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Our
adventures in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus continue....
   
Hot, hot, hot and very hot. The temperature here has been around 40+ for some time now and it makes it very difficult to do very much that is energetic, such as lifting a knife and fork in a local restaurant. So that is why you are writing and saying there is nothing on the site, we have been lazy. Add to this the fact that we are losing our electric at around 8.30 a.m. and if we are lucky, getting it back around 5 p.m. The local electric authority are doing a major re-wiring job in the area, which is all very nice for the future, but could you imagine if they cut you off for many hours and many days without warning over there in UK. We do put the generator on for a little while to keep the fridges working and to answer a few e-mails, but it is also a bit hot to be sitting indoors behind a computer screen.
All this sounds like a very feeble excuse, but I like it. I did spend some time early in the week with Saemunder Gudmundsson and his wife, a new visitor from Iceland who has bought an apartment here in Alsancak and they needed some guidance around the furniture stores. They brought their 14 year old son and his school friend with them who clearly did not want to go shopping, so on Monday we dropped them at Sunset Beach Club where they enjoyed the jetski rides and looking at the local young ladies.
On Thursday we introduced this latest family from Iceland to the Layabouts gathering at LDs, which they seemed to enjoy immensely, particularily the boys who declared that I was right about LDs having the best burgers in town.
This evening, Joan and I were round at Pat and Bryan's enjoying a BBQ when our water tanker man called to say he was filling our pool tank and would I go home and put some lights on and pay him. It was now almost 9 p.m. so clearly the electric boys had some problems with their new wiring.
Why a water tanker you might ask. Well we have had to disconnect our pool from the automatic top up system and are not allowed to fill up from the local authority supply, so along come the tanker men, which is more expensive and clearly the water comes from the same underground supplies. Disconnecting our tank from the automatic feed has highlighted a problem for us, we are getting through about 4 tons of water every five days a lot more than any sensible evaporation level. The pool company think that we are losing it through the water gullies that are around the pool but need to check this out for us. More expense, I guess!
Whilst we continue to swelter here I feel very sorry for all of you back in UK who are suffering from floods and a pretty miserable summer. Some of the stuff being reported in the press looks very bad.
We got up at 5.30 a.m. today to get out in the garden. You can only work until about 9.30 before it gets too hot and despite the lack of watering our established plants are surviving well and need cutting back. Stewart, next door is on his own at the moment and he had the same idea of an early start, so when it got too hot we all sat under our shady terrace for a full English breakfast. Guess an afternoon snooze will be called for to make up for all this effort. At least we have electric all day today so we can keep the fans going.
According to the papers there is another Amaranta Valley deal on the table. It seems that the last proposed deal with the boss of Medview Homes has fallen through. This deal is to be with the Construction Contractors Union and hopefully there will be some government support to the idea. Lets just keep hoping that this saga is finally coming to an end as too many people are currently vastly out of pocket and have no property despite numerous promises to resolve the situation. There is a suggestion that owners may have to pay an additional £7,000 each to fund the completions as costs have risen in the closed down period.
A new 900 foot deep well in the mountains around St Helarion is to be opened soon. This will ease the water shortage in and around Kyrenia as it will deliver 60 tons per hour from the end of this month. The authorities however admit that the supply pipes in many areas are leaking badly so much water is being lost. Part of the no planning situation around all the infrastructure here.
The new TRNC Property Complaints office is finally opened, thanks mainly to the efforts of the Homebuyers Pressure Group in lobbying the government. If you have a real complaint against lawyers, builders or estate agents, relating to your property purchase, then I would suggest that you first contact Marian Stokes on her e-mail, marian@ayza.net briefly summarising the complaint and she will guide you through the proceedures.
