Easter

Is it Easter this weekend? I had no idea.

Have some form of egg for me. Preferably not one of the big molded milk chocolate ones, but something in the dark chocolate ouvre. Or some mini-eggs, I love me some mini-eggs. Or oo, one of those birds nest cakes with mini-eggs on top! I love those.

Ps this utterly redundant post was brought to you courtesy of the fact I just noticed that I have a nice symmetrical record of 4 posts a month, and my vague even-numbers-only! peccadillo kicked in sufficiently to not want to spoil it.

General update

I was going to say 'Random' then, but after the overuse of the word in the early 2000s by yoof (and me) it still leaves a slightly bad taste in the mouth, and I couldn't bring myself to. Despite the fact that what follows is...assorted, various, multifaceted, unconnected, um ahh rrrrraaandom.

I went to a Greek class the other day. (Which strikes me as a bit of a distraction from my primary purpose of learning the language of, yanno, the country I actually find myself in.) See, there's this community group jobby on the island that runs voluntary courses for those who want it. I've volunteered myself as their English teacher, but thought for shits and giggles I'd go along to the Greek. IT'S WEIRD. Plus, despite being all snotty and 'yes I know the letters because I used them in science', completely lost, because everything's pronounced different and anyway, every time you glue letters together you get a different sound. Six different two letter combinations to make the sound 'ee', for instance, which is just unnecessary if you ask me.

So screw that for a game of tin soldiers. Anyway, I will still be giving English classes. Had my first lesson yesterday, which was a bit of a farce as only two people turned up because big Istanbul derby match was on. (Imagine Arsenal/Spurs, except with either one of them in with an actual shot of winning the league.) (Ha! Gooner baiting. Ha!) But reasonably enjoyable nonetheless - corrupting my charges into horrible bastardised London English with no discernible 'r' sound. Aces.

Anyway, should be good. I don't get paid, but am doing it out of the goodness of my heart [ah ha ha hollow laughter of course bloody not] because it would be good cv points in the increasingly likely situation that I can't get accountancy work (have sent, like, a *gazillion* applications and heard nowt) and end up teaching english. Gah.

Anyway, whatever. Piccies!

The sun has finally put its hat on here THANK FUCK, and so it's all looking rather nice. The following from wander round the island:

Sun dappled wotsit, With Lampost

Greek cemetery (what's with the greek theme all of a sudden. ?)

Generic Heybeli prettiness

And some from house and home:

When I was working at Southwark, they had this jargon about 'new ways of working'. Basically seemed to boil down to banishing you home and using your own heating and electricity instead of theirs during the day. Anyway, this is S's version - she was bored of spending her whole time on the computer indoors. So...

Then it got cold, so she rearranged. Poor little computer, look at it all left out in the dark.

Here is some fish being barbequed, having been recently bought (note - BOUGHT not SOURCED. Because that is the apt and sensible word for when you, like, *buy* shit.) flipping and jumping from the local fishmonger. Not at all unusual our end, but these, THESE, I gutted myself. Ha! Ra, you'd be proud of me - although I'm sure the sainsbury's techniques involved more in the way of knives and hygiene, and less in the way of ripping innards out with bare hands. Badly.

And finally, oh go on then, a nice hazy sunny unfocussed "oo lookee at the skyline!" Istanbul one. (I'm boring myself now with these ones, and so promise to stop soon. But lookee!)

Drunk and disorderly

Saturday just gone there was a mini-party at one of S's friends house. Not a party really, just a few of us, and a lot of meze and raki. Early on, one of them asked me what I thought of the turkish, what my impressions so far was. I trotted out some cliched tripe about how everybody is different, about how you can't judge a nation by dint of the few people you've met, generalisations are unfair, yada yada blah blah bore.

After that we proceeded to down something like a bottle of raki each, chaos ensued, two days later I've just made it through the resultant mansized hangover - and I'm about ready to go back on that. Here then is what I think of the turkish: like the british they can go a bit bleeding bonkers upon drinking too much; unlike the british they don't seem to have developed coping mechanisms for the morning after.

