When I woke up on Friday 26th November the news was packed full of articles about Corona; a new variant had been discovered in South Africa, more here: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-59418127 I saw a Facebook post to say that the UK were banning flights from South Africa. France had announced that a 3rd vaccine booster would be required for vaccine passes to be valid. In the Vietnamese news there was reports that a total of 3 people had died after their vaccination in Vietnam, the investigation was ongoing, check it out here: https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/society/20211126/following-two-deaths-one-more-dies-after-covid19-vaccination-in-vietnam/64368.html Then later it was reported that there was a 4th death from the same batch of vaccines in Vietnam, see below: https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/society/20211126/vietnam-seals-vero-cell-covid19-vaccine-batch-following-4th-postvaccination-death/64382.html My arm was aching today, 2 days after my vaccine and I felt incredibly tired so I decided that I was going to have a day of chilling out and I was going to have a night in tonight. My delivery of meat pies and sausage rolls from Emma was delivered by her husband, Yusuf, and I put some in the freezer before I was tempted to eat them all – I did have 2 sausage rolls for my breakfast though! For lunch I made a bit of a strange concoction of köfte, rice and mushrooms which tasted really good. I went to meet a friend at the tea gardens in the afternoon and when I got there it was a mess because of the improvements the council were attempting to make. The cafe was now next to the toilets, on the grass, so no longer overlooking the river and the rock tombs. After several Turkish teas and a chat I walked back home, just as the sun was setting and I called in to the stationers to buy a notebook, I spotted they had some good 2022 diaries there too so I purchased a nice one. That night I ordered a takeaway from Spice Garden and got enough for tonight and tomorrow’s lunch. I had poppadoms, chicken tikka masala with chips and nan, I even had a couple of glasses of red wine to wash it down and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I went to bed really tired but I couldn’t get to sleep.
On Thursday 11th November it was already time for my parents to submit their PLF, a requirement to return to the UK, and from what we had been reading online it might be a bit of a chore. As none of us have a printer our initial plan was to complete it and then go to the stationers, who would print everything for a very small fee, but it would still mean Mom having access to her emails, which she didn’t always have. Our Plan B was even better, Vanessa and Matt had a printer and offered to help us which also meant if we did anything wrong we could easily rectify the situation. I went over to my parents’ so that I could do the 2 PLFs on my phone and Mom had already got all the required documents to hand. Dad was putting me off slightly by pacing up and down next to where we were sitting and my Mom had to tell him to find something to do. The only information needed on the forms are as follows; Name, uk address, email address, UK phone number, flight number, flight date, flight seat number, flight landing time, passport number and expiry date, vaccine status, dates arrived abroad and PCR test reference number (for day 2). I’d worked in insurance and Mom had worked in accounts so we weren’t bad at form filling in, I’d also had experience of completing the Turkish one when I came here, however, the UK one was pretty badly laid out and was over 4 pages when it could have been 1. It was in an illogical order with lots of repetition and took far longer than it should have, but we managed it. We checked each one 3 times before submission and then sent it to our friends ready for them to print later and bring it when we met them for drinks later on. My Mom already had all her other documents printed as we had heard that the check-in queues were sometimes long because of passengers trying to find missing docs on their phone. With that all done, I was hungry as I hadn’t had any breakfast and I suggested somewhere we hadn’t tried this visit yet, somewhere I had avoided eating in the past because of my ‘food allergies’. We took the long walk via the river and walked all the way along to Kaunos tea gardens near the turtle statue. It was lovely and sunny, Dad had coffee and we had Turkish tea which was very nice. It was already 12.45pm so we ordered food, they weren’t doing pancakes so Mom ordered calamari, Dad had a cheese, tomato and sausage toasted sandwich and I had the cheese and sausage one. It’s Turkish sausage so more like a salami but is made from beef and is delicious in a toastie. The food was great and the waitress was super keen and quite good with her English, I tried a little bit of Turkish too. The prices were really good value and Dad noted the beer was about the cheapest in Dalyan (for next time). We were meant to be meeting friends in the afternoon but I got a message from them to say they were unable to make it today. It might have been a good thing as by the time we had walked back in to town, having tried to find a shop that was open to get some Turkish Delight for my sister, I needed the toilet so urgently that I had to leave my parents and get home quickly.
After having an immediate reaction to my cheese and Turkish sausage sandwich, from the tea garden, I was at home resting up when I got a message from Selahı, asking where I was as he was at Bistro Blue and would be there until 4pm for me to go and purchase some of the lovely wine he had. I went as soon as I could as I really loved the Leona Cabernet Sauvignon which I was going to buy at a reduced price and hoped to buy a bottle of prosecco too. When I got there I was immediately offered a drink, a nice glass of red wine as I joined 3 others plus Selahı. We had a bit of a chat and then as I had almost finished my wine the Turkish men left to go to the barbers and left me with the English chap who’d come to collect some cushions. When Selahı returned he insisted on a top up and then I was almost late to meet the evening gang but had enjoyed the surprise Sunday club. After dropping off my 4 bottles of wine at home, I arrived at the 2 Charlies bar where my parents, Vanessa and Matt were already drinking and I ordered a wine. I was a bit put out that the print outs had the wrong passport expiry date on for my Mom, even though I read it back to her 3 times, and couldn’t understand how that had even happened but she didn’t seem too worried and said she would chance it. We had another drink then my parents and I said our farewells to Vanessa, Matt and Alan (who had now joined us) as we were heading off for my last Turkish meal with my parents before they left Dalyan. Dad was up for trying a place that had been one of my favourites the last time that Captain Caveman and I were here in winter, River House. There was an outdoor fire so we sat at a table near to that and ordered glasses of wine. The menu is extensive but I found it easy to decide on the chicken casserole, Dad ordered liver and onions, while Mom went with the most unexpected dish from the menu – Singapore noodles! I should have realised she was acting out of sorts at this point but it wasn’t until a couple of hours later that we noticed Mom was acting out of character. Throughout all of their month here Mom had been keeping an eye on Dad and telling him he couldn’t go mad on the drinking and he often wanted to stay out longer but tonight Mom was the one to suggest we go on for a nightcap somewhere else. We ended the night in Lukka bar giving the proverbial ball a right old kick, we even made the bar staff join in with our private party until another couple joined in. We knew we were drunk as I had 3 Bailey’s but my Dad was in utter disbelief as my Mom had twice that amount and kept complaining her’s had evaporated. At one point she started to complain it must not be real Bailey’s, but it was, and she didn’t even care when we got the rather large bill at the end of the night. It was an unexpected end to their month long holiday but it was such a laugh – I suspected both Mom and I would suffer from hangovers and leg twinges from all the dancing when we got up tomorrow!