Want to hear a real funny, or is it just local democracy gone mad. A controversial new law was supposedly introduced last month which says that only registered taxi drivers and blood relatives can deliver or collect passengers at Ercan airport. it would seem that the taxi drivers complained about non registered drivers being paid for collecting passengers at the airport and we all know some who are prepared to do "taxi" runs, so this complaint was possibly justified. But what idiot came up with this idea as it prohibits even tourist companies from collecting their customers and bringing them to their hotels etc in the traditional way and residents like ourselves delivering and collecting neighbours. What next DNA tests as you drive in to the airport. Fortunately this law has been suspended until it has been properly thought through. I recall once being told by e-mail that I classed locals as idiots because i mentioned things like this in the site. Not true I do not class them as such as they are lovely people, but a few are approaching this classification and they are in authority.
A sign of the times at the moment and proof of the lack of tourists etc. The Saffron restaurant, despite its excellent food quality, has found it necessary to offer a free bottle of wine with your meal. Never being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Joan and I together with Pat and Bryan decided to test this out. Any old excuse will do. Yes folks it's true, a half bottle for two or a full bottle for four people and the meal was just as scrumptious as always. Of course we four needed to have two bottles to keep up the standards, but B.O.G.O,F wine is still a good deal.
Joan and I are going back to UK on 8th April (Oops I meant August really) for two weeks. It is Jill's big retirement party and we want to go to Harrogate to visit Bill and Margaret, always of course supposing we can find a bloody relative to take us to the airport! Oh yes, we are flying with Peagsus by the way, no more CTA for us if we can help it. I am quite looking forward to getting a ride on this. Les has been a bike fan for years and now has bought this classic Kawasaki to re-live the dream. It looks absolutely huge, but he assures me that it is really just a cruising bike.
This evening Joan and I met up with Louisa Mehmet, as we have not had a chance to catch up with her for some time and she is on her own at the moment, as her husband, who is a London Turkish Cypriot, is doing his army service. We decided to meet up and go back to The Grapevine restaurant, as we had not been there for some time, mainly because we need to drive all the way in to Kyrenia and we are getting lazy in our old age. Mel, who runs this restaurant, was happy to see us again and still serves up super food, worth a visit if you are in town, we should do it more often. The three of us had a super evening together.
Another day of very hot weather and no electric and the plan is to continue for some time yet.
We have carried on with a couple of early rises to prepare the back corner of the garden for another water tank. The idea is to save all the water that the pool company pump out every week as part of the cleaning process. We discovered that apart from our losses, the pool company use around 2 tons every week in a process called backwash. This they say is necessary in order to clean out the big filters. We plan to let them pump this into the new tank, then we will let it settle for 2/3 days and then use it to irrigate the garden. This new water shortage has made us all think very carefully about what we do with all the valuable commodity we have so happily pumped away for the last 5 years.
This evening, just for a change most of the gang went to The Ravine bar. What for, good old fashioned English style fish and chips. To hell with the diet at least once a week. In fact a couple of them reneged when we got there, as they had kleftiko on as a special. It was good.
For a number of weeks now, Barbara and Stewart, our next door neighbours, have been looking after some very small kittens on behalf of the Kyrenia Animal Rescue centre. Barbara does this from time to time when they have a space problem and especially when there is no mother to wean the kittens. These have grown quite well since they have been there and now that Brabara has gone back to UK for a few weeks, Stewart volunteered his services until they were ready to go back to the rescue centre.
They have been around long enough to know exactly where their food is so Stewart has let them out for a supervised play in the mornings. This means that our early activities have attracted quite some interest. They just love to play games like hide and seek up our trees and it does just slow work down, because as Joan says, they are just so cute. Our Tiggy is not too sure about all these invaders and now and again just has to say hey you get off my territory. If you want cute pictures, just take a look at this one playing in the dried leaves of the bougainvillea.
This evening, Joan and I had a late meeting with some possible customers, who arrived this morning on the night flight and go back again on Sunday. So we discussed furniture for their apartment, Joan arranged to have a further meeting tomorrow morning and then after a beer together, Joan and I went to Haci Ali's for a late meal. How is this for a bargain. A salad starter with fresh toast and garlic butter, shrimp guvec (which you would call a casserole) a bottle of Italian Soave to wash it down, all for 48 YTL, that's £18.50 for those who don't know the current exchange rate. Add to this, one of the most superb settings on the island, what more could you want.
