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Our
adventures in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus continue....
  
A friend of ours, Hussein, who originally came over from Iran, has opened a new shop in Alsancak called Persia. if you are looking for that finishing touch to dress up the villa then some of this handmade glassware is absolutely lovely and not stupidly expensive. Here is a a selection in green which shows the detail more clearly. In addition to these items they are also bringing in a range of dates and nuts which are delicious.
Hussein and his wife have had a shop in Nicosia called also Persia for some time now so I feel sure that their success there will continue over this side of the mountain.
Sandy decided, that as today was her birthday we ought to help her celebrate, with a boat trip. It is getting round to the end of the season now so we needed to take advantage of the continuing warm weather. Pat and Bryan together with Anne all have visitors here at the moment so we had a complment of 17 in total and we were also able to take Andrew on his first boat trip, which he says was wonderful, but how does he tell Sue that he is enjoying himself, whilst she is still in UK. Don't worry Andrew, if she reads this she will know already.
We went to the east side of Kyrenia and anchored in the bay by the Acapulca Hotel. Lovely and quiet with no other boats there. The usual long swim in the sea followed by an excellent lunch of fish and chicken served with a meze selection. This guy always does us proud. After our lunch there is only one thing left zzzz's time, or at least a lazy sit in the shade before dropping anchor again for another swim, followed by fresh fruit and coffee to round things off. Oh yes almost forgot, our boatman friend serves very large whiskies, to those that want, during the final run in to harbour. Well done Joan for driving home!
Sandy had invited her friends John and Jude to join us this trip, with their daughter and grandson. Now this little chap is really going places in the future. He is already the No 1 supporter of the best team in the premiership. I like this guy, he is going to be a real champion.
Before talking about the evening out with the gang there is another little matter.
My Epson Stylus C86 has been consigned to the dustbin. The repair cost here was ridiculous. So is there anybody here in the TRNC who has a CX36, C64, C66, C84 or C86 Epson printer. I have a mass of cartridges, black and all three colours. Call me on 0533 868 8579, feel sure that there is a good deal to be made.
Joan and I spent most of the day in and around Nicosia with month end matters at suppliers. We also called in to a new car dealers as I am thinking about something larger to drive. We spoke with the Hyundai dealer who had a 4x4 about the same size as the big Toyota Rav. What a joke, he was starting to offer £8,500 for my 3 year old Rav and by the time we left, having refused to even consider this, his price had gone up to £11,500 with a discount offer of £1,500 on the new vehicle. Where do they come from, back to the drawing board I think. Maybe we will just buy an estate car instead of a 4x4, it will be much cheaper.
After we made it back to Lapta we met up with the gang, 14 in total and all went to The Rendevous restaurant. We had not warned Jeanette and her husband about this invasion but they did a super job with great food.
You know I have been saying for some time that there is a strong feeling for the island to be two states, as unification is just going nowhere, well today this article appeared in Cyprus Times:-
Why not two independent states in Cyprus.
There are two separate peoples of two different races living in two different states in Cyprus, speaking two languages originating from two different sources and using two different linguistic scripts, two different histories, two different literary traditions, two different flags, two different sets of national heroes, two different ideals, two different sacraments, two different legal doctrines, two different sets of religious practices, two different dogmas and two different holy books. Nothing at all is common, except living on the same island under the same sun.
Public opinion polls held recently in both parts of Cyprus, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC) and the Greek Cypriot side, revealed the stunning fact that both people see the sustainable solution in two separate states rather than a unified federal state.
The big headline in today's local English newspaper.
Builders in Crisis. The paper is suggesting that the construction industry is on the point of collapse as the slow down in sales has caused the industry to slip deeper in to recession. Apparantly 120 bulders have written demanding the head of the chairman of the Construction Contractors Union, blaming him for not being sensitive to the plight of the industry and also blaming the government for suffocating the industry with legislation and red tape. Strange that the car companies are not complaining about the slow down in sales of the biggest and best 4 x 4's around, almost all with personal number plates!
The work permit system is set for a shake up, they say. It is proposed that the new regulations will be in force from January 1st 2008. From that date foreign workers will need to show a professional certificate to be allowed to work in TRNC or to set up a business.
