people had lived here for many years and were pillars of the British community, highly respected for all their charitable work especially for the Animal Rescue society. All we know is what you have probably seen and read in the papers, except possibly the fact that the 18 year old in police custody has now in fact admitted that he killed them and that this same youth had been in trouble a couple of years ago for attacking another English couple here in Lapta. Don't suppose we will ever find out the real truth behind this attack, some say he had worked for them in the past and it was robbery, yet others say there was money and jewellery untouched in the house, maybe we will get to know in time, but the justification for such a frenzied attack is irrelevant, the loss of two highly respected people is the real tragedy.
The political party who won most seats in the recent election are now trying to form a coalition. They have been given 15 days to reach an agreement with a.n.other party to achieve a majority in parliament, with effect from Friday 4th March. We will have to wait now to see what happens over the next week.
Last week we mentioned the Eupro company, being set up to try to act on behalf of foreign residents in TRNC. It would appear that more than 300 local residents have signed up this week and that doesn't count the response they have had to their London mailing address. They are setting up a website shortly as an information source, so as soon as it is published I will let you know the address.
The latest in the Orams's case is that the cross examination of their lawyer has been postponed until 24th March in a south Nicosia court. One possible reason for this delay is because the Greek Cypriot lawyer, Mr Candounas, has been arrested here in Northern Cyprus for "harassment" and "provocative threats" against Karaman residents and for attempting to practice as a lawyer outside of the Greek Cypriot jurisdiction. Obviously this man will once again become a martyr in the Greek Cypriot press, who only want as much publicity as they can gain, in order to damage the growing economy in the North.
One final item which I found not only amusing, but dear to my heart, was in the letters page and headed - "Stop bitching - the days of the Raj are over" . The man who wrote this, a future resident here, was having a go at all those foreign residents who come her for, cheaper housing, lower cost of living, the sun, etc and then try to change the place into a little Europe, by bitching in the English language newspaper. Nice one, leave it alone, sit back and enjoy what you came here for in the first place.
On a real light note, I received the attached today from Roger:-To, Family and Friends,
We haven't said anything to anybody about this until now because we wanted to wait until things were final. We have just purchased a one bedroom luxury apartment in the Karpaz. It was finalised this week, so I thought that we would let you all know in case anyone is interested in accommodation for an upcoming getaway to the Island. It’s available for weekends or on a weekly basis. For now I shall be handling bookings until we can find an agent.
Weekends will cost about £100 for three nights and £250 for the week. These prices are low because they are for friends and family.
Prices will be a bit different for people we don’t know, but I can discuss that on an individual basis.
In any case, it’s a one bedroom unit that enjoys an elevated position overlooking the sea, nestled among the lush greens it has a lovely ocean view from every window!
Let us know if you are interested... we have attacheda recent photo
Regards,
Roger & Gill
Don't you just love a man with a sense of humour ? You can contact me for Roger's e-mail address.
It has been a busy week, culminating in an evening out at The St Tropez restaurant this evening. Although Joan and I did manage to get out one afternoon for a walk around the upper parts of Lapta. The weather was improving over the weekend and boy are we glad we took that walk Monday, because it for sure changed Monday night and we have had some torrential rain since.Why busy, well I have had three kitchen white goods installations going in this week and the new batch of tumble dryers arrived in the warehouse today, for which there are 7 orders pending. Add to all this, Joan's 65th birthday which is today, the same day as Michael and Barbara celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary. You guessed it, we decided to have a joint party, so that needed organising as well.In the middle of the week, Wednesday to be precise, we had an evening out at The Patio restaurant with George and Susan. When the four of us went to that charity hoe-down a couple of weeks ago, Joan and I won a meal for two at The Patio, so instant decision, four of us can go for half price. Mean or what ! The Patio is down on the seafront road, between The Rocks Hotel and The Dome Hotel. None of us had been there before so it was an interesting adventure and we all had to say a very successful one. The meal was excellent and for sure we will be going back there another time. The menu is Italian and Mexican, we all chose pasta dishes that night, mainly because they where cheaper and we felt only fair to the restaurant, but it will be nice to go back and try the Mexican things some time.Yesterday I got a call asking me to try to delay Joan's arrival at school this morning. Well I persuaded her that she should order a birthday cake here in the village to give everyone a small slice later and this worked, she just arrived at school as morning assembly was finishing. To her surprise, all 60+ of the children turned round in the entrance hall and sang happy birthday to her. She said she had a little weep of pleasure, also they had decorated all around her desk and presented her with a school birthday card. How they managed to keep the making of the card quiet, I do not know, because when you open it up all the kids and teachers had made an individual little birthday wish to Joan and stuck these in like a huge scrap book. A real keepsake that she will treasure for a long time. Joan nipped back to Lapta to collect the cake so everybody could get a little piece to celebrate. The interesting thing also was that Joan stopped off and ordered the cake at 8.15 this morning and collected it all ready, freshly made and decorated etc at 11.15, how's that for service.This evening all four of us went to the St Tropez restaurant for a quiet celebration, because the joint party will be on Sunday, when we hope and pray that the weather has improved, as all it's done since Monday is persist down. The St Tropez is a bit of a special occasion restaurant where the food and the service can be relied on and maybe a place to go just a couple of times per year. George very kindly collected us all at home and then came back for us after we had finished our meal. George's special treat taxi service, much appreciated
Front page news in the Cyprus Today was the funeral of Anne and Reece Mahoney, the English couple murdered in Lapta almost two weeks ago. About 300 residents attended the funeral to wish them farewell and I would suggest all of them still stunned by the event. The 17 year old who confessed to the murders is still in police custody and has been remanded in custody to undergo psychological tests to see if he is fit to stand trial.