Another quite early start and then Joan had to go out to arrange some furniture deliveries, so Stewart and I treated ourselves to ham and eggs around 11 a.m. After that it was settle down and read today's newspaper time.
Another example of the Greek Cypriot attitude problem. Luton Town football club had come over to play a couple of pre-season friendly games with local teams, an agreement previously reached with the English FA to what was after all only a friendly game and a sort of pre-season warm up. What happens at the last minute, a flurry of fax messages resulted in the match being a game between two teams of Luton players. What a farce, mixing politics with sport and this is just another example to the whole world of the emabargoes to which the Turkish Cypriots are subjected.
This is all in the same week when German Chancellor Angel Merkel opnely stated in a speech to the German Federal Parliament that it was a mistake for the European Parlaiment to accept south Cyprus as a full member of the EU in 2004. She made it clear that during their term as leaders of the EU they had made every effort to reach a solution to agreeing to the trade embargoes imposed on the TRNC being lifted, but these were consistently thwarted. At the same time, the Italian MEP Monica Frassoni has accused the Greek Cypriots of preventing a solution to the Cyprus problem as they belieeved that it was not in their inteests to reach any form of agreement.
In the same week, a one-sided House of Commons seminar took place where the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot press were barred from entering the Cyprus, Turkey and the EU seminar and Greek Cypriots hurled abuse at Lord Magginis when he said that the conflict on the island had started in the 1960s, rather than with the Turkish military intervention in 1974. It is refreshing that people in authority are beginning to expose some of the facts but will the truth ever come out, I doubt it.
On a completely different front, it would appear that a BBC TV film crew have been on the island to make a documentary. They have identified a Peter Roberts who was given a 6 year prison sentence in 2003 for selling massive amounts of comdemned poultry, for human consumption and who has been living on the island since failing to appear before the Nottingham Crown Court. The TRNC government is on record as saying that this is not a safe haven for criminals and that British Police requests for extradiction would be acted upon. Interesting!
Last week it was reported that there was another proposal on the table regarding the Amaranta Valley project with the buyers being asked for another £6 - 7,000 per property, Clearly there has been an angry protest at this as nobody wants to throw more money at the project, lets hope it is not the end of the proposition.
They are still discussing the daft legislation regarding taxis at Ercan airport but say that the idea is to stamp out the illegal vehicles that operate as taxis. There is likely to be a registration scheme for holiday firms who have to pick up tourists and that people who occasionally collect friends and neighbours would not be penalised.
Forecast for next week, another heatwave, with temperatures between 38 and 40 degrees expected. Anybody want to get away from the rain over there?
Sandy and John have their son and his fiancé over on holiday at the moment. Today is fiancé, Christine's, birthday, so Sandy had organised an evening boat trip out of Girne Old Harbour for many of us, at Christine's own request. As always we all had an absolutely superb time, which on this occassion started off with champaagne to celebrate and finished with a superb chocolate cake. In between time we all managed to swim , eat and in some cases sleep or just relax which always seems to be something we can do on these boat trips. The evening trips are very different as just sitting out on the water with good friends and a few drinks is a very pleasing pastime. Coming back around 10 p.m. to an evening harbour entrance is also quite different with the castle and many of the moored boats all lit up, very nice. Thank you Sandy for organising this and Christine for picking this as her special day out.
Next Friday, 20th of July, is the annual day for troop parades and the fly past of the Turkish Air Force display team. So just for something different we a have re-booked the boat for a day out swimming and then a late return to harbour so that we can moor up and watch the aircraft from the vantage point of the sea. I am going to take the other camera, with the huge zoom lens so hopefully we might get some interesting pics, if I can keep up with them that is.