Summer is officially over! New winter working hours started on 5th October for all administration departments and banks etc. October is quite a big tourism month and the weather is still around 30 degrees during the day, but Kervansaray beach just closed down. No sunbeds, umbrellas, cafe etc, even the rubbish bins were removed. What idiot official put on his jobsworthy hat and came up with that idea.
More power cuts this week. We had one for 5 hours on Wednesday. What happened about last years promise of no more cuts after the new generators were installed.
CTA, that wonderful local airline, has now introduced e-ticketing. So there you go you can now book on-line with them, but you still have to pay them extra to park at the airport. The article in the newspaper did not give the website link, so guess you will have to use Google!
Next Friday is the start of the Ramadam Bayram holiday. Three days feasting and partying at the end of the month of fasting. All official offices, banks etc will be closed as will many small firms and some shops.
This evening Fiona and Keith came round for dinner and a couple of glasses of red. Super evening and these two are always great company.
I have had a couple of e-mails in suggesting that we should sign a petition regarding the idea that The Red Arrows would not perform at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics. If you look on Google search you will find that the 2012 committee and the Red Arrows themselves are disputing this idea, that seemed to have started in The Sun newspaper.
This afternoon, Joan and I went to Zeytenlik village where the 6th Annual Olive Festival is being held, but there was not much going on as it appears that the program is more for evening events. Plan is to come back one evening, with others, before the close.
The other reason for not being able to hang around until the evening is because we were invited to have dinner with Barbara and this was to include Roger as he is now back from UK.
This was the evening chosen to attend the 6th Annual Olive Festival in Zeytenlik village. There where quite a number of stands around selling related wares but the only thing Joan bought was a very fine looking bottle of virgin olive oil. 1 litre cost £4.00, a real bargain.
The village was quite busy and we were entertained by firstly The line dancers. An ex-pat group who practice weekly together, Joan and Pat talked about maybe going to some of the beginners classes, mainly because it looks like a good way to exercise. There was also a group of local people who entertained us with some Classic dancing and very good they were too.
Whilst everybody was practicing their special hobbies, the Layabouts practice continued in the village bar. Actually we also bought some food off the stalls, Turkish Pide, which is their form of pizza some Kebabs and some very sweet pancake things that you just had to wash down with a few beers. We went up there with Pat & Bryan and also Anne who is on early morning flight back to UK as Jeff starts his chemotherapy today. Good luck Jeff, lets be hearing from you.
We were supposed to go out with our Dutch friends Hans & Trix this evening, but had to cancel as Joan has had a major problem in a customers villa. Around three tons of water has leaked out through one of the bathrooms and the walls are black about two foot up and all the MDF skirtings have swollen. In addition some of the customers new furniture has been standing in all this water and is ruined. Joan went with one supplier early in the evening to start removing some stuff to a downstairs store room.
Before Joan went out, Jeff and Irene Burlington from Malta came round to see us. They are thinking of buying land and building here, so we stayed around talking about living in TRNC and had a couple of wines, then when Joan came back took them up to our local Asmali restaurant.
Today is almost the start of the big Bayram holiday at the end of Ramadan. I say almost the start because it officially starts tomorrow, but many pack up work at lunch time today.
Joan and I decided to take our new car, pics later when I have cleaned it again, across the border to the new Carrefour hypermarket and shopping Mall. It isn't, of course, a holiday in the south so everything was still open and we were able to browse around.
When we came back it was time for the weeekly gathering of the Layabouts, this week back to LD's.
First official day of the Bayram holiday, but Joan needed to go out to Turtle Bay Village with a couple of small bits for customers there, so we did that first and then the two of us spent a lazy day on Lara beach. The sea is still quite warm, unlike our pool, so it was very pleasant to swim.
The plan this weekend was to spend time in the garden. Despite the lack of water all summer, everything seems to be growing furiously and need cutting back. We have also altered the watering system for some of our plants and shrubs by digging holes down towards the roots and putting some PVC pipes in, so that we can water direct instead of watering on the surface, were so much of it evaporates. It seems to be working well as we can get lots of water down the pipes to the spot were it will do most good, so guess now we will have to do all the plants around the garden.
Probably best to stay at home anyway as the papers are reporting 45 minute tail backs getting through Girne (Kyrenia). There is a great deal of anger at the delay in completing the long, 8 month, overdue by-pass. I have experienced some of this myself trying to get back home around rush hour period.
