We arrived at Manchester airport with hours to spare, and still there was a queue. 6 suitcases on 2 trolleys, and 2 hand luggage. First off, weighing hand luggage..7.5kg each. Took batteries out of laptops and put them in my pocket, put heavy haird4yer on shelf in front of me and handed back bags. They were over, but I think anyone could tell I wasn,t in the mood for anyone over zealous that morning. Our total allowance was 150kg and it weighed in at 149kg. Even check in lady congratulated us.
We went to duty free shops and chemist to pick up all the things people had asked us to bring over. We settled down to our last English full English for a while,and facebooked our last fairwells with the free wifi. Must say food was good, and they seem to have had a bitof a refurb at Manchester Term 1. Aisha and Jav came to join us, and of course the boys just went for a fag. Time passed by and of course we were nearly last on the plane. Which is just as well as slik was pulled from the queue and ordered to try and push his heavily laden bag through a piece of card. Obviously it wasnt goingto fit, but as it was near take off, They let him through.
The flight was the smoothest t cook flight I have ever been on and been able to chat with Aisha made it go really quickly.
We arrived in Antalya, no probs, although they were pulling people from the queue and searching luggage. They took one look at our heavily laden trollies and waved us through. We seperated at the airport and met up again mid journey for food on a comfort break, which Aisha kindly picked up the bill for.
We,arrived at our apartment just before 10pm and managed to locate some sheets and bedding, happily we fell asleep.
The next morning, in the cold light of day, full of excitement, teeth chattering from the cold. Three films went through my head
Wizard of Oz..I guess we are not in kansas anymore toto, as we listened and watched 4 cockrels and about 10 hens, runall over our overgrown garden. Followed by a flock of sheep being hearded out the front,of property. Oh my, that combined with living in between 2 out of sync mosques really bought it home to us that we had moved.
Thankfully, the mosques, appear to be now in sync or maybe we don,t notice anymore.
We were greeted by our lovely Turkish neighbours, Kadir, who came to tell us there were tikes hanging off the edge of the roof and not to stand underneath them, and the landlord of the rental properties next door, who is also lovely. Kadir, gave us his card and is qualified, electrician, plumber and a general jack of all trades. He has been a blessing to us and I have no idea how we woukd have survived without him. Which brings me to my other two films, firstly The money pit..as we have had so many repairs done, leaks fixed, holes in walls around window frames, solar panel immersion switch. I can,t believe how much we have spent already since moving here, that is with residency,health insurance, which sure gives you an incentive to diet as its based on height and weight. Of course, you might know slik,me and Mr Walker and Kipling have mourned our dear mothers passings like professionals, and our now paying the price, err by health insurance. Also our dask wasnt measured properly and we paid for 1000metres, and when insurance came out its 1500 metres, plus the extra you have to pay. But our Health and home are now insured, thankfully. We have been absoloutly freezing here, and the day after we arrived there was even a little snow, we decided with friends advice to invenst in a soba, very modern, cast iron, glass doors, circular thing 750 lira with pipes. The lovely kadir, proceeded to drill a perfect circle in the wall and the soba was in. It was teeming with rain, and we received a call from Aisha to say she was on the top road, as we dont know where we live it was hard to give instructions. Luckily saffet from the ovacik shop was here he offered to find them, so off he went, he was unable to and once again kadir came to the rescue.
just as they walked in, the house was full of thick smoke, and not only were they wet through but now soot smeared too. Which brings me to my other film,Private Benjamin with goldie hawn. The bit where she says There has been a mistake, I didnt sign up for this army, I was to go to the one with the condoes..lol.. I hugged Aisha and whispered in her ear, wtf have I done. Of course, she being Miss positive managed to see the funny side of it all and we ended up laughing about it all. The soba didnt work out, and have now sold it, I coukdnt stand the smell of the smoke or the soot that goes with it. We have borrowed a friends calor heaterand are using that in the meantime. Kadir once again, came and filled it all in, its like it was never there. When we were kids at school we read my family and other animals by Gerald Durrell, he reminds me of the character from the book. We did have a lovely evening up at Aisha and Javs place, we ate white food and had some great after dinner conversation. I laughed until the tears ran down my face. I,ll let her tell you all about that though, but what a welcome relief it was after all the dramas. We are going to do it again tonight, bless her, she really is a breath of fresh air. Last saturday we were going down to the village withmy newly aquired shopping trolley, and the Turkish lady at the end grabbed me by the hand, introduced me to her 2 girls and wavedmto my husband whilst shouting byebye. We walked a short while and we had a broken English/Turkish conversation, and then walked in to a neighbours wedding feast. We were served delicious turkish food, and a drummer and sax? Player provided the entertainment. About half hour later slik arrived with kadir, and was also told to sit down and eat. It was such alovely, spontaneous gesture, it kind of cemented the move as been a good thing, despite all of the dramas and traumas.
On Monday we get our 3 year residency,transfer our final money over, and finally, hopefully some curtains and furniture, then we can finally settle down to Turkish living. I have joined a Turkish cooking class in the village, 7 lira and you get to eat the food after. Also I start Turkish lessons next week. People here are so kind and helpful.The neighbour has kindly let us use his wifi until we get ours next week. I have to say that having the Turkish bank lady talk to you a hundred mile an hour was a bit overwhelming.But now we go to the teller next door who is very patient.
So thats where we are up to folks,it,s been a bit of a roller coaster, but all in all we are glad we made the move. The good news is that I can now walk down to the village without stopping, and only need to stop 3 times on the way back up, the terrible
wheezing, where you think your lungs will explode seems to have disappeared all together..so until the next episode, I shall wish you all the very best,and if I have missed anyones birthdays or celebrations, Best wishes from me and slikx
