Memory Lane

Today our incredibly busy schedule of doing nothing was broken up by meeting up for an afternoon drink with some long standing Dalaman friends.

It’s these events that make it seem quite unreal that we have actually sold our Turkey house. The thought of never coming back here seems unthinkable, like never going back to England or never eating marmite on toast for breakfast again. I can’t get my head around it.

The gang have all coped well with Covid lockdown Turkish-style. I’m sure they won’t mind me saying they are in the golden years of their life, so need to be careful, which they have been. They have to wear a mask all the time other than in private or in a restaurant, but they’ve accepted it with good grace although the discomfort has meant they have stayed at home more.

They also have the indignity of being told that as they are over 65, they cannot go out before 10am or after 8pm. This rule foxes me somewhat: can’t quite see the logic of the 10am bit, but they are obeying the rules and carrying on as best they can.

An insular life can be difficult, but they’ve pulled together and during full lockdown where they couldn’t go out at all, one of the young whippersnappers of the group got everyone’s shopping for them.

After much catch up conversation, mainly about food and pets (this lot are animal lovers on a grand scale) we said our goodbyes and decided to drive by our old house to get some photos.

We had actually driven passed it a couple of days ago and were horrified. Instead of seeing our beautiful bougainvillea draped around the archway to the house and roses climbing the railings, the entrance and low wall all around the garden were covered in fake green grass stuff, topped with razor wire. It looked like a prison compound.

There were a couple of plaques of aeroplanes on the gates. We knew the person who bought it was a pilot and it seems as though he’s very proud of this.

What on Earth makes someone put razor wire around their house? No one else in the street has it. My imagination went into overdrive- had something unspeakable happened? But our friends would know – Dalaman is a hot bed of gossip. Steve thinks Mr Pilot is probably from Istanbul and doesn’t trust anyone. My friend Pip thought it was to keep cats out.

Whatever the reason, it certainly didn’t look like our house anymore. Which actually is a good thing in some ways.

Still reeling from the transformation of our house into Alcatraz, after a dip in the pool and a shower, we wandered into Dalyan.

The joy of staying in Dalyan instead of Dalaman is that we have many restaurants in walking distance. Dalaman is not a hotbed of cutting edge cuisine by any means and Dalyan has something for everyone. We ate at the Carretta restaurant which was not in the fanciest location being near the mosque rather than the river, but the food was amazing. We both had steaks, Steve’s with a blue cheese sauce and mine with bearnaise sauce. They were sooo tender. A complete contrast to the “French” restaurant we went to in Bakewell a week ago where the steak should have been saved for a casserole.

I hope you enjoy the photos, particularly the one of me about to eat my steak. Note the man’s head behind me. Do you think it’s a crown? If so, we should have sat together.