On The Island

I don’t know what happened to the sun. We didn’t see it all day. It was pretty dreary.

In the UK, Torin took his twins, Scarlet and Jack to his cousin’s (Wendy)’s twins, Layla and Jude’s christening.  My sister made the cakes.

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Another long walk in the morning. We then went to  Lambousa market, mainly because in spite of the fact that we have hundreds of books here, we are running out of things to read.  It was really busy down there. As well as books we bought two tile plaques, one olives and the other lemons. They were really good value (15tl each), the stall can be seen in the pictures, the photo with Mal in.  We continued our quest for membrane on the way back but two more places have sold out as well. Perova said they may have some more in, in a few weeks.

We watched the Chelsea game and they beat Villa 7-1 and were the top of the league for an hour or two. Then the Man U game and a win of 4-0, so Man U resume their place at the top. The least said about Hammers the better…Mal’s words not mine!

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An over cast day after the last few days sun. Mal and I took Rosie right up into the mountains and walked for about two hours. It was lovely. There were lots more cones and I didn’t have a bag with me so Mal tied my fleece together and filled that then found a stick and carried it over his shoulder. He looked like a little boy running away from home. We went really high which was fine going up even though it pulled a bit on the leg muscles but then we had a steep incline to come down and foolishly we both had non grip trainers on and not our walking boots! We must have looked a pair of idiots trying to get down. We did comment that we remembered when we were kids and used to run down mountains like that one. Those were the days. Right at the end of the walk we came across an avalanche from the rains and really struggled to get over that without falling off the edge.

This time we found a lot of Ploughshare orchids. The two pictures are not very good as I didn’t have my camera and used my phone.

The afternoon was dull and we even had 5 minutes light rain.

There was a bit of cloud for the first time this week, so we went for a very long walk in the mountains. Malatya waterfall is now flowing again after years of being dry. Mal and I remember when trips were organised to view the waterfall and then it dried up.

It was still nice enough to have breakfast and lunch outside.

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In the morning I went down to see Gwen as I hadn’t seen her for ages. We had a good catch up. The amazing thing is that Gwen and her immediate neighbours now have a road to get to their houses! Progress indeed, previously it was a drive through the rocky ravine, little improved by the recent rains.

From there I went on to the Black Olive Cafe to meet Sue for lunch. It was really nice sitting in their garden. It was also good to see Sue again.

In the evening Mal and I went to the Mountain View Hotel for their 10tl monthly buffet.  We ate it, had two expensive drinks and left! I’ll say no more.

Two new pictures of Scarlet and Jack….

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Now the sun is out we decided we would have to buy new sunbeds as our plastic ones go brittle in the sun. We thought about wooden ones this time and so went to Ronnie’s to have a look. He assured us that they just need linseed oil rubbing into them each October, so we bought two to try them. The price for the two beds plus the two mattresses 600tl. Of course they will deliver and he said he would be there in an hour….and he was. Good service. Ronnie’s is also worth looking at for the rest of the furniture they have in there, also their own carpenter in a workshop at the back and I do know that they will make any furniture up for you.

We also tried to buy more membrane but the shop we went to had sold out. We will look somewhere else another day as we had to get back for the sunbed delivery.

Breakfast on the terrace again after a long walk with Rosie. We collected more pine cones for the BBQ. The old cones are around the bottom of the trees and the new ones are now forming.

Sun and clear blue skies all day. Lovely.