I'm sorry, I thought I lived in Istanbul!

The sound of cow bells reached my ears this morning - at least I thought it was cow bells, actually it was sheep bells and this is the sight that greeted my eyes when I looked out of the window:

And it wasn't just a few sheep, there were lots of them:




The sheep were baa-ing, the goats were bleating, and the sheep bells were clanging, so who could blame the local domestic dogs for adding their voices to the overall cacophony?




Though the local street dogs (and there are lots of them!) seemed to be a little more laid back about the entire event.




The sheep dog took no notice of the noise and just strolled about amongst his flock - most of which were smaller than him! So this then is the spot the dog competition!




Not to be outdone, the local population of crows cawed as they hitched lifts on the back of the sheep and, presumably, de-ticked them in the process.




Since I moved here I have seen (wandering the streets of Zekeriyakoy) sheep, goats, cows, bulls, horses, donkeys, water buffalo (I kid you not) and more street dogs than you can shake a stick at!

Megacity Istanbul? Don't make me laugh, I live on a bloody farm!

A Good Day

Today has been a good day!

This morning we went down to Dalia Beach for a breakfast organised by the PTA - pleasant conversation was had in a lovely setting overlooking Dalia Beach on the Black Sea.

When we left there we went through the village of Bahcekoy to the Belgrade Forest and had a lovely 6km forest walk. Unfortunately I didn't take my camera - never mind I will take it with me next time I go there.

When we got back I took a couple of photo's of the car as I had been promising you:

It is a lovely motor - beautiful to drive (as I can honestly state now that Mrs. Istanbilly has let me have a go).

Coming in from photographing the car I saw this beautiful little creature sat on the tiles on my porch:




He didn't stay long so I was pleased to get the pic.

Then we had dinner - Mrs I made a superb Thai green curry - she hasn't made one since before the summer and she really does do a good job of Thai green curry! It was fantastic!

To end the day we are going to go on line on our separate computers (yes, my laptop has finally arrived and it's working!) meet up with Janet and John (names changed etc as usual) and while the evening away playing bridge!

As I said, it has been a good day.

The new wheels have arrived!

It seems like it has been a very long wait but the new wheels finally arrived today! I haven't taken a photo of it yet but I will do that tomorrow and post it then.

Interesting, Mrs Istanbilly came with me to the dealers to pick the car up - I'll give you three guesses which one of us got the pleasure of driving it home... here's a clue for you, it wasn't me!

Not to worry, she says I can drive it the 5 or so kilometers to work and back each day but at weekends it is her turn! Something doesn't quite work there for me!

Under what thumb??????

Weather

During the last 13 years in the Middle East, the one thing that I started to miss was weather. Wall-to-wall sunshine does become a little monotonous after a while. The joke is that you have two seasons - Hot and Hotter. Alright, as anyone who has lived there knows, that isn't strictly true. I have known very heavy rain in the Middle East - it is just very short-lived and very infrequent and is only notable because of the problems it causes. But, most of the time, the sun shines and there are very few clouds in the sky.

Here in Istanbul things are a little different:

It had just started to rain when I took the second photo as you can tell by the wet roof, a few minutes later it was bucketing it down - I might get tired of it in time but at the moment...

I love it.