I was woken up with an earthquake at 8.32am on Tuesday 19th October, it felt like I was on a lilo at sea for quite a few minutes and I was confused at first as to what was happening. It turned out that the epicentre was Rhodes island, not that far from us, with a magnitude of 6.3. I read some Vietnam news about the floods, luckily in Phong Nha things were ok and it was not quite as bad as in 2020, here’s the article: https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/society/20211018/at-least-five-missing-as-torrential-rains-trigger-raging-floods-in-central-vietnam/63642.html I took my last antibiotic after eating my cornflakes and was looking forward to an alcoholic drink with my parents later. The rest of the morning was fairly ordinary; I paid Sonuç back for my insurance as I had forgotten to give it him and I did my first online banking app transfer which was very easy, I started making a slow cooker Lancashire hotpot and soaking some lentils and I watched as the start of the building work next door got underway. I found out why Captain Caveman wasn’t concerned about how I was as I saw more photos of flooding where he was and he’d got a puncture on his motorbike. I also decided to try to help out a lady in a fix who had posted a request for swapping a large suitcase for 2 small ones and I offered to sell or swap my large suitcase which now had a dint in it from my recent journey from Vietnam to Turkey.
My parents and I had agreed to go out for lunch and it was my turn to suggest somewhere we could eat (and drink), I chose one that I know all of us have loved every time we have been. Yakamoz is on the river and looks out to the rock tombs, the men who own it have been there for years, always give great service and the food is excellent! I went to the meze cabinet and had a look to see what there was, took a photo of them and tried to remember what the man had told me so I could repeat to ma & pa who were sat at a table by the river. We ordered a bottle of water and a bottle of Angora white wine and I was looking forward to my first drink since getting drunk with Sonuç and my next door neighbours 8 days ago (not that I was counting)! From the mezes Mom chose garlic mushrooms, Dad ordered beetroot and cheese rolls, and I had courgette fritters with yoghurt and fava bean dip. We shared them and all were so good that I don’t think we left enough room for our main courses. I had chicken shish but had to take half home, Dad had prawn casserole and Mom had lamb shish. It was a glorious day and we really enjoyed our lunch out in the sunshine.
Afterwards I decided to show them one of Captain Caveman’s favourite places to see if they had been before; Backyard No. 9. We ordered a bottle of white which came with an ice bucket and olives and my parents remembered it as being the back of the Rock Bar years ago. Bora, the dog, was still there and the gardens were much more matured since my last visit. It was a lovely boozy afternoon but when the sun started to go down we went home. The builders had been busy in my absence and already the binding was down and some rebars had been delivered. It was going to be quite a big surface area but there was no indication on the height yet. That night I had a very small portion of the Lancashire hotpot and batched the rest up for the freezer, it looked like using red lentils instead of flour for a thickener had worked a treat.
It was a mix of a day on Thursday 7th October; news that Vietnam planned to open again in June 2022 were posted on the internet, the number of Corona cases in Vietnam had dropped considerably, the weather forecast for next week was looking cold and wet here in Turkey, and a few fully vaccinated friends in the UK were positive for the Corona virus. Before breakfast I went over to my parents’ place where I had arranged for my cleaner at Fire Opal to give their place a once over before their arrival next week. I did a small shopping trip too then Sonuç messaged to say he needed a copy of some paper work for my residency, again.
Here’s my shopping list and costs in lira:
Şok supermarket
1 plastic bag 0.25 2 lemons 0.77 Bread 2.00 3 carrots 3.28 1 packet of Turkey ham 3.50 1 packet of plain crisps 4.50 2 packet of biscuits 5.00 1 bottle of pomegranate sauce 5.50 Honey 5.90 Rock salt 12.45
Total 43.15 lira (£3.82).
I had arranged to meet Annie and Anne at Alegria for lunch, the owner of Yummy’s had taken over the old Safran restaurant and made Alegria her new eatery, right on the river, opposite the tombs. The place is lovely and they have a very large menu to choose from, which I’d not been used to having so much choice and it took me ages to decide. Eventually Annie and I ordered the steak salad, Ann had the crispy chicken and the food was absolutely lovely. I even had a pineapple and watermelon juice as I was conscious of not having eaten enough fruit of late and, although it’s not the cheapest place in town, it really is good value and the portions are large (I took home leftovers) and the location is gorgeous. In the afternoon I met Sonuç at the insurance company to ask about renewing my health insurance policy because I needed a 2 year policy for my residency application. That night I decided to have a night in and, because I’d had a big lunch, I just had leftover steak salad and nibbles for dinner while watching a bit of Netflix. I’d had a productive and enjoyable day and I was ready for a relaxing weekend.
joloyolo 