Leather trousers and oil – must be wrestling again!

Into June already!  It’s quiet in the hotel – eight or ten rooms in – but about what we expect for May.  We have had several ‘old’ guests in, as well as meeting some very nice new ones.  We also have a honeymoon couple and a couple who are celebrating 66 years of marriage this year!

Down at the beach and in the restaurants along the front it is noticeably quieter than usual – or so the guests have been telling me!  I was down there this morning as it’s carnival day today and still it was very quiet with few people around and even fewer on the beach.  Hopefully this will change now as schools are out in Turkey next Friday.  Kaan already has his report card – mostly 5s with a couple of 4s (grades are 1 to 5) and wants a pair of Ray Burns as a reward.  I don’t think I need to give my answer to this…!

The end of school doesn’t help Emre who has a two weeks left until his exams.  Rather strangely, they have their graduation ceremony this weekend so we had to go shopping for a jacket and trousers for him the other day.  Emre is now 6 foot 1 and finding a jacket whose arms were long enough and that wasn’t huge and baggy on him was a challenge.  We gave up any idea of looking for shoes in a size 49 (14 or 15)!

There have been various events organized over the last few days as part of the carnival – beach football, tug-of-war, craft stalls and yesterday afternoon oil wrestling.  I am uploading a video to give you a taste of this very traditional Turkish sport.  I like the posturing of it – it starts (like most wrestling I suppose) with the competitors sort of teasing each other and showing off – but the combination of leather trousers, oil and grabbing each others pants (the only bit they can get a hold on) raises some eyebrows amongst those seeing it for the first time!

We are going down soon to watch the procession and I hope there are more people about to support it.  Then, this week, we are looking forward to Frank and Hetty arriving Monday, Grant and Dawn and also Andy arriving Tuesday and our trip to England in not very long.