Frank and Joan's news for 24 August 2009 in Northern Cyprus

Frank and Joan's Adventures in Northern Cyprus

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

On Thursday evening, when we were at Number 14 with Tracey and Mike, we saw and heard a helicopter going backwards and forwards over the mountain. In the weekend paper the headline reads "Flames Beaten Back". We could see that the helicopter was carrying a water bucket and guessed on a fire in the mountains. It appears that almost 500 donums of forest was destroyed and the helicopter was called in from Turkey to avert a repeat of the 1995 fire when 160 sq kilometers of forest and olive roves were destroyed. No cause of the fire has yet been identified.

There is a fresh threat of a general strike to bring the country to a complete standstill. The Prime Ministers Ministerial team had tried to put together some potential deals which the Prime Minister himself rejected, saying they did not have the authority to bargain with unions. He is also heavily critical over the unions approach to overtime and repeated the need for austerity measures to rescue the TRNC budget from collapse. Seems like he as the big b

oss is prepared to stand up and be counted, it sure is time somebody did as the stupidity of not working but getting paid for attending only has got to stop if they are to survive.

A passenger on CTA has taken the airline to the small claims court in UK. Why? Because they failed to inform him that there would no longer be a connection between his flight in to Asian side airport in Istanbul and the CTA flight to TRNC. He was only claiming for bus fares between the two airports, some inconvenience money and his court fees. He was awarded £80.00 and felt that it was only a principle thing as he wanted to show just how rubbishy CTA really are at passenger information.

There is a problem of too few students in the universities here and too many vacant places. The students, who used to come over from Turkey in large numbers, claim that the fees have escalated and the cost of living has gone up too much.

At last we seem to have our water supply back here in Lapta. There has been much criticism of the cations being taken by our mayor to supply water by tankers during the crisis. But some of the ideas, mainly by Brits, such as lets declare a state of emergency, border on the ridiculous. The local authorities can only do what the law allows them to do, but I have to say that when you see locals washing down their terraces regardless and needlessly, can have the effect of winding one up a little.

There will be many ladies very disappointed because GHD (Gez) has had to close down his hairdressing business.It seems that he was trying to operate using forged City and Guilds papers. Great shame really because he was building up a huge clientele, but I suppose there are minimum requirements here to open a salon which have to be adhered to and forged papers is not part of that deal. You will be missed Gez.

Final closer for today. We have had a Russian guy looking round our villa and he has gone away all enthusiastic to speak to his father. Keep all those fingers crossed please.