At the end of the day ...

it's got to be an Akbuk sunset!

Quite an interesting day for my first day back in lovely warm and sunny Akbuk - I forgot to change my phone before going to bed so the alarm went off at British 8.30am and it was nearly 90 minutes of shuffling through my unpacking feeling pleased with myself for so much morning progress before I realised that in fact, I wasn't in Chelmsford anymore.  In Akbuk, it was just about mid day. Hey ho. Who cares? The sun was shining and when I'd woken up at "8.30" to find I had new neighbours (extra) , I'd take a photo so my Blip is done and all was well.

Fairly soon there were photos and messenger chat messages to say that Rufus was already in Romania and that Mick the pet travel marvel is making great progress through Europe. Great news. I get on with my day.

Hakan the pool man comes and after brief discussion, fits a new ladder to descend in to the newly filled pool. He adds the necessary chemicals and the news that I'll be swimming by Thursday. Yay. 

I made a flying visit to the nearby supermarket (Migros) to buy a few essentials and then return to unpacking. It's around 4pm when Momma Catz (from last year) makes an appearance and I give her biscuits, so glad she's made it through the winter - she's looking good. I'm watching her eat when I notice the clouds rolling in. Within 15 minutes I am watching the most amazing downpour of hail stones the size of peas to the accompaniment of rumbling thunder !   I took videos. Watching  the hail land on the pool's surface was very pretty :) The rain is torrential and a river is flowing down the street towards the sea so I take  more photos. Then I remember two bedroom windows are open......

By about 18;30 ish I'm feeling hungry, the storm has passed and the sun is out so I walk to the water front and have a salad and beer at Paşa restaurant, and of course bit of a chat with Serdar, the owner manager.  Some friends are there from Blue Lagoon so I'm chatting to them and then Oh, another update from the pet transport people to say Rufus is in Turkey and should be with me by lunchtime tomorrow.  Around 72 hours travel, seven countries - that has got to be a record.   

And as I ate and drank at the end of this first day, the sun went down and really, is there a better, more iconic shot of Akbuk than the nightly sunset?



I'm very aware that I haven't responded to kind comments on my 4,500 th blip on Sunday, nor visited other journals for a couple of days. When I'm settled in and Rufus is here, I'll have some time to spend on catching up. Till then, my apologies but thank you for looking, it's always appreciated :)