You see, after a mostly pleasant time, the evening had veered off into drunken idiocy territory. Words were said, hissy fits were had(*), injuries of the beery nature were sustained, combatants were held apart and counselled to "Leave it Gary, it's not worf it!"(**).

(*) and for once it wasn't by me. Hurrah!

(**) this may not have been the exact wording used.

So when I woke up the next day, I was thinking to myself blimey, what a night - but to be honest was giggling somewhat. It was kinda funny, actually, the amateur dramatics included. But bloody hell, the others would Not Shut Up about it. Whose fault was it that the badness occurred, who started it, what could've happened, and so on and so forth until my head exploded.

I couldn't understand it - we were all ok, all alive and in one piece, a few bruises to remember the night by maybe but nothing to write home about. The worst thing I thought about the night was that someone lost their bag - but it turns out the next day that she had found it again. So, you know, jobs a good 'un.

But this attitude not shared by my friends, who were all varying degrees of distraught. The fighting had admittedly started over a particularly petty issue (although personally I suspect A Girl is actually behind it somewhere...), so I suppose a bit of "did it really kick off over that?!" chat is to be expected. But really I couldn't understand why they couldn't just chalk this one up to the party gods, and forget about it.

On reflection however I'm wondering (***) if this is just a British habit, and when you think about it, not a very nice one. That anything can happen when you're drinking and it doesn't matter, it's all explained away by saying 'we were drunk'. I don't know, what do you think this attitude is - useful pragmatism or unhealthy denial?

*** I'm writing like Sex and the City, aren't I? How vile, I do apologise.

Perhaps a teenagerhood spent chucking yourself and your friends down the stairs in sleeping bags and a motorcycle helmet isn't, as I've always thought, a natural and good piece of harmless fun, but a mark of dysfunction.

Nah, bollocks, that time *was* funny. But you take my point?

Anyway, whatever. This post is getting increasingly introspective and tedious, so I'll stop now, and show you a photo of the kebab I had to deal with the hangover instead. (Continuing my fine tradition of *literally* telling you what I had for tea last night.)

Quickie don't get excited. Like you would.

You know I said there were a limited number of ways that butter could be packaged?

Well, apparently not:

I am very pleased with this. It looks like a cross between the simpsons aliens, and a nice buttery popsicle*.

And no, I haven't got a job yet. TAKING PHOTOS OF BUTTER IS *VERY* IMPORTANT, AND CLEARLY TAKES PRECEDENCE!

*I am not american. I have only the vaguest conception of what a popsicle is. However, it seems to me that the appropriate style when blogging is to use only american pop-culture references. This is a sad state of affairs which I must correct post haste. Right, Grange Hill, egg and chips twice, middle order batting collapses, Jeremy Paxman, Accrington Stanley, who are they?! Ah, much better now...

Photobucket

PS I'm considering changing the name of this blog to 'Photobucket is a big pile of shit'

İstanbul in the snow; and the origin of the term House Work: Part 2, in which it is cold, and Our Hero axes things

So anyway, it had been cold.

I get the impression weatherwise that İstanbul has a wee-southern-jesse sort of relationship with inland and east Turkey, in the same vein as London and t'North. It apparently normally gets a few days snow each year, but usually its never very deep or very long lasting, unlike the rest of the country.

But this winter was by İstanbul standards a particularly cold one. Even so I was feeling relatively blase - yeah the outlying areas of the city got a decent few feet, and the accompanying traffic etc chaos. But the centre wasn't that deep, and crucially the ferries were running ok so we weren't going to be stranded on the island or anything.

So Monday we head home. Both a bit curious about what the island would be like - a few days ago we'd been chatting to a guy in a cafe, who said that even when the rest of İst got snow, the islands tended not to. He couldn't remember the last time it'd settled.

When we got there, well it most definitely had settled:



One entertaining walk up the hill to our gaff later, we set about ascertaining the fuel, wood, food and water situation, Withnail stylee. The house is fucking freezing - its a summer house really, so not exactly built with insulation in mind. As such the inside was about the same temperature as out. And of course no central heating. (Later we find out that this is the coldest night they've had in 31 years. Minus 9 in İst, probably not quite that cold on the islands but had to be well below zero.)

Fortunately we do have The Most Beautiful Stove, so when we got home first priority was firing that up.