A funny from the new Korineum Golf and Country Club. They have discovered that one of their £5,000 golf buggies has gone missing. Don't think it would have been stolen by a local as it is apparantly only capable of 20 mph top speed.
If you come to Kyrenia in December you will once again experience the wonders of phase two facelift of the main shopping area. If the phase one experience is anything to go by then the forecast of the work taking three to four months probably means it will still be going on during the next tourist season.
The ferry to Syria has started running depite the many protests from the South. The running of the ferry is declared as being a commercial enterprise but the South are aware that many TRNC rsidents will be travelling on TRNC passports and this will amount to indirect recognition by Syria of the TRNC.
Kervansary have promised that summer will be longer next year. Remember last weeks report about them officially closing the beach because winter office hours have been introduced, well now they have said they were wrong to do so nad will have the beach open longer next year.
Lapta's new Monday market is doing a brisk trade. This is great because it means we can get fresh veg etc without the need to go down to Kyrenia every week.
Another prominent German politician has criticised Greek Cypriot blocking tactics over the Cyprus issue, claiming that EU member states are "fed up" with it's approach. Guess what they are not the only ones to be tired of their ridiculous protestations. The UK's special Cyprus representative is also suggesting that the likelihood of a Cyprus solution was fading as time passed and that the twoleaders should be making a greater effort to set an example to the communities they represent.
A letter to the newspaper praises the new parking at Ercan airport saying that it is now possible to find a parking place. You have to pay 5YTL for the privilage however, but this is to be replaced by a graduated scale when the barriers and ticket machines are introduced. All they now have to do is persuade the taxis and buses to park in their special places instead of blocking the roadways.
OK so we had it washed, so now here is the pic of the new car. We should have gone this route when we bought the old Toyota three years ago as we have now got so much extra space.
Our friends from Iceland, Steini and his wife Siga have come back to visit the island for a few weeks. As two other Icelanders had also been over for a few weeks we all six went out to The Rendezvous restaurant this evening. They had not been there before but enjoyed the evening and we guess that Joan and I will be spending some time with Steini and Siga over the next couple of weeks.
A change for the Layabouts today. We had been told about a band concert in aid of the Forces Benefit fund. This was to be held in the grounds of the Ledra Palace. This was once the top hotel in Nicosia before the conflict and is now used by the UN as accommodation for the security forces. It was interesting to get a glimpse of what this then 5 star hotel was like when built, probably back in the 60's. You can actually see the bullet holes in the walls which must have happened in 1974.
The band was in fact the RAF Halton Area Band and they gave us a memorable afternoons entertainment with some excellent musical performances and some fun items such as the mexican trumpets. Despite the fact that it was an afternoon concert we were able to still enjoy the traditional "Night at the Proms" finale. Great stuff.
For a complete change we all stopped off at the new Ezic Chicken Premier restaurant. Some of the Layabouts had not been there yet so it was interesting to see that we all enjoyed the food and the restaurant. This one you will find on the new by-pass which is of course not yet open but there is access to the restaurant.
What a week. We keep getting these short lived power cuts during the night or early in the morning. Twice this week I have been happily logged on to the website database when suddenly bye bye goes the internet link. Who said it was one of the joys pf living over here? In addition to that, we were cut off for most of the day last Tuesday when a strike in Turkey paralysed international telephone lines, internet connections and ATM machines everywhere.
Today is half yearly blood donor day, so Joan and I headed off to town sort of early, but clearly not early enough as we had to wait around for an hour before getting the free coffee and biscuit. At least gave me a chance to sit and read the paper.
Good news at last we hope, for the Amaranta Valley investors, work has restarted on the development. It would seem that there are still some legal wrangles to sort out but they are suggesting that things could be completed in 12 months.
One of TRNC's biggest reservoirs has run dry. There have been many warnings about water shortage and yet I still see people watering gardens and hosing down the outside of their houses. The authorities spend their time trying to find ex-pats who are breaking the rules but tend to ignore the locals who ignore the repeated requests to spare water.
The date for the presidential election in the South has been set for February 17th and there is a suggestion that it will be a close run thing.
Something we missed this week. Apparently hundreds of white pelicans flew over Karsiyaka village on Wednesday on their annual migration, but this is supposed to be very unusual as they must have been blown off their normal route. Trust me to miss them.