The TRNC Presidency elections are to take place on April 17th and nine candidates have registered their intent to stand. The current President, Rauf Denktas is retiring after many years and it is interesting to note that one of the candidates is the current Prime Minister, Mr Talat, who is very pro European Union. Maybe somebody should tell him !!!
A coalition government has now been formed between the Republican Turkish Party and the Democratic Party. The revised cabinet can only become effective after the presidential election, but interestingly enough rumour has it that there has already been a war of words in parliament. Oh what it must be to be a calm, collected and happy politician.
An interesting report from "The Other Side", i.e. south of the border. The Greek Cypriot Justice Minister was actually quoted as saying that the south had not been in a hurry to solve the Cyprus issue and that it would continue to stand in the way of a settlement, at least until after after Turkey is due to begin it's talks about EU membership on October 3rd next. Now that's what we have all been saying and finally it comes out of the horses mouth so to speak. Bet that doesn't appear in the English press, written by a Greek journalist.
The new KDV (VAT) at 15% for foreign buyers is being challenged, as to it's legality, so watch this space once again. An interesting argument for the pro EU politicians, what about discrimination between locals and foreign buyers, can't imagine that would go down too well.
IT'S PARTY DAY.
My friend Les has this theory about jam side up and jam side down. He always says we come out jam side up and toady he was right, we woke up to blue sky and bright sunshine, what a stroke of luck, we had all been quite worried during the week.
Because this was to be two very good reasons to party, Michael and I had agreed to combine forces and call in some caterers to do all the work and then gather the hordes to our garden to celebrate. The caterers turned up as agreed last night with a beer keg, cooler and the gas, so that had been cooling nicely all night. Today they brought the rest of the bar and the food and we must say thatthis team have done us proud with their chicken donner machine and all the Turkish meze starters. This team came from The Pegasus Pub and it is a great way to host a party.
Shortly after middaythe partygoers started to arrive but everybody who felt the water in the pool decided that this was not a day to stand too near the edge. We had a nice mix of English friends from both families and some localTurkish Cypriot friends and even a couple of Dutch, altogether when all had gathered we reckon that there wherearound fifty present, although nobody did an actual headcount. Louise from The Pegasus did a tremendous job of making sure that we were all fed and watered well and the general opinion was that it was great party and the beauty of it was that both Joan and Barbara where able to enjoy without worrying about food and drink, although they did make the sweets for us all. A very slightly alcoholic fruit salad and an equally slightly alcoholic English trifle. Richard was even heard to say, "I want one all to myself", and George was heard to say, "the next rounds on me",down the hatch George, he will probably kill me for that.
At this time of the year it can be very warm at midday and until about 5 p.m., hence the reason for an afternoon do and by then some had started to drift away and for the rest of us hardy ones it was jackets on and stop pointing that camera at me. At around 6.30, even theLapta Layabouts had declared it to be cold so Barbara, from next door, went off to put on the coffee and call us all in to their warm house.
Despite the fact that Joan had said, no presents please, just your presence at the party she was overwhelmed with all of the gifts she did receive and after she and I had had a bit of a clear up, she was really excited at the chance to look again at all her gifts. Now it's my turn to surprise her, but that will be early next week and you will have to wait and see.
This evening, Susan cooked dinner for Joan and I, a nice big English style beef stew with dumplings and apple crumble with custard. Lovely grub and now that Joan is beginning to wind down from it all, she fell asleep in one of their big armchairs around 9 o'clock. Bless her.
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