I am deeply in love with this stove. Wood goes in the left hand side, heat pukes out in all directions, the right hand side is oven space, and the top is for cooking on. It's all very aga, darling. Here I am (another day I think) roasting chestnuts, for the extra christmassy feel:



Anyway, so on that day whilst getting this going, and some baked potatoes and soup on the go, we discover that the pipes have frozen. So, no water either then. I think at this point, after getting the food down us, we just think oh sod it and go to bed.

Next day I'm up early to go to school - the island is looking rather beautiful. Pine wood and snow and all very midwinter feeling.



Everything a bit warmer, too - warm enough in fact for the outside part of our pipes to defrost, and then yay verily, burst. I miss this bit but S wakes up to a nice ice-cold fountain all over the garden. She turns the water off, joins me in town, and we stay there again that night.

Next day back to the island with one of S's workmen in tow, who fixes the outside pipe, but sadly the part running inside is still frozen solid. I hoped, anyway - by now was beginning to panic that it had burst somewhere on its way indoors, too.

(S, by the way, in the mysterious ways in which her mind works, has decided that this evening would also be an apt time for an alfresco fish barbeque supper. You know, with the freezing temperatures, and no running water with which to wash down the fishy guts muck, and all. I don't have a photo of this, but if you can imagine one of those New York winter scenes of the bums standing round a burning trashcan you won't be too many miles off what we looked like. I would be the one scowling.)

The next day, Thursday, is a day off school for me. Still no water indoors, but fortunately now working fine out of a tap in the garden, and weather sunny and not raining at least. So we spend most of the day on domesticity, and the basics involved in keeping warm, fed and clean(ish). There was a *lot* of traipsing in and out with buckets of water. It turns out, that when mod cons are taken away, that crikey house work is actually, like work.

Also a fair amount of axing, which was more fun. This is me getting down with my butch bad self.



Anyway. It was all good fun and all, but bloody hell was I relieved when the next day the pipes finally cleared and lovely, gorgeous, running water came out of the taps. Am considering adapting some pagan ritual on the coming of spring and life-giving warmth, to include a bit on the glorious god of indoor plumbing.

(My ma by the way, did provide me with some much needed perspective on this, pointing out that it was only 30 years ago or so in UK when it was all outdoor toilets and no central heating for a lot of places. She didn't exactly use the phrase 'you spoilt young modern things, in maaaaaa day' but would've been fully justified in doing so...)

İstanbul in the snow; and the origin of the term House Work: Part 1, in which Our Hero has snow based fun in snowy İstanbul (did I mention the snow?)

Finally getting round to this posting. Which will be more than usually tedious, focussing as it does on snow, which probably y'all are heartily sick of having had your own fair share in UK anyway. So I have chopped it in two, to manage the pain/prolong the agony.

Mid January İstanbul and Turkey got hit by a proper cold spell. I was in central town a couple of weeks ago when the big snow started. We'd been invited by our landlady to stay over for the weekend, which would be a nice change from the domesticity of t'island, which had been getting a) old b) cold.

Landlady's flat was bonkers - she's got this penthouse like apartment right in the centre of town, two minutes from everywhere and a view over the whole city - I reckon sort of equal levels of desirability as a park lane place, but with sea and mosques instead of ringroad and manky Hyde Park. (Is it just me or is Hyde Park just not that attractive?) View from the window on the Friday night as follows.



Anyway, on the Saturday the snow started. Rather rocking timing then that we were in a nice centrally heated flat bang centre in the middle of town for wandering about and being enchanted in.

İstanbul was, more than usual, m-m-m-magical!



Above being Galata tower in the snow...



...bottom of the same.



...icicles on the, erm, something or other. (By the way, I'm a lousy tourist.)



...and the obligitory snow-on-mosque shot.

Anyway, it was all very nice and had a lovely weekend wandering about, gawping. By Monday had had enough of a good thing, and decided to go home. Colder weather was forecast and our landlady was fairly strongly urging us to stay, but we thought 'ah sod it, how bad can it be?'

TUNE IN FOR THE NEXT GRIPPING INSTALMENT TO FIND OUT JUST HOW BAD!!!