Tuesday was fine, if a little windy, and we were woken by the merry hammering on the plot next door .. the builders had started. That was our cue to get up and go out, something we will have to do on a regular basis for the next few months. We collected our post from the PTT, and then went to Isbank to close all our accounts. On to the plant nursery to get a few trees and shrubs to screen our garden and that of our neighbours from the builders. We managed to get them planted, but discovered a leak in Nicky's garden. We arranged to have a plumber come to fix it, but he wasn't available straight away, not that it was a real emergency at that time. It had been caused by one of the builder's lorries churning up the road so badly, that he'd hit the water pipe and pulled a connector off further down the pipeline in the garden.
More torrential rain and thunderstorms overnight gave the trees a good start. We went walking to escape the noise from the builders, and ended up down Ladybird Beach (in front of the Blue Restaurant). Low and behold it's been dug up again. We think it's an attempt to stop the sea taking away the new sand but it doesn't look very nice. The swimming platform was still there but has since been taken away.Even more torrential rain overnight, and the morning saw Nicky's leak had turned into a flood, so much so that the builder decided to get his own plumber in. He took a look, made a temporary fix to stop the water flowing, and then left saying he would be back the following day. Meanwhile we had to cancel our plumber, who was on his way (not a happy chappy).
What happened on Friday when the plumber finally turned up to fix the problem was like something out of "Some Mother's do have 'em".
A total fiasco. He cleared the pipework back to the garden wall and as the pipe looked a little worn, decided he would replace it with a new section. Well that would have been fine if he had started attaching the new pipe to the dry end, but no, he cut the pipe, the water shot 20 foot into the air, fittings flew everywhere, the garden filled with water, he was wearing wellies, but they were under the water level and filled with mud and water. He finally managed to attach one end only to find that he'd lost the fittings for the other. They were scattered all around, and under several inches of gloop. So he had to bend the pipe to stop the water flow, and go off to town for some more fittings. And the chaos continued as he tried to join the pipes together with the full force of the water coming down the pipe. Sod's law dictates that we have very high water pressure at the moment. It was dark before he finally had it all under control, but it had to be left for two days to let the water subside and allow us to make sure that there were no leaks before the garden could be restored to some semblance of order.Saturday, market day, but before we could shop, we came across Annette and Kevin drinking tea at a pavement café, so we joined them and planned our trip to Izmir on Monday. Saw many other people in the market .. it becomes quite a social event. We hadn't been back long when we had a text telling us the sad news about Peter.
Later that day, I (David) decided to attempt to restore some of the lost files from my back-up hard drive back on to my newly fixed computer. I'd hardly started when yet another computing disaster .. all the files on the hard drive became corrupted ..... b*****y!!!!!!!!!!! For those of you who are not too computer literate let me assure you that this is very bad (so was the language). My mood became very black and Sue evacuated to another room. I tried all sorts to get the files back but to no avail. Eventually I found a program on the internet, and tried the demo version which seemed to be relatively successful. So I gave in and purchased it. I would say that it recovered 3/4 of my fies, including all the music, photos and video. Only some of the office documents failed to survive, so I was very lucky.
Sunday our escape from the builders took us to the boat. There was no wind, but we couldn't face the noise back home, so we motored out about 300 yards, anchored and then used the boat as a swimming platform. We had a lovely long swim in crystal clear water. We had taken the digital thermometer with us, and it read 20.4C in the water, really warm for the end of October. Just as we got out a breeze sprang up, so we dried off, hauled up the sails and spent the next two hours zooming up and down the bay. Very peaceful as we had the whole bay to ourselves.
Monday we were up early to catch the 9 o' clock bus for Izmir with Kevin and Annette, it was their wedding anniversary, and to celebrate they wanted a guided tour of the city (as much as you can do in one day anyway). We started in Basmane, and then we went through the Souk. Many of the shops there were shut, very unusual, but when we enquired we discovered it was the 87th anniversary of the creation of the Turkish Republic, and so was a public holiday. Down on the seafront there was a huge rally, with parades and flags and noise and razamataz. Thousands of onlookers and participants, Tv crews, the works. We watched for a short time before boarding a ferry to Karsiyaka. There the shops were all open and it was bustling. We found a little Pideci (Turkish pizza shop), and had a bite and a drink before hitting the shops. Once we were all shopped out, we got the 7 o'clock bus back to Didim, an excellent day.
Tuesday was another day we had to escape the noise by sailing and swimming, and on
Wednesday we went over to Akbuk to visit Yo and Nigel. They've settled in well and made lots of friends over there, some of whom we met as we wandered along the seafront and came across them in various cafes. Well of course it's only polite to sit down and sup a coffee or whatever with them isn't it? We had a good day with them and as the road back from there is so bad, this time we took them up on their invitation to stay the night, so that we could tackle the pot-holed road in daylight.
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