Frank and Joan's news for 12 April 2009 in Northern Cyprus

Frank and Joan's Adventures in Northern Cyprus

Our adventures in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus continue....

Woke up this morning to more rain, so that's my excuse for not going out in to the garden again. So had a lie in and read for a while then we all got up and had some poached eggs etc for breakfast, still no fried bacon etc. allowed.

Remember the saga of the consistently missing post from UK, well after the tests conducted by BRS members which revealed that only one-fifth of the mail actually arrived, the Royal Mail is to conduct its own test and try to get at the source of the problem.

A further 50 speed cameras are coming to the island. Don't know if these are really doing as much good as the authorities would like because I am convinced that many of them are not actually working. I know that on one or two occasions during my travels around I have been slightly less than attentive.

Before we went to UK and France I got Joan to call in to the police station and check that there were no tickets against my car number and she was told that I had been a good boy.

Whilst they talk about reducing speed it was also revealed that a 28 year old driver in a Range Rover collided with a parked vehicle whilst attempting to overtake at speed, killing a lady passenger.

The highways department has announced that another tender will held for the very, very late Girne by-pass. One day we may be able to miss out on the daily Karaoglanoglou crawl. At the same time they have also announced that, after three years, the land dispute on the 20 metre section of the Northern Coastal Road has been resolved. But there is no contractor to finish the work so still we wait.

The reservoirs in TRNC are 25% full now compared with 17% at this time last year. This of course still means a water shortage but not quite as bad as last year. Apparently the last time that the reservoirs were actually full was in 2003/2004.

A week today is election day so lots of stuff in the weekly paper about the various parties and their promises. The final results will be interesting but of course we cannot influence the results. Many are suggesting that the UBP party will hold control but it will still be a coalition government. Some local friends are telling me that UBP are very much in favour of a divided island with each side retaining it's own government. We have always said that they cannot live together so maybe this will be the ideal, but we still need world recognition.