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Published: December 8th 2013
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Woolly says – The days pass so pleasantly here, sitting on the balcony watching the huge cruise liners arriving in the harbour and all those lucky people getting to sample the wonderful resort of Alanya. Jo and Ian have finished painting the apartment ready for next year’s visitors, I have of course helped by directing operations and telling them where spots have been missed, not that they thank me for this.
Woolly is as helpful as a chocolate fire guard and keeping his paws out of the paint has been more of a challenge than actually painting every wall in sight. Having realised that I was still missing my thick waterproof winter coat we took a day off from the emulsion and headed to our friends in the hills behind Mahmultar to rummage through the garage to try and locate it for a pending trip. Woolly says – actually Ian went and rummaged while Jo and Annelie sat chatting in the sunshine about how we are getting on with the Turkish language. I’m doing quite well now, Ian is gaining words faster than Jo can consume chocolate, while Jo is still getting stuck on the
basics. Before descending into the depths of the garage Ian did ask a question that has been on all of our minds, such a simple question but boy did it bring up a whole new connotation of the rich world of Turkish and cause Jo to whiten visibly in front of my eyes. What is the difference between ‘pilic’ and ‘tavuk’? Annelie paused and responded slowly “that is a very good question, hmm they both mean chicken”, this was what we had thought, she went on “what you need to remember is that there is usually at least two words for most things, for instance chair has ten different words”. TEN words and here am I trying to learn one, how on earth am I going to learn ten and know which one is the correct one to use!
As Woolly says I did go quite white, so not only do I need to learn lots of words for each item but I also have to learn when it is appropriate to use them and who I use them with – Arggggggggggggggggggggggggg. I so wish I had a better linguistic ability! Woolly says –
With these thoughts buzzing through our minds we journeyed back down the mountainside deciding that we really needed to ‘up the ante’ on our learning and practice a lot more.
As we make plans for the festive season we have found it strange that the shops aren’t groaning under tinsel, shopping baskets aren’t being filled with mini Santa’s, gift packs and the other hundred other things that we are usually purchasing at this time of year. Woolly says – I’ve seen ONE Christmas tree, I did remind Jo and Ian that we have all the decorations but unless I want to crawl through our belongings they will be staying in a garage for this year. To get us in the Christmas mood we made a trip to the harbour to start the celebrations at the fourth annual Christmas fare. With wooden shacks lining the area there seemed to be millions of people clambering for festive fare from different countries around the globe, I noticed the saffron bread that Annelie had told us was a traditional dish from Sweden, with so many people in attendance is was very difficult trying to see anything much. The
hugemungus tree formed the centre piece and for some strange reason there were two Father Christmas’s in situ, one MUST be fake but I couldn’t tell which. Jo asked if I wanted to sit on one of their knees, she must think I’m three years old, really I was more interested in consuming the mulled wine!
It was really nice to see so many people enjoying the stalls and having festive music playing, we arrived just as a group of children were singing carols on the stage, takes me back to when Zoe was small and I would spend hours freezing while she competed in choir competitions for school, at least here the sun is out. Woolly says – Having gained in the festive feel we split up to go shopping for the last of the presents to take back with us to the wet and windy UK. Leaving on Tuesday we will be driving Ollie on what will be his last journey with us. Ollie has been the most amazing vehicle on our travels and we will miss him badly but importing him to Turkey is financially not practical it would
cost more than he is worth and we would also be stuck if we ever wanted to sell him in the future as only expats can buy a foreign import this with his right hand drive in a left hand drive country means that we have had to make the sad decision to take him back and sell him there. Ian assures me that we will buy another car on our return but nothing could live up to our green treasure that has looked after us so well. He does get to see some more of Europe on the trip back as well as re-visiting countries already seen. Watch out Serbia there’s a Mammoth on the way!
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