Putting The House In Order

The production office personnel is suddenly expanding rapidly, Zena our Swiss warrior-princess has come back to help plan next year’s ant-filming, Whiplash is firmly back in the saddle and the Camera Boy now known as The Pepper King is busy practising his ballroom dancing moves in the kit room.

The filming team will be back here in less than a week bringing trolleyloads of kit and several million terabytes of material that will need organising in short time for an edit that will go on through the winter. It would probably be better if our building is waterproof, it should also be warmer than the outside temperature and there should be lights working in more rooms than just the kitchen.

For years I have been living in a state of denial about the steady deterioration of this house, fixing the kitchen lights last week activated the ancient law that states that 'once one thing is repaired you notice how much else is broken‘ – this is ok because we have discovered Light Man who has the power to mend things and is also extremely attractive! Today he replaced the panes in the sash windows that had cracks taped over with bits of gaffer tape, this necessitated Miss Whiplash holding onto his legs while he applied putty to the outside of upper-floor windows.


More Bad Hair
I have also been in denial about the steady deterioration of my hair and finally took myself for a haircut last week, I tried to visit Laura but her barber shop has shut down. I walked on and into a place that looked like a hairdresser's from the outside, it turned out to be run by boys wearing trousers belted below their underpants. I let one of them do something 'interesting’ with my hair. Then I had to go on further and find another hairdresser, one run by grown-ups who could make me look 'normal’ again, my hair is now several inches shorter but I no longer look as though I have escaped from an asylum - this is important because I am cooking for a new client tomorrow...

Passing Time

I’m back in the production office for a few days. Until recently it's been a hornet's nest of frantic activity here, all the parts of the filming team finally got off to Africa a week ago but then there were inevitably extra lorryloads of hard drives and cables to be sent out and lots of argy bargy about camp charges and filming fees, but Miss Whiplash sorted it all out and now it’s all gone a bit tum-ti-tum here - on the upside we finally have a chance to catch up with all the online horoscopes, Facebook and Guitar Hero.

When we’ve had enough of these activities, Miss Whiplash, the Youngest Camera Boy and myself entertain ourselves, and any passing guests, with tea parties and lunchtime events. Today a lovely man came and made the kitchen lights work - to celebrate we invited him to join us for lunch. YCB won several gold medals with his splendid stuffed peppers.

Light Man told us about his other job as a DJ;
I used to do toasting - but then I got shy.




I noticed a trendy new clothes shop today so I went in to investigate, I had a question to ask the sales assistant who was Welsh and very camp - I had to wait while he finished telling his colleague about someone he’d met at a party the previous night:
... well he made me really cross, I wanted to kill him and stab him and burn him.

New Porridge Invention

Yesterday I made porridge for breakfast and just as it was ready the phone rang, turning off the heat I picked up the call from my father. When we'd finished talking the porridge was lukewarm, I added a bit more milk to the pan and reheated it ... but the phone went again and by the time I came off that call it was lunchtime so I abandoned the porridge and went out.

Coming back later and seeing the pan of solid porridge I decided to test my husband’s assertion that everything is better fried:

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...

Bubble and Squeak Porridge (loud applause please)









Served here with bananas, dates, maple syrup and cream, the crunchy bits are good, if it’s the wetness of porridge you object to, this is definitely a dish for you.

Being in London

This week I’m back in my friend’s creamy-carpetted London apartment and wondering whether I should get one those hooded, paper boiler suits like they have in a cop shows to protect this perfect place from me.

The London neighbourhood is not at all like my Bristol one; take the local sex shop, in Bristol it's all blacked-out windows and bad typography, here in London the window is swathed in pink satinette and doubles as a joke shop, so you can pick up some bloodshot-eyeball fairy lights and a severed hand with your gimp mask and spanking paddle – it just makes sense.

I'm struggling with the concept of this one, it's a bit like shops we have in Bristol called Pound Shops, where the deal is simple - everything costs a pound. In London they have shops that look identical, seem to stock the same brightly-coloured tat, but the crucial difference is that they promise everything will cost more than a pound, but 99p or PLUS - I ask you!

Awards and Eye Sores

Stills from must-see movie Casus Kiran


I have been awarded an award by the Superdynamique Mme Ange, I’m thrilled and honoured – thank you. Accepting the award involves me having to tell you seven things, here’s a run down of the last seven days:

Saturday: Invite friends for supper, at the end there is rice pudding with coconut milk, cardamom, and baked pears, there’s a long curl of lemon zest in the pudding and toasted almonds on the top, it instantly wins the covetted Dish of the Week Gold Star Award, hail self as genius then accidentally poke same self in eye with wooden spoon.


Sunday: Woke with head cold, the eye is swollen and gummy-looking. Total disaster as must look totally gorgeous in exactly three days time.


Monday: Whiplash is back (Cheers from the gallery!) her rash has cleared up and she has discovered a local source of custard tarts baked by Portuguese person, they go exceedingly well with coffee from lesbian café.

