On Wednesday 8th December the Turkish lira was at 18.5 to £1 and it looked to get even worse. Reports in the Turkish news showed that things are pretty desperate, see below:
https://www.duvarenglish.com/in-the-face-of-economic-crisis-people-resort-to-selling-their-clothes-in-turkey-news-59783
It was quite a busy day and as I walked to my 4th Turkish class I noticed there was more building work happening on the swimming pool in the villa next door. The Turkish class was good, if not a bit more difficult, as we had to learn more vowel harmonies which is quite tricky to understand at first. It was also our last class until January as Sioned was off back to the UK and would be coming back to Dalyan on the 29th December with me, Jamie and Nanny Kay. After Turkish class I went next door to Maizie Moo to buy some face scrub to take back to England with me while Vanessa waited for our friends, Julie and Janet, to join us. We had decided to have a pre-Christmas farewell lunch and drinks at Lukka and, while the other ladies had paninis, I went for a cheese and bacon burger. We shared 2 bottles of white wine between us and all had a laugh during our lovely lunchtime treat.
I had confirmation of my PCR test in London being booked but couldn’t open the link with the reference I needed for my PLF but I still had 2 days for that to come. It had already gone dark when I decided to go to Şok supermarket for some bread and I also got more biscuits and a measuring jug, for a cost of 18.20 lira which was just less than a pound!
I had a cheese sandwich for dinner with olives, pickled onions, gherkins and crisps, then later on some roasted chestnuts.
With only a couple of days left until my trip to the UK it was, of course, inevitable that my last proper night out in Dalyan would turn out to be rather eventful!
On Thursday 9th December I just had bread and olives for breakfast as I was off to get pampered in the afternoon. I had booked in with Emrah Killis at 2.30pm for hair, eyebrows and a pedicure and I was really looking forward to it. It was so indulgent and relaxing that I almost fell asleep and spent an amazing 2 hours there being titivated. While I was in the hairdresser’s I noticed that the UK had published a Plan B which made for interesting reading and I was still not 100% convinced that going back to England was the right thing to do, but I’d paid for most of it now and I was looking forward to seeing family and friends.
My next appointment was at Tez bar for my PCR test at 4.30pm, it was so easy, not painful at all and so quick – the best PCR test I’ve experienced so far (and I’ve had a few). It cost just 300 lira (£16 approx at the time) and the results would come through within 24 hours (or less). Tez had organised the whole thing and had a glass of red wine on the bar for after I had finished, Ann was also on her way to join me for a drink. We sat at the bar as it was a little bit chilly, we prefer to sit away from the smokers and the place was fairly busy. I’d not seen Ann since her dog had been poorly as she had been nursing her back to health, so we had several wines of catching up on before we realised we should probably go for food. Sarah arrived and had decided for December she will be dressing as an elf for every day of the month and, after much she posed for a few elf photos she joined us for wine too. I saw Nick on his way out with Onur and Özcan so I went to see them outside and invite them to join us but they were having a lads night out down town.
Ann and I had already decided on Heybe’s for dinner as it is always consistently good and we fancied a nice quiet meal, Sarah also fancied a bite to eat and she came along too. Her dog, Yaps, joined us, and was super confident showing off her new look hair cut. For some strange reason I decided to have a chicken dish which had dates and figs in, Ann had a chicken casserole and Sarah the chicken schnitzel. All were lovely however Ann decided she wanted a chocolate pancake and I had one with lemon and sugar – Donny made these from scratch and they were delicious. Onur and Özcan came to join us, I later found out from Nick that they only popped in because Onur needed a pee on the way home and so they also ended up having a rather bizarre end to their night too. After Sarah and Yaps went home, the rest of us, including a friend of Ann’s who had joined us, got right on it with more booze at Heybe’s and then Ann invited us back to her place for a party. Donny, the owner of Heybe’s, gave me, Ann, Onur and Özcan a lift to Ann’s, who had bought more wine and some beer from the shop next door to Heybe’s. At Ann’s, joined by her friend and dog-walker, Cheryl, we sang, danced, drank and laughed until the early hours of the morning.
Cheryl stayed at Ann’s but I walked home with Onur and Özcan through a completely empty town – what a last proper night out in Dalyan!
joloyolo 