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…I am busier at work. Yesterday I either made or received telephone calls from 6 countries and 4 continents. This is a most likely a personal record.

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I recently got in touch again with my English cousin, Adrian. He is living in Atlanta, USA with his American wife, Therese, and their two young children, Olivia and Matthew. In 1999 I stayed with them (not Matthew – he wasn’t in existence then) at their previous abode in Bishop Stortford, north of London. I find out now that he is a cutting-edge high school chemistry teacher with a multi award winning website: http://www.westminster.net/faculty/dingle/. Go Adrian!

I have now added his website and also my muso Auntie Ronnie’s page to the links on the side ->

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For days, my computer at work was causing grief, continually freezing when using Internet Explorer, Outlook or Outlook Express. It got to the stage where I copied all my files and emails onto another computer (the scanner computer) that I am using now. For a couple of days I could not access my personal emails. On Saturday Serkan reformatted the problem computer and it is almost ready to use again. Generally in the office, Word is also very slow. In all of Mersin, maybe Turkey, the ADSL (yes, a month or so ago we obtained ADSL Internet access!) is also very slow. Turk Telekom say the ADSL access should be fixed in a week. Let’s hope so. One advantage of the computer problems is the temporary computer has a much better monitor and when I return to my original computer, I will take the monitor with it.

Enough computer speak!

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As well as the cold, Thursday was also notable for a visit with my boss, Ahmet, and his friend, Mehmet, to the hamam (Turkish bath). This was my 3rd visit to a hamam in Mersin, all different ones. The last visit was at the very start of this blog.

The most notable event this time was the massage.

The Massage!

The masseuse caused me extreme pain in my leg muscles, arm muscles, side muscles, everywhere. On many occasions I was almost screaming. I loved it! My muscles were tense and needed the workout. I haven’t felt this much pain for a long time, if ever. No pain, no gain!

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The past week in Mersin was, and still is, very cold. On Thursday the maximum temperature was 7, yes, seven, that’s right, seacht, you heard it, saith, again, siete, once more, seofon, if you don’t understand, zeven, okay, sieben, another language?, sept, do I have to repeat?, sette, septum, shtatë, sedem, hepta, sju, syv, siedem, sem, sat, haft, septyni, shtatë, ewt’n, spät, yedi, sib’a, tujoh, the last one, qi!!!!!!

For Moscow or Erzurum or many other places 7 degrees is not special. For Mersin it is freezing!!!! The minimum was only 3. No, I will not repeat three in other languages!

The only heating I have used in my apartment was a hot water bottle for my bed and an occasional use of the reverse-cycle air conditioner in the bedroom. That is, until today. After our billiard game, Orhan helped me drag a gas heater from work, order the gas bottle and then drag the heater up the 100 or so stairs and six levels to my apartment. I now have heat! Prior to this, my apartment was like a fridge! Some of the other people at work have colds whilst I don’t. I wonder if it a coincidence that they have warm homes and mine is cold…..

The cold weather has inspired the procurement of the Weather Underground sticker for Mersin in the links section on the right of the page.

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I gave blood for the first time ever on Tuesday night.

Tuesday morning my next-door neighbour, Medine Teze, had a hip operation at the Mersin University Hospital. This operation required 4 units of blood. This hospital (and possibly, all Turkish Public Hospitals/Hospitals in general) requires the reciprocal giving of as many units of blood as used, So, I receive a phone call around 5 pm from Hanifi Amca (Medine’s husband) asking me if I can blood. I was glad to be able to help my wonderful neighbours.

At the hospital the beautiful medical worker asked me some questions before she could proceed with the blood taking. I understood most of it. About diseases, fear of needles (the demonstration Hanifi Amca gave to explain this question was quite comical but effective), past sexual habits, general health matters and other expected questions. The woman first inserted the needle into my left forearm vein to take a sample. After the sample was taken and analysed, she injected the needle into the same position on my right arm. This second needle took just under 500 ml of blood, the size of one unit. I rediscovered that my blood was of the O+ variety. Following the donation I was made to relax on the bed for a while and drink peach nectar and eat biscuits (for the sugar). Medine’s daughter, Handan Abli, provided these supplements. All in all, the procedure took about 30 minutes.

As blood giving is extremely important and beneficial to the community and takes little time, it is something I will strongly consider doing on a regular basis in the future. I hope I can help many other people needing blood transfusions,

Give blood!

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http://www.turkishpress.com/turkishpress/news.asp?ID=16418

From the Sabah newspaper:

Minimum Wage Fixing Commission increased minimum wage to be valid as of January 1, 2004 by 34.1 percent to net 303 million 79 thousand 500 Turkish liras (TL). Cost of minimum wage, which will be gross 423 million TL for workers above 16 years old, for employers is calculated as 560 million TL.

Basically, what the above is saying is the Turkish worker on the official minimum income can now enjoy just over USD $200 in take home money every month.

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With 2004 brought a new ‘uniform’ at work. As well as different shirts and ties, Serkan and I now have cardigans to wear!!!!

I can’t remember the last time I wore a cardigan. Go the cardie!