Our internet connection is being super-unfriendly this morning. It may take me until about next Thursday to actually load this post, the way things are going.
After a very dry spring, followed by weeks of unsettled weather, both rainy and windy at times, there are signs that summer has finally arrived. One sign was that I actually got into the pool yesterday after making myself hot doing a few housekeeping chores. I think it is possible that I stayed in there for all of 4 seconds – basically the time it took me to get back to the side and leap out before any polar bears lurking in the Arctic conditions got wind of my presence. Toast and Marmalade looked on from the safety of a sun-lounger – I am sure I caught sight of them shaking their furry heads in wonderment at this crazy behaviour. Continue reading “Crunchy rosemary multi-seed crackers”
Whenever I’m stumped for ideas for what to make for dinner, there’s quite a good bet that we end up with roast chicken in one form or another. There are so many variations – sometimes we have classic French-style poulet aux herbes, others we go a bit more exotic with Thai or Chinese flavours, and then there’s the good old British roast with stuffing and roasties. 
It’s Tuesday so it must be diet day. Hey ho, that also means Don Draper Day, though we’ve just reached the end of Season 6, so not long to go now. I am not sure where we will spend our evenings when we are no longer gadding about in 1970s Madison Avenue, though it will soon be too warm for sitting inside after dinner, so perhaps the timing is excellent. 
Our friends Jean and Ian arrive from the UK this evening, so I am baking a couple of bits and pieces to leave in their apartment, lest they have the inevitable midnight munchies after their long journey from Somerset. 
When I have a weird collection of vegetables in the fridge that need using up, my thoughts immediately switch to one of three things: soup, curry, tart. I bought a big bunch of spinach at the weekend, not really knowing what I was going to do with it, and there it was, still glaring at me when I opened the fridge to get the milk this morning.
Turkey may be one of the world’s less attractive nations in terms of political and social freedoms, but when it comes to pure geographic and natural beauty, it is breathtaking.
It was all going swimmingly this morning until we accidentally owned up to being married. Having gathered a forest’s worth of paperwork yesterday, we then failed to complete the online form at the Turkish government’s new e-visa website, because the site wasn’t working. No surprises there then. 
It’s Tuesday so it must be a 5:2 day. Oh joy. And it’s residency permit renewal week for us, so we’re spending the day gathering the several thousand pieces of paper required to show that, since this time last year, we haven’t been in prison, haven’t become bankrupt, haven’t radically changed our appearance, have health insurance, still live at the same address and haven’t been out of Turkey for more than 120 days. Every piece of paper has to have an official stamp, so we are trawling around from office to office, dragging our feet like a couple of slothful teenagers. 
Yesterday, on what was probably one of the hottest days of the year so far, we joined in with a group of volunteers to take some dogs from our local dogs’ home for a walk to Kyaneai, a Lycian city thought to have been inhabited as far back as 500 BC. 
aviewfrommykitchen.com 