Eye looking a bit better

Tuesday: Go to London and stay in friend’s cream-carpetted apartment - she is away. Scared of messing up the immaculateness so confine self to kitchen. Have boiled egg for tea while holding a cold wet flannel on eye to hasten return to normality. Check an email that is already sent as tender for cooking work, note that I've claimed to
have catered large pubic events

Wednesday: Eye looking good, set off for interview, wearing chic outfit and proper grown-up make up. Get caught short while approaching Westbourne Grove so nip into the local designer gorgeous public lavatory.

Try to wash hands but soap dispenser nozzle blocked, push harder on soap lever, suddenly soap becomes unblocked, resultant jet of liquid ricochets off my open palms into eyes, rinse energetically, there are no towels. Emerge looking like I’ve been in a fight.

Thursday: Bristol and a musical event: The Man Who Eats Kalua and Coco pops For Breakfast, AKA Andy White, accompanied by virtuoso pianist and accordion player Radoslav Lorkovic. Andy and Rad are in Scotland for a week now, then in Ireland - Brilliant! See them if you can, tour dates here.

If you can’t see an actual gig here's a video for the latest single



Friday: Film and dance event in converted church, part of Bristol’s Afrika Eye film festival, food is served at the interval, a spinach and peanut butter wrap wins Interesting Food of the Week Award.

Autumn Colours

I’ve been revelling in the sheer autumnalness of Bristol since I’ve been home, the farmer’s market is very exciting, partly for the vegetables but also, surprise autumn-only stalls have appeared; there’s a chap who sells apples and cider, a squash man and the game butcher has more variety at this time of year, I had a look to see if he was selling squirrel yet - unfortunately not, so I bought a bag of pigeon giblets instead. Miss Whiplash and I tend to eat even more cake once summer's over and the Women’s Institute stall were having a competitive parkin bake-off, so I made sure that I capitalised on that one.

Last week on market day I had a lunch date with Mr Precision Handling, I was planning to lure him into one of the the market cafés where they serve cooked-up versions of the stall produce. It seems that PH is frightened of vegetables though, he suggested that we attack a mountain of smoked salmon that he’d recently caught at Loch Fyne instead. The salmon was delicious but then he made me sample a fruit salad that he was apparently going to distill once the fermentation process had completed, regular readers might know that I’m fearless on the experimental food front but I can tell you that I was quite careful not to go near a naked flame for the rest of that afternoon.

Coming Back To The Marie Celeste

I’m back to work. The office is very quiet because Miss Whiplash ran off to Sharm el Sheikh with a new lover a week ago and has now picked up some sort of disease that is apparently keeping her in bed until next week. The boys are away filming in Kenya, except for the youngest Camera Boy who did come back with the German trophy (and it really is made of sand), I can't actually tell when he's in though because he disappears under a massive pile of cables in the kit room that all need cleaning and untangling.


My Turkish holiday is already a distant memory, just before I set off on the trip I had this exchange with my hairdresser;
She: Are you off on holiday then?
Me: Yes, Turkey
She: Lovely - a beach holiday?
Me: Not really - there'll be a lot of loafing about and eating though, I don’t think I'll be spending loads of time looking at monuments
She: Well you don’t go to Turkey to look at monuments do you?

Hilarious, but she was right, Turkey might be crammed with impressive monuments but it is also a country full of the loveliest people - the best bits of my trip were definitely the bits with Turks in. Nice thing about Turkish people is that they’re as nosey as I am, and wonderfully direct, a lady on the bus to the airport asked my nationality then, What sort of education have you had?

Most surprising moment was after an earnest young man came to my rescue in Istanbul then took me to a cake shop owned by the city’s mayor and made me try the chicken pudding (Tavuk göğsü). This fat white tubular dessert is made with finely minced chicken breast, I tried the one in the picture and can report that it is a very sweet, rubbery sort of thing (like Turkish Delight) and I could have handled it better with a knife and fork than the dainty spoon I was given, meat fibres are a strange thing to see in a pudding.

Better Stop Looking Now

The party at Bonjour Pensiyon (see last post) went on most of the night and involved a lot of singing and dancing, even Grandma forgot her humming and danced and grinned like it was the best party ever – which it was. Next day I loaded their computer with the movies and photos I had made during the evening and they loaded me up with a big bag filled with olive oil, jars of olives and olive oil soap (because the olives in Ayvelik are the best in the world!) and the following evening I staggered on to the night bus - bound for Istanbul.


My baggage consisted of little more than a skirt, a summer dress, some t shirts, swimwear, spare knickers, a hat and a shawl - and a lot of olive-based products. The weather in Istanbul is in the 20s and feels like the height of a British summer but the residents of Istanbul are swathed in their autumnal woolies and I was looking ridiculous.

Yesterday morning I went to Taksim, the area one goes for shopping.

