OR, TRYING TO KEEP SANE WHILE WAITING ON MY MOVE.!
I’m still waiting, and we all know how I hate waiting.
Haircut and newly designed and upcycled favourite shirt!
Been nearly two months since returning from Turkiye’s beautiful mountains. Easter, Ramadam and Idh had to be got through in my eternal endeavour with the long slow machinations of red tape.
In the mountains in Turkiye.
My seeds should have gone in and I should be half-through rebuilding but one person’s cock-up has ground it all to a halt.
Fairy Dell in Londons Hyde Park
On Monday I got out of bed and cut my bloody hair. Swore I wouldn’t cut it until my move had gone through. This was clearly a bad idea. I looked like I had a mullet and my hair was, well, heavy. Chop chop and that was sorted. Next was to paint over the writing on the back of my favourite shirt. I had already done it once but forgot to seal it with an iron and washed most of the design off with the bloody letters staying firmly in place. So I got to it and was very pleased with my Boho look along with a neat short ponytail.
Alert: Another unplanned absence folks but been busy getting ready!
I made a lot of mistakes when escaping to Mexico and this time my dreams for Turkiye are not going to be hampered by a lack of cash.
First day in Tulum after getting out of London
Although I am an avid list maker and practically anal in planning and preparing, I didn’t think out my financial situation for flying the coop to Mexico where I ended up staying for seven months, so this trip I am planning the hell out of it.
In Punta Allen where I spent a month swimming and writing. They were also suffering hence the sign
After all the masterplan to globally ruin our lives three years ago, I was just glad to leave the country without any thought or preparations. It literally was just to escape before there were no flights or means to get the hell out. I was panicking and in bad form. I was a shadow of my former self. A husk, a bundle of misery. Mexico would save me but I was ill-prepared on many levels but financially was the major one.
OR, GENERAL MOT PLUS A FOCUS ON UNSTABLE DODGY KNEE AND AGONISING TOE AND FOOT PROBLEMS.
This year the dreaded sofa for me! Hate, hate hate it but had to fix the foot.
Alert: For those who think this doesn’t apply to them I can tell you it does. You’ll get these mechanical breakdowns eventually and these will screw up travel plans completely. Although I staggered around on a broken foot in Mexico it does take the pleasure out of your wonderful adventures especially while alone. You also become prey to the predator which is not a good look as a woman or man of any age travelling solo. Do some homework and get yourself healthy for any trip. Mechanical injuries are a bitch.
HOLISTIC APPROACH TO MECHANICAL PAIN.
Over this winter I’ve noticed a dramatic worsening of an old knee injury and foot pain on one side and a bunion on the other.
I was horrified. I thought I just had gout which is a roguish condition from overly rich food and alcohol consumption, not an old lady thing, a bloody bunion ffs.
When the podiatrist told me I was very huffy
‘You sure about that? It looks gouty to me. ‘
‘Yes Rebecca it’s a bunion and you need to get a toe corrector to gradually get it growing straight again. This foot is however in very good condition apart from that in fact baby soft’
‘I make my own organic body butter. What about the other one it’s agony some days is that gout?’
(After some weird testing with a tuning fork) ‘I don’t know what that is it’ll require special bloods to check for osteoarthritis……but it’s not gout‘
‘My knee and foot are joined’ I huffed grumpily
‘Yes Rebecca they are and if you don’t do anything about it you’ll have hip problems then lower back problems too’
There we had it. Something sounding irreversible and decrepit hovering at my door ready to stop my extensive Turkiye plans for a bucolic natural life and occasional road trips to the many archaeological sites across that vast land. Finally, along with the precarious knee something that could actually halt my travels. I was going to be crippled and just when it was all coming to fruition, my dream house in the mountains with spring water and clean mountain air at the same time as being in a country full of rich history and magnificent wildlife and natural beauty.
OR, WHEN IT WARMS UP YOU FEEL THE SUMMER HEAT IN AEGEAN TURKEY IN THE MOUNTAINS.
It might be warm at the coast but it’s very fresh up here.
An abandoned house and garden in a largely abandoned village.
Walking up the mountain alone most days it was lovely for my friend Ege and his brother to come to visit. They were so enthusiastic and made me feel like I was seeing it all afresh. Instead of moaning about the effing Rottweiler, the bane of my life on the walking shortcut, I take most days, I could enjoy going up to the mosque and spring water fountain by car. Beyond there we walked and what a beautiful landscape unfolded before us.
Well, finally this old bird got to swim in Cleopatra’s pool!
The background is not foaming sea but the top bed of calcified spring water!
Going to Pamukkale from Tire requires a three-hour drive. I was drained and bone weary from the ghastly band and its thumping bass keeping me awake till two in the morning. The weather was shit and I was a reluctant passenger at the beginning. However once on the road, I was reinvigorated and regained my energy and adventure lust.
Climbing the side of the mountain you rub your feet raw trying to get to the peak
The countryside is spectacular. Valleys, mountains, lakes, rivers, deciduous woods, coniferous forests and the eternal olive groves are everywhere. I saw places of poverty as well as more affluent communities. The arrival vista at Hieropolis is, however, another thing even in the grey misty weather.
