An absolute scorcher today.  Solidly up in the 30Cs now….  And it won’t be coming down again for a good 5 months….

We were up pretty early and off to Kyrenia (Girne) for the market by 830.  When it’s this hot, you don’t want to be doing too much… keep telling ourselves that but then not listening.

The Kyrenia market is very large.  Mostly outdoors but some undercover.  It’s a bit of everything.  Clothes, household linens, rugs, plants, masses of fruit and veg all from local small producers- families really, cheeses, oils, honey, nuts, sweets, some bric a brac.  We were after a good stock up of fruit and vegetables.  Everything is so good and so reasonable.  We bought a very large bag of strawberries for 70p; a big bag of cherries for about 50p, green beans, 40p a kilo, tomatoes 40p a kilo, lots of other things.  I bought 2 nice purple/pink geranium plants which were £2.50 each and a huge geranium bush in the same colour for £4.  The small ones are for pots, the large one to plant in the garden.  Should have bought more.  Will go again next week.

After that we went in search of garden lighting.  We already have perimeter lighting around the pool terrace and underwater lights in the pool.  But.. we want more lighting near the bbq and oven and also over the new gate on the top drive.  The first shop we went in, had very nice quality garden lights but they’d bought them from Italy and they were priced in euro and really quite expensive.  I’d seen a shop on the main road in Karakum, just the other side of Kyrenia, so we went out to that.  He had really nice Turkish ones at a fraction of the price.  We bought a tall (maybe 8 foot) double lantern “Gaslamp style” light for near the bbq and also a matching single lantern on a chain to hang in the apex of the garden gate.  Together they came to about £95.  He’s delivering them to us tomorrow.  We had fun with the ordering.  The nice young guy in the shop spoke no English at all.  We speak hardly any Turkish beyond “hello” and “thank you”.  He went to the café next door and came back with an old fella.  Another retiree from the UK who had left Cyprus when he was 7 and retired back here 9 years ago.  He acted a interpreter and sales generator for the young chap which somewhat elongated our stay as he tried to sell us all manner of other lamps and services.  LOL Nice guys.

Headed for home and stopped off in Storemax and China Bazaar in Karaoglanoglu on the way.  Both of these are very large discount goods shops, somewhat like Poundland in the UK.  We were looking for a few top ups for the kitchen.  I ended up buying a pair of crocs to wear around the pool and some garden cushions for the dining set and undertree seat in the lower garden.

We weakened, dear readers, as we approached the bottom of our hill….. yes…. we called into Mardos and picked up a takeaway box of 8 scoops of ice cream….  nice tonight while we watch telly.  Obviously not 8 scoops tonight…..

Lay around the pool a lot this afternoon, did a fair bit of swimming/wallowing/bobbing in the water,  and in between we moved a pile of bricks from the drive to a more secluded place ready for the load of wood to be delivered “imminently”!!!!!   I potted on the plants we bought this morning.

Tonight we bbq’d the other half of the lamb chops together with some sheftali (lamb sausage in caul) with a gorgeous salad and warm pitta bread.  Ate on the covered terrace.  I kept a sharp watch in case the thieving cat came back, but no sign of anything.  I haven’t seen one around so it is a bit of a mystery.

A lovely day.