We were out and about around Kyrenia this morning shopping for things we need and enjoying the chance to be able to do just that. First on the list was to call at a curtain shop to pick up the fitments we needed to repair the two broken roman blinds. Then, we went in search of terrace lights for the swimming pool terrace. Our current ones have done their best for 18 years now but they definitely need updating and the tops are all too easy to knock off the pillars. We might be able to renovate a couple of them and use them elsewhere. I remembered a good lighting shop out to the east of Kyrenia in Catalkoy that we had bought garden lighting from a couple of years ago. Unfortunately that shop seems to have disappeared but there was one next door that had some lights but not quite what we were looking for.

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As we were that side of Kyrenia, we went up into the village of Ozankoy to find the butcher that Pamela and Eddie had recommended the night before and who had made the lovely sausages we’d enjoyed at dinner. Ozankoy is a very traditional little village, very narrow roads and lanes, old stone houses covered in creepers, very lived in…. nothing stagey or kitsch about it. We carefully drove in and parked in a little square near the butcher’s shop. It was a really good shop – a/c and very friendly staff. The meat looked amazing. Various types of sausages – we opted for pork and leek – but there were some interesting sounding ones. Also fabulous lamb. I bought 8 lamb chops and they were proper thick cut ones. Sometimes the lamb chops you get here are cut very thin and because the lamb is a bit of a goaty lamb, they can be a bit chewy. I don’t mind them to be honest, I like all lamb, but these looked good and we bought 8. I will certainly go back again but he delivers to a restaurant called The Wild Duck which is over our way, so that is handy too.

We drove down to the edge of Kyrenia to visit a big electrical shop there, looking for our terrace lights. I wasn’t very hopeful because last time we visited them 2 years ago, everything was priced in euro and really really expensive. However, a big change has occurred and they had everything we wanted at a great price in Turkish Lira. We got 5 lovely terrace lights: white globes on black lamp-post like bases. Around 120cm high I would say. Very pleased. We also got a movement detecting light for the stairs up from the carport. Our old one failed earlier this year and Marion had replaced it with the best she could find locally, but we didn’t like it much as it wasn’t a bulkhead style and “stuck out” just waiting to catch someone’s head. We got all the bulbs we needed too. It was a shade under £200 for everything and we thought it was quite a bargain.

I was beginning to feel hungry, so we called in at a modern looking restaurant on the way back home, the Kyrenia side of Karaoglanoglu. I have forgotten the name but I will look it up because it was really good. We had lamb shish each wrapped in a warm wrap with salad and a massive bowl of chips. It was so juicy. With drinks, the whole bill was somewhat less than £7. Superb. It was a really smart place too.

Bob called in at a yapi (diy shop) and bought us a new hose plus some polyfilla and other bits and bobs hew wanted. The hose will be great as the other one is very holey.

Then, we went in search of a company that we heard of that make front doors in Karaoglanoglu/Zehtinlik. We knew the little industrial estate they were on and the name Dog Pen so we just had to tour around looking for them. Found them ok and discussed what we needed with the woman owner. She said she would ring us on Monday morning with a quote and if we wanted to go ahead she would send a man out to finitely measure up. Manufacturing the door would take 10 days and the price would include fitting it and all the door furniture. It will be made of aluminium and coated in some covering and be white. No idea what the price will be.

We also went to the window door company at the bottom of our hill: Ay Pen. But the owner wasn’t there and the nice young girl on duty couldnt speak much English at all. We tried communicating using google translate on the phones but it was difficult. We left our telephone number but will go back on Monday to try and catch him to get another quote.

We had hoped to catch the notary at the bottom of the hill and get the co-habitation form sorted out but they were closed. We will ring on Monday and fix an appointment.

Had a last look at a couple of garden furniture shops along the main road, looking for the 2 pool loungers we need to make up our 8. No luck. The white plastic ones are useless. They get brittle in the sun and with the chlorine and just break very quickly. We found one shop that had a couple of dark brown plastic rattan loungers which were ok, not what we really want….. and they were quite expensive at £65 each and I’m not sure they would be anymore long lasting. The 6 we have at the moment are wooden and with some care they just go on and on, so ideally, we’d like 2 more of the same. We will have to go out further east towards Esentepe and have a look. There are a lot of Germans out that way and obviously they like sun loungers so we hope the shops may have more 🙂

Lazed by the pool this afternoon. We weren’t very hungry so just had a snack at dinner time – some hummous for me. Bob had a cheese toastie. Bob watched the F1 qualifying and we caught up on other tv.

Some great news today that because numbers are now steadily reducing here to a very low level, lockdown measures are being further reduced. Sunday curfew is now finished and from Monday the evening curfew moves to 11pm or 1130pm. But most importantly, the government have announced that from June 7th, they will open the borders to tourism with 6 flights a day of 200 tourists per flight coming in. There will be a trafficlight system of 4 categories but for vaccinated people, 3 of the 4 will require no quarantine and little to no testing. We will wait to see which countries are in which category but it looks very much as if the UK will be green which means no quarantine, no test for the vaccinated (or children). The slight snag is that there are no direct flights into northern Cyprus from the uK and so to some extent the categorisation depends on what the Republic of Cyprus or Turkey get. Watch this space for updates. It looks very hopeful though that if people want to come for a holiday in the summer, it will be possible.