A private sector courier company has been awarded the contract to deliver speeding fines to motorists, so look out everyone you may get the knock on the door.
Back to planting more irrigation pipes this weekend. Have to say that a couple of the plants and shrubs we did last week have really perked up so it must be quite effective.
This evening we had Pat, Bryan and Andrew around for dinner. Joan did us a traditional UK roast pork with everything style dinner which went down really well and we all enjoyed immensely. Still able to sit out there until almost 12 o'clock, wonderful.
Fairly uneventful week really apart from the usual Thursday evening out, at LD's again this week, with a gang of ten including Steinni and his wife.
Joan and I did have to go in to Nicosia this morning so took the chance to nip over to Carrefour to do some shopping as Arie is arriving from Amsterdam on Sunday, so we needed a little extra in house.
We did notice on the way crossing over, that the TRNC Police were checking all cars coming in and opening all boots for inspection. Maybe there is just a purge at the moment, we will have to wait and see. On our way back we had our passports checked twice but no check in the boot, so don't know what that was about.
Anybody remember the huge accident in March last in which seven people in a Dolmus bus were killed, after it was rammed by an out of control lorry coming down the hill. Well the driver has been jailed for 6 years on twelve counts, including reckless driving, speeding being overweight etc. I just hope that something like this will be a lesson to some of the crazy drivers here, but very much doubt it.
There has a been a big fight of late in the construction industry, which resulted in the re-election of the chairman of the Cyprus Turkish Contractors Union. As a part of his re-election speech he promised to root out "bad apples and cheats" among TRNC builders. Would be very nice if he succeeded, guess we will have to wait and see.
The ferry service between TRNC and Syria is still continuing despite political manoeuvering. The Greek Cypriot government has sent a special envoy to Syria in a bid to halt the service and he has come back saying, the matter will be resolved in a manner that will satisfy them, but hasn't said what that manner will be.
More hotels are still being built here. It is estimated that by 2009 there will be 50,000 beds available in TRNC in all hotels and foreigners are being encouraged by government grants etc to invest. This seems very strange as it was also estimated that in the first six months of this year only one third of the 15,730 beds available to tourists had been booked.
At the same time as all these hotels are being built there is also a new control tower being built at Ercan airport. This is due to be operational next May and will incorporate the latest "state of the art" air traffic control systems. Do you think that some people know something about the future and are not telling?
The Turkish Prime Minister and Gordon Brown have signed a document that maps out a plan for co-operation between the two countries on a number of key issues including the lifting of embargoes on North Cyprus. Guess who got angry and issued a veiled threat over the presence of the British bases in the south.
Well it is atually Sunday at this time of writing and time for me to leave for Larnaca to collect our friend Arie from the Amsterdam flight. Guess that is a little sad as I will miss the Arsenal/ Liverpool game on the local TV. Will just have to get on the phone when I cross back over the border to find out the result.
The Home Buyers Pressure Group here in TRNC has set up a petition that requires the signatures of every property owner here in TRNC.
It is in the interest of all of us who own a property here to ensure that the EU members are aware of the real situation on the island and that they bring it to the forefront of discussions so that proper justice is done now, as was promised by the EU in 2004.
This petition is based on the Orams case, as it is this case which will be before the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, sometime in the future.
So if you own a property here, sign the petition on:-
http:// www.ipetitions.com/petition/Orams/index.html
It is in all our interests that you do so. Oh yes and it is not essential to make a donation to the website company, just important to sign the petition.
This morning I took Arie with me to Nicosia for my regular month end visits to kitchen anad air conditioning suppliers. It gave him the chance to see just how very slow the process of doing business with these guys is.
When we had finished there, we went down in to the old town where all the market traders operate thier shops. Arie wanted to see if he could buy t-shirts and jeans for himself and maybe something for the kids. He was quite successful in one shop but very surprised to find that when his jeans were too long, the guy just pinned them up, parked us across the road with a couple of free coffees and before we had finished, back came the jeans all beautifully shortened to the required length. He reckoned that if he had been in Holland he would have had to go back 1 week later and pay heavily for the work.
When we got back to Lapta, I downloaded some of the pics that Arie had taken recently and particularily like this one, taken over Switzerland during his flight. Lots of snow on the mountains already, but then I suppose it is almost November and we forget, when it remains around 30 degrees here.
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