Early morning start for Joan and I today. We had to be in Nicosia at the Immigration offices by 8 a.m.. We have applied now for permaent residency, so that we do not have to go through the rigmarole every year of renewing, this is possible after you have five residency stamps in your passport we were told. The very helpful lady in the Immigration office has since told us that after you get your fourth stamp you can make your application, so we could have done this last year. Never mind, nearly there now. The reason for today's visit was to collect the papers to take to the local hospital for blood tests and an x-ray.
First find the right office in the hospital, especially difficult when the information desk is not manned. However we eventually found a very helpful guy in a cash desk area who sorted us out with the blood test in about 5 minutes flat and took 270 YTL off us for all the tests. We then were directed to the x-ray department were another young man took our papers and gave us the number 12, we thought, as he wrote this on the back of one of our papers. We sat with our books, taken especially for the occasion, waiting for number 12 to be called. About half an hour later we heard somebody else report to the same desk and be given number 12. Ah! now that's strange we thought, so further investigation revealed that what the guy actually meant was come back at 12 o'clock. This we did, after going to one of Joan's furniture suppliers to scrounge a cup of coffee; and in 10 minutes flat we were out of there.
The whole proceedure is so much more efficient than it was when we first applied for residency. It is now an easy DIY job for anybody coming over.
After the hospital we did a quick nip over to the hypermarket in the south as we have a BBQ at home this evening. We had decided to invite the China group + one and to include Dave & Liz friends from Karsiyaka, but they unfortunately cried off at the last moment as they were both unwell. Something they ate someplace else.
Peace and Freedom Day. The 33rd anniversary of the day of the Turkish intervention. The whole gang had rebooked for another boat trip whilst we were on the Sandy organised one last week. Anne had some of her family over so we were accompanied by two little boys who thoroughly enjoyed the day. The whole concept of these trips is just to have a relaxing time, but this one was a little bit special, we had booked him through in to the evening as well.
Included in the original group was of course our friend George, but at the last minute he had to cry off due to some builder problems. We had set sail when Susan received a call from him that things had changed, so when we anchored off Kervansaray beach, George decided to swim out and join us. I am still waiting for the photo, but even without you can draw your own picture. George came down to the beach, took off his shirt and shorts to reveal his swimwear then proceeded to put his clothes in to plastic bags. He then produced a black dustbin bag, put the first bags in to this, stood on the beach and blew the dustbin bag up, tied a knot and then proceeded to swim out to the boat with this in front of him. He got lots of very strange looks from the others on the beach as they have frequently heard of immigrants coming ashore but never seen one trying to escape the island.
At around 5 p.m. we came back towards the harbour and passed by a Naval presence which was anchored outside. Then we anchored as part of a flotilla opposite The Dome hotel so that we could watch a display by the Turkish Stars. Each year they come back and help in the celebrations by giving a superb display. In amongst the various flying displays was a high speed pass which was right in front of the boats and very noisy. This was followed later by the upside down trick. we have watched this display on a number of other occasions, but never from off the water which is so much more spectacular.
A good day out with lunch and a few beers on board then some of us stopped off at The Ravine Bar for a snack on the way home.
Big headline in today's English newspaper. "LAPTA POWER FIASCO". The crippling all day cuts are to last another month. This is apparently due to the installation of a back up system being installed at the transformer station, as part of upgrading work. All part of the new scheme which ultimately will reduce power cuts for us all but it would be nice if we could get some warning of these things and many restaurant owners are up in arms because the cuts have been so long and the weather so very hot, that food has been getting to throw away stage in their fridges. If you don't have generators to back things up then it is a huge problem.
The very hot weather has caused some other problems, namely fire. More than 100 trees were destroyed in two blazes on Tuesday in Bogazkoy, which is just over the hill on the way to Nicosia. Joan and I were on our way over to Nicosia that morning and saw all the vehicles and men around, but as the fire started around 6 a.m. it was down to the smouldering stage when we passed. Apparently there was also a fire near Bellapapis on Monday and this time a military helicopter was called in to assist.
