Musti is prancing round the pansiyon in no t-shirt. I am sitting here in two jumpers.

Life is just so wrong. To cheer myself up I am 1) watching his chest him on webcam and 2) eating a Whipple Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight. Both of which are exceedingly moreish.

But Crunchies are still better.

* posted by nat 4:10 PM

Friday, July 29, 2005

Today I sent out an email to a few people saying "Well, I'm back," went for a blood test, spent the rest of the afternoon dead on the sofa, came back and checked and found 13 emails waiting!

I love you lot, really.

Then I went out and bought a cheap webcam and spent a joyous half an hour pulling faces at Musti over MSN.

* posted by nat 10:26 PM

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Back from Andalucia (where I spent much of my time in a Very Happy Place - hothothot! - and most of the rest of time we spent in one bar or another; also Happy Places!), to exit the aircraft into the pouring rain: aaah, welcome to the UK.

I have mostly been wandering around in a daze and doing silly things like calling Turkey at 7am, buying a new phone (I have a new number; will get round to telling people about it eventually - for now the phone is happily charging up, which will take a while) and watching BBC News 24. Argh. I want BBC World back.

More sensible things have included lunch at Planet Organic, layers of thick warming sweaters, chocolate soya milk, and the purchase of Private Eye.

Also have been eyeing up laptops. Because, of course, when feeling low, or frozen, spending money is the obvious solution. Whee!

* posted by nat 6:07 PM

Friday, July 15, 2005

I have become a lie; everyone in Egirdir informed me so upon my departure. That's nice to know, isn't it? Turkish is a funny language sometimes.

The horrible trauma of leaving time (I cried all the way to Antalya, much to the despair of the bus attendants) was moderated somewhat by all the lovely people at Antalya airport. I managed to blag my way onto a workers' service bus to the airport instead of coughing up for a taxi - and the whole bus got involved with telling me which terminal I should be going to and making the bus driver do detours! After that, merely uttering the words "iki aksamlar" to the passport control man and handing over a British passport with a British name on it caused much confusion ("Is your father a Turk, or your mother?"); then rabbiting on in Turkish to the man at the pizza place in the airport got me a few million off the shamelessly overpriced pizza and coke.

All the air-con was a bit of a shock, however. Amsterdam Schiphol was even more freezing, and security came round and woke everyone up at 5am: "You can't sleep any more, come on, sit up!"

Got into Birmingham yesterday morning and had to cope the whole day with people going "So hot, this weather!" while I put on long sleeves and a jacket.

But there is Pimms to be drunk, and I'm going to Spain on Monday - as long as I haven't frozen to death by then!

* posted by nat 5:19 PM

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Last night Mustafa and I took the big boat to the beach, barbecued fish for dinner, drank some wine, ate mulberries, and slept in the boat under the stars.

The moon set early. Venus was up high. The Milky Way was a bright streak across the sky.

We saw lots of shooting stars.

I have to get on a bus in an hour or so, and leave.

Oh God.

* posted by nat 12:53 PM

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

This morning I went to the barbers (the barber in question being Süleyman), for my hair was getting long and annoying in the 40C weather. Mustafa sat in the corner, pretending to not be interested and reading the paper and watching me via the mirror, and for the rest of the inhabitants of the shop I was the freak show. I never knew it took four people to cut someone's hair! Fair enough, however, the two young boys who hold things and sweep up hair probably had never seen girl's hair being cut before, and the rest of the people were just wondering what that bloody gavur was up to now, especially after Süleyman sprayed my hair, then brushed it out, and panicked slightly when my hair did its usual falling out routine.

I pointed out I had a lot of hair and not to worry. Then he cut my hair extremely carefully and exactly as I asked him to. This is why I love barbers. And he didn't charge me anything. Even better! Zehra, his wife, popped in (presumably as news had got around that there was a female in the barber's shop) and fluffed around with my hair a bit, and then Mustafa and I came back to the pension and drank copious amounts of nescafe (him) and mountain flower tea (me).

It is still extremely hot. Somewhere in this town there is a bus ticket for tomorrow with my name on it. Until then there are many swimming and ice-cream eating possibilities and tonight looks like being something special.

I am refusing to pack.

* posted by nat 12:57 PM

Sunday, July 10, 2005

Today on the beach (well actually in the water) we talked politics.

"So what happens if they don't go to mosque here?" said the tourists. "Does the imam come round and have a go at them?"

I turned round to Mustafa and said, "When was the last time you went to the mosque?"

Thinking about this gave him a headache, so I supplied for them that it was at Kurban Bayramı. Then I had to translate for him what they had been asking.

"We're not dirty Arabs though in Turkey," he said, "We're much better Muslims."

I hear this a lot. I like to think it means they're the drinking and partying kind. Actually it means they just don't like Arabs. I had to explain the other day, when a family of Iranians came to stay, that Iranians were not Arabs and were unlikely to make off with the family silver, given half a chance. Sigh.

* posted by nat 7:21 PM

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Seeing as people have been asking, I am not in London; I am in Turkey still.

Today I got up at 4am to go fishing (as the designated photographer). There were not many fish but I got some wonderful photos, Mustafa got a couple of them printed out at the photo shop - digital never looks right printed out somehow, but still, not bad.

The panysion is full tonight so I'm going to sleep on the boat, even though it is windy - there are plenty of blankets in the little cabin however not to mention my own personal heater. I'm frazzled! Can't go yet, however, I have to check in eleven Iranians. Joy!

... and I never made it to the market today. Oh well, I went down to the little market yesterday afternoon and Tarik and I bought juicy apricots.

* posted by nat 8:11 PM