An escalator brought me, and a pile of other people, into Taksim square from the underground station, there was a demonstration going on and several of us stopped to watch, the crowds were perfectly well-behaved, marching nicely through the square with their banners, then the police started firing tear gas and the demonstration was made chaotic, I got swept up running with all the protestors, filtering off down side streets stopping finally by a shop to buy lemons and water which helped ease the burning.


Finally today I managed to get me an autumn outfit, a frock and some shoes, all I needed were some black tights - could I find some?

There are countless shops selling hosiery but none have plain black tights. The shop assistant, determined to sell me something, produced a pair the wrong colour, I said these are brown

the shop assistant replied no not brown, light black

Staring

I’m staying in a small fishing town opposite the Greek island of Lesbos (famous for inventing lesbianism). Now that I have been assured that staring is perfectly acceptable behaviour in Turkey I have embraced the concept wholeheartedly and stare as hard as I like as I wander around, and I must say that I’m thrilled with the results. I passed a bakery today and stopped to watch several men, all with cigarettes firmly clamped in their mouths, working together to load the oven. They asked me in and I photographed the handsome brutes. My staring drew stares from the rest of the square and we soon had quite a crowd of us. After a while next door’s, extremely young, male hairdresser came in with tea, there are loads of hairdressers - and there’s always tea. The hairdresser gave me a bracing infusion of eucalyptus, a flavour I wouldn’t ever actually choose, but I’ve put worse things in my mouth so I swallowed bravely and now feel quite medicated.

Wanting to communicate something and failing a bit, the Hairdresser ran off to fetch an exercise book, in which were hand-written all the English phrases that could come in useful to a hairdresser

Hello, How are you, Would you like a haircut, a shampooing, how much to cut?

We leafed through the book but there was nothing that matched what the Hairdresser wanted to say. Actually I would have quite liked a haircut but he was redecorating the salon and his hands were all painty, also I would have had to climb over the piled up chairs to get to the shampooing sink.

I’m staying at the Bonjour Pensiyon, a guesthouse straight out of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel. A large, crumbling and beautiful house from the Ottoman period with painted ceilings and fabulous light fittings. The central courtyard is paved with marble and piled with plants, this is where breakfast is served and where the sultry girls who run the place spend their time, smoking, gossiping and looking after grandma who has been suffering from Alzheimer's for 20 years now, the old lady is like a baby bird with her shock of fluffy white hair, she hums constantly and tends to wander off when nobody’s looking.

Yesterday there was another guest, a silent Turkish commercial traveller. Now the sole paying inmate, I spent lunchtime with the family and have been invited to the birthday party of a member of the household this evening - the large man who had manned the reception desk yesterday. I remembered him because he was naked apart from his red satin underpants.

Strange Visitor

I didn’t intend to stop for more than one night in Aydin, but I hadn’t reckoned on the fulsomeness of Turkish hospitality. One of the professors from this town's university visited my house in Bristol last year, so I dropped by to say hello on my way north - I’m not allowed to leave until I’ve been properly shown around.

Aydin is largely made up of newish pastel-coloured concrete tower blocks and mosques, visitors do not come here. Before I go out on the street I put on clothes that I think are properly sober, I look in the mirror and think 'would a Turkish person wear that?’ and I think they might, but people are falling off their bicycles trying to get a better look at me, so I guess that I must appear as an odd cartoonish figure in this landscape. If I look back at the women I pass, they have often stopped in the street and turned to watch me, when they see me they smile and wave, which is nice but slightly unnerving.

I am leaving tomorrow but not before I have made a supper party, my mouth made the suggestion before my brain could stop it and now I’m a bit daunted by the prospect of cooking for a roomful of Turkish academics, possibly they are all daunted by the thought that I might make them eat toad in the hole and spotted dick.

Aydin is known for it’s figs so I’m going to make this tagliatelle dish with figs, lemon and chilli (it’s good, try it) followed by chicken and spinach salad with roast peppers.

This morning I went to the market with its streets of vegetable stalls piled high with produce. The other shoppers are all pushing big overflowing trolleys, I try and buy just one handful of chilli peppers and I get laughed at, it’s not worth charging me for such a small amount, nor the single lime - then some ladies stop me and ask me something - I can’t understand, so one of the women makes a call on her mobile and passes the handset to me so that I can speak to a young girl trying to translate her mother’s question

My mother wants to know ... whasserangum afffersezzem ...

... actually I can’t remember the exact sounds made after that first bit, but it was incomprehensible, we flounder around trying out sounds on each other until the phone runs out of battery, we part company with none of us any the wiser.


Mudbathing Postscript
There seemed to be a call in the comments of the last post to put up an image of the mud baths, I'm the one wallowing.

If you stand up in this warm salty compound it's thigh deep but lie down in it and you bob on the surface - weird, and cool, when you want to de-mud you can just dive into the lake on the other side of the wall.

Yes I did wash it all off before I arrived in Aydin.