Ten new speed cameras are now operating on the TRNC roads with a further 30 planned before the end of the year. The police are still having huge problems delivering the fines to offenders. This situation is possibly going to be resolved by parliament issuing authority to private companies to impose the fines. They are trying to cut down the speed in an attempt to cut road deaths. Proper eductaion would be another fine thing....
An attempt to reduce the number of old bangers on the roads by offering up to 3,000 YTL discount on replacement vehicles, either new or less than three years old, has resulted in more than 100 cars being handed in so far. Guess the problem might be that the ones driving round in the old wrecks can't afford anything three years old or new, so what chance that brilliant scheme. Another well thought out idea.
Whilst I was busy looking at the newspaper, the guys from Cyprus Pools turned up and started taking up all the grids around the pool surround. We had noticed that the pool water had been lowered by half a tile when we got up this morning, so obviously they are firmly convinced that the gullies are leaking and that that is the cause of our water loss. There they are now with rolls of fibgeglass to be followed by some gooey mix which they spread on with brushes. Now all this has happened since the inspection on Thursday, so obviously we have friends at the pool company who get things done. Slight problem, nobody has said anything about cost. Anyway they spent almost the whole day here working on the problem, but told us no water in there until Tuesday next week. We can still swim but it is just a little bit shallow.
This evening George and Susan had decided to have a bit of a drinks party and lay on a meat and salad buffet followed by some very high cal sweets. Oh dear there goes the diet for tonight.
Start of the mass exodus time and sad news day. Many of the Layabouts went down to LDs as usual this evening and it will be the last time for a few weeks. They are all going over to Turkey for a much earned rest and will not be opening again for about three weeks. Also it is the start of the time when many of us are also going away, mostly to UK on visits.
Barbara Smith is of course away at the moment, but due back this Sunday, Barbara Nitsch is still in UK and says to Stewart, tell me when it gets cooler, then I will come back. Pat & Bryan are leaving Saturday morning until 29th August. George & Susan leave on Sunday until 15th August followed by Joan and I, on 8th until 22nd.
The sad news is about our friend Jeff. He went over to UK last week on the advice of the local doctor here and we heard from his wife Anne, this evening, that the biopsy has confirmed lung cancer, but the good news is that it is in early stages and operable or curable by chemotherapy. Anne has her daughter and family here on holiday at this time and they are here for the whole month of August, but obviously she is anxious to get over and be with Jeff at this time.
The good news is that Anne managed to get a seat on our Pegasus flight on the 8th, so she gets a lift to the airport this end and as Jeff is in Chatham and we are going to the Romney Marshes, she can have a lift in our hire car at the other end. Also means that we get a chance to see Jeff also.
On the subject of flights we had a customer of ours tell us that he booked a charter flight to Antalya, very cheap, and then a link flight to Ercan from there. I suppose it depends on connections etc. but it might be worth investigating. I do have to say that this customer is in the travel business!
I have also had this e-mail in:-
Frank,
Have you any news on Eupro?
I note from Companies House that they are late sending in their accounts and their Internet Domain name is for sale. The website is no longer operational.
Most of the Directors seem to have left the island although I believe one has returned.
A lot of us are curious as to what happened to all the £25.00's paid by homeowners.
Mem
Maybe if any Directors of Eupro read this they would like to enlighten us.
We have to tell you about this new restaurant which has been open about two months. Joan and I went down to Kyrenia this week to deal with a few essentials before our holiday and we decided to look in on the newly refurbished "Old Bazaar" which is situated near the Round Tower, off the High Street. There we found a couple of souvenir shops, a speciality ice cream parlour, a juice bar and a galleried restaurant called "The Amaretto". There was a posh advert at the juice bar for this place and it looked really good. As Bryan and Pat were leaving early tomorrow, we all four decided:- "give it a go". Well we have to report, superb. French style cuisine, very nicely presented, good quantities and excellent quality. We all had starter and main course, two bottles of a Moldovian Sauvignon and a couple of bottles of water. Total bill 220YTL with tip, less than £20.00 per head. For this quality of food here in TRNC, excellent, lets just hope they keep it up. On the down side it was very warm and humid in the building, but they tell us that air conditioning is on the way.
