We’ve recently had a new hospital built at the eastern end of our village, which serves the small towns of Kaş and Kalkan, along with the numerous villages attached to them.
We’ve always had wild boar roaming about after dark – from our high vantage point on the hill above the village, my brother finds it most entertaining watching people coming back from the bus stop at dusk, little knowing that families of wild boar are hiding behind nearby parked cars, waiting for them to pass. We often hear them snuffling about in the lane next to our pool (luckily we have a high wall) and there is constant evidence of them rootling about anywhere there are Turkey oaks – and that’s pretty much everywhere around here. Continue reading “Meet the neighbours”
Hmmm, we seem to have a change in the weather. Shock, horror, only 25 degrees and very blustery. Lots of white horses on the water (or ‘white geese’ as our neighbour calls them) and the sun keeps hiding behind the clouds. Last night, we ate dinner inside for the first time since May – it was so windy that the contents of half of the garden were blowing around our terrace (which always includes the possibility of a flying saucer in the shape of a carelessly discarded cat bowl), and I also feared for the wine glasses – we’ve had so many blown over in the past, so now we always go for low-slung models when we are choosing replacements. 
You may think I make an awful lot of muffins. You would be right. They are such useful items to take on a walk or to the beach – more robust than slices of cake, which will inevitably break up or get squashed in your backpack or beach bag. They are also much easier to serve and eat when you are out and about – and everyone gets their own individual little bundle of goodness, so no potential for squabbling in the ranks. 
Autumn is on its way; I can sense it. That dazzling light that we get in the Mediterranean during the summer has gone, replaced by much gentler sunshine and cooler breezes. Despite the fact that it’s still 30 degrees in the middle of the day, and we are enjoying going to the beach now that the last of the tourists have departed for the year, our neighbours are getting out their winter woollies and refusing to leave the house without several layers and a flat cap. 
While we were on holiday in Tonga, one of the ladies in our group was a marine biologist, who spends a good deal of her time in Africa. In an idle moment when we were bobbing about in the Pacific, waiting for whales to come and join us, she filled us in on some of the less attractive features of the prawn fishing industry, which made me never want to eat them again. 
I’m having a little cleaning flurry. Where I sit at the breakfast bar to write this blog, I get a birdseye view of the wall behind my worktop/stove, where all the action takes place. When we redesigned our kitchen, we got one thing wrong: we allowed the nice man at Vitra to convince us that matte tiles were OK to use as a splashback. Not true, never be tempted to try this at home. It is practically impossible to remove grease spots from the little darlings – the grease just soaks into the tiles. 
It’s hard to believe we are two thirds of the way through October already – the weather is absolutely glorious, the water is still warm(ish) and our government has decided not to put back the clocks with the rest of Europe next weekend. Woohoo, this is such good news – it means we will have daylight later into the afternoons for walking this winter. 
It’s official – I am in love with humpback whales, and I think I am hooked for life.
Yes, well spotted, that’s ‘chicken with vinegar’ to you and me. I know it doesn’t sound particularly appetising, but it’s not vinegar as we know it in the UK, and of course the dish involves wine, posh vinegar, garlic and tarragon, so things are getting better already.
aviewfrommykitchen.com 