Cleopatras Pool. with column ruins below the thermal pool bubbles like champagne as it aids your health in many ways
It stretches over a mountain top, glistening white like a huge, white snowy blanket of an ancient giant, thrown casually down landing atop a mountain full of bubbling hot thermal springs. It has a secret bonus, the ruins of the major Greek ‘Holy City’, Hierapolis.
INLAND TURKEY IN SPRING, IN LIKE A LION AND OUT LIKE A LAMB.
Alert: Sorry for the big delay but my plans obviously changed after the ghastly events here with the earthquakes. On finally deciding to come I had a few other hiccups. My Turcel phone decided that it wasn’t working after me topping it up with a data package, well it worked but just for one day. It’s crazy we have spent literally hours on the phone trying to find out why they are insisting that I set up an account over three months ago the idiots! Also, yesterday, when I was writing this, Google decided something more had to be paid on my email so I had that drama too as I kinda need emails for tickets etc. Also, I was told my photo limit was full so I couldn’t store pics. I spent hours trying to resolve it all and had no luck. Other bits threw me off so I sulked a bit, drank beer and got nowhere. I’ll fix it on my return to London but as we know travel always throws a few curved balls to check your mettle!
Loving the fresh mountain air and bubbling streams of the spring water
Springtime in Turkiye is a beautiful thing, especially when you’re escaping a dreary down-in-the-mouth London. It’s full of little lambkins and alpine flowers, olive trees as far as you can see and the soft green fuzz of fresh grass. Water can be heard along the way gurgling in the mountain streams. The villages are stirring after the short but sharp winter and life starts new and fresh. This is the time most tourists don’t see and indeed it is a very different land from the parched land in the summertime.
Breakfast on my first morning
My usual preparations of cleaning and tidying my place in Soho left me clear-headed and ready to travel. I was heading for a village inland from Izmir, having managed to book a little chalet at an extensive lodge in the foot lands.
ARTEMIS AND HER TEMPLE IN EPHESUS AND EARLIER ‘MOTHER GODDESSES’
Women were revered in ancient times it’s a shame that now everything is muddied and sullied, but here we see a snapshot of our distant ancestors’ love and reverence for the ever-evolving mother goddess through millennia.
In a darkened hall, two representations of Artemis overwhelm the visitor
Blue skies and hot sun in January in Selcuk, aka the famous Ephesus, home of one of the world’s seven wonders, and a great day to look into mother goddesses and their impact across the globe.After going to the Efe Museum and having an eye-opening proper look at the history there, and getting it sorted in my brain chronologically I walked over to the sad broken and pillaged site of this previously magnificent temple.
A last pillar resurrected
I had been to the actual Ephesus site previously and had marvelled at it but never really studied the place, only looking later at documentaries about Cleopatra’s sister having a mausoleum and the sinister side of that particular woman pharaoh.
I’m in the middle of my trip and haven’t had a chance to report in! Been super busy since I got here and knackered for the most part so here’s where I’m at present.
Well my old birds, I’m stuck out here after we cocked up a bit! I have moved from Tire to Selcuk for the rest of my stay at a lovely pension which is a stone’s throw from the magnificent Ephesus. I now have a little breathing space to relax after over-partying on Friday! I was a little too exuberant celebrating on Friday night and rather suffered yesterday. I was a bad old bird.
14th century Hammam by restaurant and pension ISA BEY HAMAM The bath consists of an elongated rectangular core structure with a central domed room, the hot bang room, which was surrounded by special bathing rooms. To the north are adjoined a lukewarm room without any bathing function, and side rooms with a toilet. To the south lay the warm water reservoir and the furnace room. The bath was entered from the north via a peristyle courtyard. To the east were shops, and in the west was a separate bathing area for women. Constructed in the 24 half of the 14th century A.D., the path was only operational for 60-80 years. Already by the mid-15th century, it served as a cemetery.
Today however I went out and did my favourite stuff, museums and archaeology. This is truly a magical place.
I visited the actual Ephesus ruins two years ago so today had a chance to see some of the artefacts removed and placed in their fine museum in town. As I am still weary I have returned to my Rebetika Pension and am on the top terrace in blazing sunshine writing this with my beer and in a much more relaxed state of mind.
Anything I can’t squidge mercilessly, carry sea urchins in and use as a “safe” (Money and camera and any valuables wrapped in it and covered in a hole with sand)
Happy fresh start my birdies, I’m hoping I find you all invigorated and full of hope for another year of new battles and victories. For wonderful awe-inspiring new sights and smells, sounds, tastes and sensations? Join me for a quick run down on why I’ve been so quiet and my new plans.
Horizens new. Rididing to the top of the volcano in the Philippines
GHASTLY DECEMBER.
I was sick for everything in December.
Art work in Jakarta gallery
I projectile-vomited my way through every planned festivity, sobbing quietly alone on my sofa. If anything was to prove to me I’m as hard as nails December 2022 was. I lost ten kilos in the month and went from lithe and fit to emaciated and terribly, terribly weak and fragile.
The long and winding path of life
What the hell was the matter I hear you say? I was mystified and cut out flour, eggs, dairy, and so forth. I finally have tracked it down to firstly stress, which triggered me not eating as well as usual due to lack of appetite, then more insidiously, one of my newly prescribed supplements.
Old Bird Travels Solo! 