News day again, but first a bulletin from Pat & Bryan, who left at 3.30 a.m. this morning to get the 6.45a.m. CTA flight to Manchester. At 8.15 we received a text message, which read "bring bacon butties and blankets we are freezing here at the airport". After further delays they finally boarded at 9.15 a.m. This means they have been on the go for over seven hours and have not even left the airport yet.
When I opened today's newspaper there was an interview with the new boss of CTA.
What does he say:- "Be loyal and fly CTA, even if prices are high"
Now the recently sacked general manager was a primary school teacher in a previous life, maybe this one was a professional comedian. His pledge is to turn round the fortunes of the company which has lost tens of millions of euros this year, by keeping the loyalty of the people to their national airline despite fierce price competition by other carriers. He blames higher fuel prices, increased charter costs, wages for pilots and air crews as being the main factors for the losses, but refuses to look at staffing levels initially. He says that the price increases are also due to the attention to passenger safety and security. Throughout the interview he keeps repeating the need for loyalty to the National Airline. He must be living in cloud cuckoo land, surely he has read about the overall tourism situation in TRNC and must be just slightly aware that when the prices are high people stay away. Oh yes, he forgot to mention in his financial round up, the cost of sending the staff to charm school. When are they going to bring in a professional airline man to head up the company, who might just be able to turn things round, if it is not too late already.
Another new money making scheme that actually has some merit. Charge for car parking at Ercan airport. At the moment vehicles just get left for weeks and months at a time, whilst owners are abroad and just finding a car park space can be a nightmare. But this comes at the same time as the new restrictions on airport pick-ups. We can see all the locals parking on the dual carriageway at the approach to the airport. But CTA are to get a share of the fees to help them out. Maybe that's the answer, turn CTA into a car parking company giving the 740 staff new employment and open a brand new National Airline run by professionals.
Water rationing. More areas hit and more to come in the searing heat. Municipalities are shutting off water supplies from between one and three days now. Temperatures are in the mid 40s and the humidity level is higher than I have ever known it here. Last Thursday I was in Nicosia and the temperature gauge on my car was reading 43 degrees. The forecast is for more of the same in the coming week.
First high level meeting to probe 21 cases brought before the Property Complaints office, took place this week. The cases all related to problems experienced in dealing with lawyers, developers, builders and estate agents while trying to buy homes in North Cyprus. Lets await some outcome from this proceedure to see if it is going to be effective, I do hope so, as some sort of control is really needed here.
Lots of political moves to try to end the isolation of the TRNC. The US is urging the Secretary General of the UN to launch a fresh initiative for a Cyprus settlement. Two Italian politicians have applied for TRNC citizenship, claiming that their move was a show of support to Turkish Cypriots and a reaction to the EUs "unacceptable" failure to keep its promises to North Cyprus. A German MEP has urged Turkish Cypriots to be more proactive in Europe. He urges the setting up of tourism or cultural offices in European countries to give more representation in Europe. He says the Israelis, Iraqi Kurds and Palestinians have done it so why not the TRNC.
IKEA is all set to open in the South, but.....TRNC customs warned that would be shoppers have a personal allowance of 135 Euros when crossing the border and anything over that would be charged at 30% tax. They also made it clear that there as no adding allowances together when travelling together, individual receipts would be required for each persons purchases.
Today was George & Susan's day for going to Ercan. We had agreed that the way to do it was for me to drive them there, bring the car back and then on the 8th, take and leave the car for them to collect on the 15th. Then they would come and collect us on the 22nd. Sounds complicated, but just the same number of journeys but only one car at the airport, for only seven days. Big snag to this arrangement, George wanted picking up at 1.30 a.m. as their flight was leaving at 5 o'clock. So that was early bed, up at just after midnight and then back to bed around 4 a.m. On top of that I get an e-mail asking why the website was not up to date.........help.
As you might guess once this is done it will be zzzzz time.
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