Well the holiday is over and I'm back home!! I so enjoyed my stay with Mandi and Dogan and if anything, this trip has made me even more determined to move to Turkey to be with them. I'd go today if I could, but the heatwave is still there, so I'm quite happy to stay here in 20C heat - but there's blue skies with the odd fluffy white cloud but it's cool enough not to be sweating and being uncomfortable.

I did manage to fit in a few swimming sessions though, in fact a couple of hours before I left for the airport, I was having a great cooling off swim in the pool. Such a lot happened since my last blog, I don't quite know where to start......

I'll try and remember what order things happened, but seeing as you won't know the difference - it doesn't really matter does it?!!!!

Right - little Tiger.....


A friend of Mandi's here, has a daughter who'd fallen in love with Tiger. So they came round to see the kittens - Ella (the daughter) loved Tiger (since renamed Harley!!) and the mother loved Fluff. She thought they could take Tiger and hopefully within a few weeks, get Fluff too. Although Mandi really wanted the two kitties to go together - she said she'd rather let one go to a very good home. Well they'd arrived with a brand new cat basket. So off Tiger went. She'd sat very quietly on Ella's lap which helped Mandi let her go.

The next day, Mandi had a phone call, Tiger (sorry - Harley) had settled in well, she was quite happy to sleep on her new bed and play with her new toys, but she then realised she was not alone!!! We didn't realise the family already had a dog!!!!! A pug who wasn't too sure about kittens. Well when those two met - poor little Harley went absolutely hysterical - crying, desperate to get away and clinging onto Ella. The kitten had only met other cats before, so to be in a strange place on her own and meeting a dog too, was probably too much for her. Let's face it, a pug isn't all that handsome anyway!!! The friend also told Mandi that they had to go to Istanbul for 3 weeks, in a week's time, and they weren't sure what they could do with Harley. Mandi immediately said that she would take her back and look after her until the end of July (when they come back) and hopefully she'd be older and would cope better. Also they might be able to take both kittens then. Much better scenario. So we drove over to their home (gorgeous place, with a lovely sea view!!) and collected Harley.




Of course, I didn't let the chance of taking photos get away while we were driving over there!!! The place is really amazingly beautiful...




As soon as we got her back to Mandi's home, we opened the cage door and let Harley get out on her own. She immediately saw her mum, ran over and went in for a feed!!!! She was happy to be home.

So Mandi and I went to the hotel for dinner...


Both Mandi and I have had our hair cut - now short hair suits Mandi - but when I realised that the hairdresser had not only cut my hair very short, but he brought out the razor!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hells teeth, I got really concerned, but it was alright apparently - he was just tidying up the back!!!!! I must admit with the temps over there - having short hair was a godsend and the day before I came home, I went back for a trim..... now with me not being able to speak Turkish and Ersine not speaking English, trying to explain that I only wanted a trim seemed to get lost in translation!!!!! Out came the razor again and a big grin on his face!!!! I must agree with him, I do like the hairstyle, even though it's the shortest I've ever had - it's similar to Mandi's!!!!

When I took this picture, Mandi had been talking about me going back home and how she was going to miss me. Awww. So that's why her smile doesn't quite reach her eyes.

On Thursday, my last day there - we went for a swim - oh the bliss of cooling off - heaven. To dry off, we decided to sit in the comfy chairs on the walkway and do a spot of people watching....


This is the view of the front of the hotel by the beach. I do love palm trees. While we sat there, we were aware of the recognisable call for advertising the sale of mussels - those poor lads walk up and down the promenade (2 miles in length!) all day....


and then he met the man selling freshly cooked sweetcorn - also walking up and down selling his wares....


Mandi and I both were hot, and we don't like seafood and we'd already had a taste of the sweetcorn - so we decided to have an ice-cream - well Mandi had a frozen yoghurt while I had the ice-cream.


See what I mean about me having short hair?

The ice-cream was gorgeous though - it went down a treat - cooling my inner core in no time.

Well this is the first part of the saga of my last few days on holiday - I'll have to do another missive telling you about my last day!!!!!! So brace yourself - go and get a cup of coffee or you may need something a tad stronger!!!!