Dalyan – 31st August

At 4.20am on Wednesday 31st August Captain Caveman had landed in Istanbul. At 6.50am he was on the plane to Dalaman and I was already up and about. I was excited for his arrival and had arranged for a taxi driver to pick him up from Dalaman airport around 8am. I’d agreed with Mark to have the borrowed bicycle returned to him by the evening but was conscious I would have a busy day. I decided to cycle over there to drop it off before it got too hot. It was just after 7am when I saw Kate feeding the cats, I had a glass of water and admired their new mobility scooter type vehicles which had arrived yesterday. I even took a photo sat on one and then walked home. It had not crossed my mind, until Kate mentioned it, that I now looked like I was doing the walk of shame back from their house, before my fella got home. Crikey – that would get the Dalyan rumour mill started (again)! Kylie and JC, the cats, followed me almost as far as the water spring and were very vocal. When I got home I did a few chores, then got prepared for my Turkish lesson. Captain Caveman arrived around 10am with lots of luggage and was pleased to be back in Dalyan. After all this time he was also surprised to have to push through the ‘born again’ bougainvillea outside of the gate to get in, with all his luggage. Sausage Dick had requested some tobacco so Captain Caveman had managed to get him 500g of Amber Leaf for €53.90 at Dalaman airport. Unfortunately Captain Caveman couldn’t get too comfy as he wasn’t staying long. In 16 hours we would be on our way back to Dalaman airport.

We both walked to the Casablanca Hotel, where my Turkish class was, then Captain Caveman went to the hardware shop to buy some screws for the door handles. My class was challenging because I’d missed 3 months but I wasn’t as badly behind as I would’ve been if Sioned had not been sending me the lessons. Vanessa and I had also been keeping up with a bit of it while away from Turkey so it seemed to be ok. Sioned told us that our Turkish classes were changing and we would have them on Tuesdays at 10am from next week. We also had a fella from another group join our class and the only other original members there today, were Steve and Janice.
After Turkish class, I walked to meet Captain Caveman at Okyanus for lunch, a tradition Vanessa and I had started. We bumped in to Babs and had a bit of a natter, she said she’d come over to join us shortly. Captain Caveman and I had a cold Efes, said hello to Bakı, who works at Okyanus, and ordered wraps each. My chicken wrap was lovely and Captain Caveman enjoyed his meatball wrap, the chips were home cooked and it came with a good salad selection. At 2.50pm I left Captain Caveman and Babs to finish their drinks and went back home.

I was in the middle of doing something on my laptop when I started getting messages and phone calls asking where I was. It was around 4.30pm and I thought it was a bit strange.
It turned out that an event I had created on Facebook, while still in Vietnam, for 7pm tonight, was showing as 3pm today.
It was meant to be at River Terrace tonight for Captain Caveman’s welcome back drinks but Nanny Kay, Leanne, Katrina, Debbie and Sarah were already there. I didn’t realise that Facebook changes the time to the country where your phone says you are located. Captain Caveman went to find people and explain, then ended up having a drink with Katrina at Lukka bar. He briefly saw Sarah and Jamie but the others had gone home. Poor Nanny Kay was a bit cheesed off, especially as she had paid 40 lira (£2) for a can of diet coke while she waited, then we didn’t arrive.
We had a table booked for 5.30pm at Bistro Blue, for just the 2 of us. It was nice to see Annie and Selahı again and we had a table outside in the sunshine. We shared cheese rolls and liver & onion starters then both had salads for mains. Captain Caveman had Halloumi, I had steak and blue cheese, all the food was delicious and the red wine went down rather well.

At 7pm, as intended, I went over to River Terrace to meet anyone who was still coming to Captain Caveman’s ‘not quite 1 night in Dalyan’ event. He was meant to be following close behind but got chatting and was even later. Katrina, couldn’t stay long but Ann, Jax, Debbie (Darling), Rach, Nuri, Mark, Kate, Maddie, Sam and Sarah made it out out. We had a good night and Captain Caveman was happy to be back.
After lots of drinks, Captain Caveman was hungry again so we went to Kebapçı Yusuf where I had the chicken liver wrap and Captain Caveman had some sort of lamb meal. The food and service was very good, as always, and it was still one of my firm favourites to eat at. Captain Caveman managed to fall asleep a couple of times so we went home, just before midnight, to wait for the taxi.