Dalyan – 24th October

I had decided to join the Riverbums on Thursday 24th October, the organiser was away so they had left Captain Caveman in charge of proceedings. I had a cup of Yorkshire tea and overnight oats for breakfast before walking with Captain Caveman to Kefal tea gardens to get the gear out of storage and ready to depart on the electric boat at 10am. Unfortunately, no boat appeared and one of the Turkish Bummers had to contact the organiser to find out where our boat and driver was. After a short delay, we were on our way in a normal boat, not the Riverbums one. We spent about 2.5 hours clearing up rubbish near the natural sulphur and rock pools over the other side of the river, in a field where sheep are and close to the mudbaths. I’d been there before with the Riverbums and it used to be a really bad area for lots of rubbish being thrown there. I was very pleasantly surprised that it was much cleaner. We did find a sheep who had put its head through a swing top bin and was wandering around wearing the lid like a necklace. Captain Caveman freed it of the bin lid and then the sheep wanted to say thank you. The boat captain gave them some reeds to eat as they were all quite peckish.
Back at the tea garden, we were already running over time so no one stopped for a beverage or snack and we all went home.

Captain Caveman and I had showers and soup for lunch with pasta in and some bread. In the local news there was an update that with immediate effect, renters in our area were able to apply for residency renewal for 2 years now and only had to show proof of 1.5 times the basic wage deposited in to their Turkish bank for 3 consecutive months. I was waiting for my new residency card which had expired on 19th October, so it was too late for me and I was stuck with just 6 months. Hopefully, if things didn’t change again before mid February, I would be able to apply for 2 years then, meaning I would be able to leave Turkey for more than 15 days by May, if I was approved.
In the afternoon, I got on with more training for Resort Experts and I was getting through the training quickly but now I had a 2 page To Do list. After working 2-6pm while Captain Caveman played Bridge on his phone, I was quite tired, and got a bit peeved that he was not very responsive to putting his phone down or helping me. He was also incredibly sneezy again, which was probably made worse from the pollen when Riverbumming.
In just 2 months’ time, it would be our 13 year anniversary so I mentioned this to Captain Caveman and asked if he intended for us to make it that far. I was getting increasingly more annoyed that all he wanted to do was play Bridge. He had said he was making his own to do list of other things he needed to do but, aside from washing clothes and hanging them out, he was obsessed with little else but Bridge. Captain Caveman thought I was overreacting (I didn’t think so) and said of course we would make it to 13 years! In all honesty, if I had a teenage son who was constantly playing games on his phone and ipad, I would not have allowed it. However, it was Captain Caveman’s house and there was no amount of me moaning that would stop him spending as much time on Bridge as he liked! I’d also noticed that if Captain Caveman wasn’t playing Bridge he was totally fascinated in watching random reels on his phone. If I interrupted him he would scroll past ‘someone painting a hole’ or ‘plaiting dust’ but got a bit snarky that I had questioned him. He really hates me asking him any ‘irrelevant’ questions.
I made dinner of chickpea and spinach curry with steamed rice and we had a bottle of red wine between us.