Istanbul 2014

Hello Blog.  We've had quite an eventful few months recently... I temporarily went blind after an insect flew into my eye and then there was the excitement of Husb retiring... but I'm reuniting with Blogger with our cruise on the Cunard ship QUEEN ELIZABETH. We flew to Athens with TITAN AIR and and promptly set sail for Istanbul.

This gave Husb the opportunity to wear his rather dashing white Tuxedo jacket which he received as a leaving gift from school (doesn't it suit him!) It wasn't out of place in the QE dining room, they really love their dressing up on that ship.

We docked in Istanbul and found our pick up point for our tour.

DOLMABAHCE PALACE

was our first stop. Built by Sultan Abdulmecit  between 1843 and 1856, it is a beautiful summer palace famous for being the first palace in Istanbul to be built in the European style.  

The gardens were beautiful but the inside of the palace was  quite spectacular.  It came as no surprise that this palace bankrupted the state with its lavish, extravagant carpets and 3 enormous chandeliers.

"Marble was brought from the Islands in the Sea of Marmara, The porphyry stones from ancient Pergamon city, the alabaster from Egypt, the furniture was brought from Paris, the crystal materials from Baccarat, the vases from Sevr, the candlesticks from England, the silk carpets from Hereke and Lyon with special order. Almost all of 99 small and 131 large handmade carpets are silk and all they were woven in the royal workshops in Hereke. 4.500 square meters area covered by the carpets. It is said that 40 tons of silver and 14 tons of gold were used for the decoration of the palace." 

Look! A swan fountain in the Dolmabahce gardens!

Christleton Cricket Club needs one of these!

Istanbul Modern Art Gallery was next on the tour.

 (And it just so happened that the QE was docked right next to it)

The golf balls were still there!

And there was a nice cafe in the gallery for me to have my tea fix.... Turkish style. 

(My left eye still doesn't look right does it?)

Our tour guide then took us to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate known as the 

Church of St George

where there is a piece of the marble that Christ was said to have chipped away at whilst held in captivity. This piece came from Jerusalem.

The Column of Christ’s Flagellation (10)
Located in the southeast corner of the nave, this column is one of the most treasured and ancient relics of the Church of St. George. It is a portion of the column where our Lord was bound and whipped by Roman soldiers during His Passion and before His Crucifixion. Two other portions of this column are preserved in Jerusalem and in Rome. It is said to have been brought to Constantinople by St. Helen, the mother of Emperor Constantine, after she visited the Holy Land.

The tour continued. What followed next was most bizarre.

 We were taken for a walk around the back streets of Istanbul with the view to looking at the architecture of the old city. It was, however, a very uncomfortable walk for us, as the guide marched off at a ridiculous pace leaving the children and older lady trying to catch up. There were only 9 people in the group and she nearly managed to lose all of us, due to the fact that we had to keep looking at the pavement to avoid the stares of the locals of such a deprived area. We weren't entirely sure that we wouldn't get mugged. We must have stood out a mile....white, rich looking tourists in an area like that. We snarled appropriately and asked to get back to the bus.

Rustem Pasha Mosque

We had visited Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque when we went to Istanbul last year so the Rustem Pasha Mosque  seemed very small in comparison, but the wall tiles were fabulous and the dressing up in shawl and sari lightened the mood a little after the uncomfortable walk ten minutes before.

To be fair it was a nice 4 hours and we DID enjoy the tour.

As we were staying overnight, we didn't have to get back to the ship, so in typical Jolly Holly fashion we got the map out and decided spend another hour at the magnificent  

Basilica Cistern 

-a water cistern built where a basilica once stood.  The cistern was used in the 1963 James Bond film From Russia With Love  but all I could think of was the underground lake scene in Phantom of the Opera.

336 columns, arranged in 12 rows of 28, standing in illuminated water, drawn from the Belgrad Forest area 19km away. Quite stunning, especially on Husb's new camera and not so, on mine.

Two of the columns have Medusa's head as the base, one turned sideways and one turned upside down. This is because in Greek mythology Medusa was a monster, having the face of a hideous woman with writhing poisonous snakes in place of hair and anyone gazing directly into her eyes would turn to stone.

  

The Basilica Cistern-what a bonus.

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The sail out was lovely. You KNOW how much I love twinkly, sparkly water.

The second day in Istanbul was both interesting and alarming. (!) We had a lazy morning with a decent breakfast and planned to take a boat out up the Bosphorus River to Princes Islands  (we LIKE boats) but I nearly passed out in the boat queue and can only put it down to just standing. My body doesn't do still very well and there was a definite lack of venous return...that and low blood pressure. I'd had Alpen and figs and pine nuts and melon and banana chips for breakfast and I was stood in the shade. Husb gallantly revived me and we decided to find a wifi cafe and just chill for an hour but that wasn't without drama either as we nearly got run over by a tram. It really wasn't the best bit of road crossing. Then to top it all we thought we saw our ship on fire. Whaaaaat?  It was actually the warehouse right next to the QE but there was so much smoke we couldn't see where it was coming from. The wifi cafe served typical turkish yoghurt that had been highly recommended in various tour guides so I ordered one. Could today get any more hooty? She brought me a huge tub of the sort of yoghurt we live on at home... with a straw....and it was sooooo salty. Hey ho I probably needed to replace all the salt I had sweated out after all that woozy, fainting malarkey... sweat HAD been rolling down my legs. 

