David and Sue in Yesilkent - the beginning (2005 - 2006)

New Year 2006

For New Year we chose to go to Izmir, Turkey's 3rd largest city. New Year is a big holiday here and the Turks really party. They seem to use New Year to have our "Christmas"; ie they have presents and sweets and cakes and special food and all the trimmings. We were definitely in the minority in Izmir, but that mattered little as the Turks made us feel most welcome. We partied on the sea-front to live groups, lazer shows and fireworks, danced the evening away and had a Turkish meal in a restaurant. Next day we promenaded in the morning with the Turkish families, and shopped after lunch in the bazaars. It was a wonderful experience.

The early part of the New Year was taken up with outings and further DIY and other improvements to the house.

One of our outings in January took us to Bafa Lake with Yo and Nigel. It's a large expanse of a mix of fresh and sea water. In fact the first time we saw it we mistook it for the sea. Dotted around it are many ancient sites. We loved it and vowed to return later in the year to try to discover some more of it's beauty.

In February we had a bit of a disaster in the form of an indoor waterfall. This was caused by the pipes in the floor of the upstairs bathroom leaking through to the downstairs bathroom. With the help of one of our new found friends, we were able to find a really good Turkish plumber and his cousin who made a very good job of dismantling the shower enclosure, digging up the floor, repairing the pipes ( a bodge up left by the builder), and making it all as good as new.

February was also David's birthday ... one of the sunniest he's had, and we spent the morning walking and the afternoon sitting outside a bar in Altinkum with friends. We were also introduced to our new form of transport this month, but it's March before we really start our love/hate relationship with it. We had decided not to have a car as cars here are very expensive to buy and run. A bog standard 30 year oldRenault 1100 would cost £1,000, petrol here is more expensive than in UK as are the taxes. Two wheels were totally out of the question. The roads here are just too poor to contemplate trying to stay upright. So we opted for two wheels and a stabiliser in the form of a sidecar.

Now that we were mobile we were able to get out and about more easily. The spring proved to be very colourful, with all sorts of wild flowers springing up everywhere. It was also quite warm. In fact David had his first swim of the year as daytime temperature reached 26deg.

We were also able to finish the water feature in the garden this month and started to get to grips with trying to grow a lawn. The garden soil was mainly a very sticky clay and we were having a lot of problems keeping on top of it, as we could only work on it when it was not too wet or not too dry. We added 2 cubic metres of sand to the clay and worked it in all over the garden. That really dd the trick, and made it much easier to work with.

posted by David and Sue @ 6:34 pm