We both had to head into the eastern outskirts of Kyrenia this morning to have our medical tests. The Dr Suat Gunsel University Hospital is a fantastic new hospital that is a joint venture between the government and Near Eastern University. It’s really beautiful, right by the sea and extremely well equipped and utterly spotless.

Bob’s appointment was first. He was in at 9am for a CT scan of his neck area so that his ENT specialist could check that the little node spotted in his neck was not anything sinister. It took about 10 minutes and the results will be available for review by the doctor on Friday afternoon. The images are supplied on cd which we have to pick up and deliver to him in Alsancak. The scan cost £54. We should have got a discount from either the TFR or the BRS membership but we didn’t have our cards.

I had a followup appointment with Dr Erminel, the gynecologist who gave me the d&c biopsy last year when I had the uterine cancer scare that turned out to be all ok. She had asked me to come back in to check that after 5 months of not taking HRT and the d&c, matters were all normal still. I had a consultation and an internal ultrasound and I’m glad to say that indeed matters are still normal and she has discharged me. It was all a great relief and I’m glad we had these checks and we’ll be repeating them annually from now on. It is important to consider that once you get past 60, tests are very likely to show up some bodily weaknesses or problems somewhere. We have to expect this and decide for ourselves whether it is better to have a warning, follow it up and deal with the result, good or bad but have potential anxiety for no good reason. At least having them done here, there is not a waiting gap of months between test and result, so anxiety is greatly reduced. I’ve decided that I prefer to know and potentially catch a problem very early. My consultation and test was £26. Again, I would have been given a discount if I’d been able to proffer my society membership card. Next time! I’ve mentioned these health checks before in my blogs and partly why I do this is to just let you know that there are these options fairly cheaply available in state of the art hospitals without having to wait. We find it a relief to be able to check that everything is ok healthwise on an annual basis with these very detailed tests. Of course if anything was found that needed treatment we could have that done here too or take the test results back to the UK to obtain treatment there.

This afternoon we worked on jobs getting the house ready for rental. Finished mending and patching the garden irrigation system. Horrible job but very necessary. We have had one of the bedrooms painted and so we got that back in place, rehung pictures etc. We’ve had 16 new bed pillows this year and I have upacked them, “plumped” them and put them in protectors. Bob has descaled the large shower heads that had got a bit calked up over the winter. One completely blew up it was so blocked so we have a new one on order for Friday. We are really nearly done now and will be able to have a nice few days off from this weekend to just enjoy being here. It’s really hot now so the swimming pool is looking very inviting.

In the evening we went to The Wine Gallery, a new place that’s opened in Alsancak, about 10 minutes drive away. We met our friends Heather and Chris for dinner and a catch up which was lovely. The Wine Gallery is a new sort of concept out here. They are open from lunchtime onwards and have live music on several days of the week. As the name suggests, they have a huge variety of wines on offer, some on the regular menu, others as specials. Heather tried a blue wine which is made in the Troodos Mountains. The food served is also very different from the usual here. They offer a variety of cold platters: a ploughmans with pork pie, sausage roll and cheeses; a fish platter swith crab, smoked salmon, mackerel pate etc, a platter of charcuterie, a mixed cheese and meat platter. You can have your own or share! I had the fish one and Bob went for the ploughmans. I have to say that they were delicious and priced at around £10 each. Well worth trying for lunch or a casual dinner.