Cukurbagli's Blog   My life in Turkey

I’ve had some complaints about my lack of activity so in order to placate a vociferous minority here is another blog. I’m going to gloss over a lot of last year’s aspects, too much bad news for and from so many people and places for me to even start writing about it. I took a few photographs during the year and I’m going to include them and some stories about them in no particular order of date or importance.

You will have seen that a new water pipe was installed along the road and I was furnished with a new supply to it. I had to connect to this new pipe because the old supply from the other side of the road was severed when the trench was dug. Previously I had bought and fitted a new water pump to and the arrival of this new pipe made me think that I had wasted a lot of money by getting a very quiet and modern pump but it turned out that I inadvertently did the right thing because the pressure from the new supply can be too much for some of my water fittings. I’ve had trouble with some of the taps and valves being over powered by the main supply pressure so now I just let that keep my forty seven litre tank full and allow the new pump to supply the house from that tank.

Since I have lived here (17 years this year) I have found that having to cook for myself has meant I have grown to enjoy cooking and trying out new recipes. Successful pie pastry has eluded me though, at least until now. I have had to resort to the frozen millefeuille pastry which although turns out nice as seen below it’s not home made.

I must admit that my early attempts were failures but persistence pays off and although it has been a long time between attempts I think I have finally managed to make pie crust that I don’t need a road drill to get through. My goal is to make a raised pastry case pork pie, apparently this is one of the most failure ridden recipes but I will try. I will post more photos of my successes in due course. Until then this kind of pie crust will keep me going. I put all sorts of filling beneath it and especially in the winter months I find the pies not only tasty but comforting and they usually last for a few days too.

A young lady in Kaş brought me a kitten.

Cute little thing with very nice colour marking. It had been named Mayıs because she found it in May. There are a lot of unwanted or unplanned dog and cat births around here that considerable effort is made to try to control. A very difficult task for local veterinarians made harder by the natural wish of the local people to let nature be nature. Consequently there are always lots of puppies and kittens who are being put up for adoption and I find it quite difficult to refuse sometimes. This kitten, however, caught my attention and I relented. She even came with her own bed. She’s a very exuberant little thing and has caused me a number of scratches and wounds and reminded me that I cannot leave things lying around if I expect to ever find them again. The dogs are trying to avoid her too, even big Wolfie will go out of his way to avoid walking within talon’s reach of her.

The tortoises in my garden have come in for some attention but they don’t move quickly enough to hold her interest for more than a minute or so.

Talking of dogs I was very upset recently to lose my favourite dog Minnie to the curse of the Leishmaniasis disease. She had been with me for 12 years since joining me when I was taking two of my previous dogs for a walk up the road near my house. They started looking around behind them and in the end I stopped to look too.

This little brown dog was following us and eventually when we got to my gate and went in she carried on down the road. About fifteen minutes later when I was having a coffee on the patio she came trotting up my drive. I gave her some water and then some food and she stayed ever since. I never had to put her on a lead, she always trotted right behind me everywhere we went.

I’m really sad to have lost her, just wish there was some medication that cured this rotten disease but no-one has found one yet.

This is the time of year when we get nice skies and beautiful sunsets. I need to go to the other side of the hills to get the sun going down past the sea horizon but I’m not allowed out that late during the day for now. I’ll post the good ones that I get from my patio for now.

That’s all for now folks, I’ll post some more soon. Hopefully I’ll have no more complaints, you know who you are, hee hee.