Cukurbagli's Blog   My life in Turkey

Summer is blazing now, regularly 40C+ and curtailing most activities apart from visits to the beach. The cats and dogs are just lying around so as not to get too hot and I have put the television outside on the porch to watch in comfort, I only have air conditioning in the bedroom.

I had a trip over to Adrasan recently to see an old friend. Been past the turning off the main Antalya road lots of times and always wondered what it was like but always had a different agenda before, this time I had all day. I was very surprised at how nice it was, quiet, small buildings, nothing too fancy and a nice beach. there were a few summer season preparations going on but for a relaxing holiday I would say it is nearly perfect.

The flowers in my garden attract some nice butterflies, don’t know the names of these, or the flowers but I thought they were nice so here is a picture.

The cats were all gathered under one of the oleanders the other day and I had a suspicion that there might be a reason so I picked up my camera and toddled off to have a look. The tortoiseshell one, Defne, had caught a large mouse. At first I thought it was a small rat but I think mouse is more likely, although I have seen one or two rats in the years I’ve been here. The third cat is in deep shadow behind Deniz, the black and white one, you might just be able to see her eyes. (Edit: Actually I seem to have made a mistake, not unkown in my posts, it’s actually a small Bay tree not an Oleander as anyone with any horticultural knowledge has probably already shouted at their screen.)

I made Shakshuka for breakfast a few days ago, typically Mediterranean and very nice, I’ll do it again next week I think. I enhanced it a bit with some chopped fried bacon but couldn’t really tell if it made any difference. Very nice though.

Oh, my biopsy results eventually came through and reported that the thyroid “nodule” was benign. Apparently just a goitre, and not a very large one at that. I can’t really feel it although the consultant said he could. I’ll get it checked for size in about a year but it doesn’t seem as though it will be a problem.

I like the occasional few Pringles, cheese and onion for preference, but I’m getting sick and tired of opening a tube of them to find that they are all broken into small pieces. I wish the manufacturers would get a grip of the shops and delivery people, I would buy them more often if I could be assured that they were whole.

Well today is British EU Referendum day. I will be very interested to hear the results tomorrow. I hope the result is to leave the EU, for me it is all about sovereignty, we have slowly but surely lost most of it to the un-elected EU gravy train and I would like to see power to make decisions on laws, tax and other regulations that we have lost returned to the British government so that we have control of our country. Not that I think the British government is good by any means but if they make bad decisions at least the British people will be responsible for who they elect.