Back on ship we sun-protected with hat, bandana and Factor 30 and did a few laps of the deck before dressing for dinner. 

"Say what you see, say what you see" Roy Walker from the TV show Catchphrase was our entertainment, he was a total pro and the Master of Good Timing...

and look who else was on our ship1 Hello Hawkleys! 

Summary:

Fantastic weather.

Great food, although why why WHY wipe the roast pork with garlic???

Lovely company- our table of rabble were great fun.

Excellent entertainment.

Beautiful ship (though they are a bit too keen on the dressing up)

Next stop... VOLOS, GREECE.

Chester in the sun

I remember coming to Chester in 1975 for an interview at "Chester College" (as it was called then) and didn't go for any more interviews because I had set my heart on living here in this beautiful city. It had nothing to do with Chester being close to where my teenage idols Kevin Keegan and Emlyn Hughes were playing football, I just loved everything about Chester after that first ever visit here. I've now lived here for 37 years. 

And now big sis has retired, she has time to come and visit.

So, naturally we set off round the city walls.

We paused by the Eastgate clock for a photo because I always think the background is a great example of perspective. There is a vanishing point down Watergate Street, somewhere.

We were walking along the walls because we were on our way for afternoon tea at Edgar House which is on the walls down by the River Dee.

Liddy, a Moo herself, felt at home here amongst the Moo prints.

They were very cute.

As was the SKY BLUE teapot. =)

And it was a delicious afternoon tea, if you like brie and smoked salmon, the sandwiches were generously filled. I'm not sure why it was such a big issue to have a top up of tea though, we asked and they refused, we were allowed only hot water and that was restricted to one pot of water between the three of us. I should have warned them about my tea addiction. 

It was a picturesque walk back to the car with the sun shining through the trees.

And you always have a Castlehug when you walk past a castle.

A few days later, Pixen brought the Bellster for his first visit to Chester. 

They had fabulous weather too.

Yesterday, Nem and I went to see the improvements in Chester's Grosvenor Park.

There were hardly any squirrels (blimey) but loads of semi-bare bodies soaking up the sun. It felt like we were on holiday somewhere. 

The arches (above) and a wire family (below)

And the colourful flowerbeds.

It has been ages since I walked through this park.

Yay! The little train was running!

Are you meant to have a child with you to ride on a train which blows bubbles?

Having just finished a very hot and sweaty spinning class, we were both more concerned about sticking to the seat.

£1.50 a ride? "BARGAIN!" we thought. Until it was all over in 45 seconds. It really COULD have gone round twice couldn't it....

The stomp continued round the meadows, the river was twinkling in the sun and the reflections were particularly impressive. This was our Dairylea Dunkers Snackattack Stop.

Then back over the Suspension Bridge and home.

Chester in the sun. We are privileged to live in such a pretty city.

DIY wardrobe and futon number 2

We hadn't actually intended to decorate and re-vamp Pixen and Drake's room but when MY wardrobe nearly collapsed on me under the weight of all my dresses (yes, seriously) and the flatpacks of the new one arrived, we realised that their room was the only room it would fit into, because in true Jolly Holly fashion, we had bought a bargain without measuring up properly. 

(Meaning..."Yes ... that should fit")

So Husb painted a bit of wall and then we started to build. It had to be built lying down on the floor.

It was massive! It completely filled the floor. (I have got a lot of dresses)

We soon realised that if we put the back on before lifting it up we would have no chance.

There WAS a point when we thought that to  lift it up at all we had no chance. It was just too long.

But... forward an inch...up an inch...forward an inch...up an inch ...(times 10) and we managed to stand it up.

The drawers went in well. Totally slidey. Big tick for those.

I've now got a high rail and a low rail, a low shelf and a high shelf because I can't reach the top shelf haha

Once the wardrobe was done and filled, the blind and the curtains were fitted and the awesome mobiles that have been hanging for 28 years went back up. 

I have yet to find a mobile I love as much as The Toucan.

Futon number two then slotted in perfectly.

(So long as I didn't want to open a wardrobe drawer hahaha)

Jokes! Of course I can open the drawers.

I have tiny thin wrists.

Its really comfy.

And of course my favourite 28 year old teddy rugs survived the revamp. Never in doubt.

Pig mirror got sanded down, Pixen's paintings for Cub's 18th went up and I framed two of my favourite greetings cards. 

So this is what futon 2 looks like as a bed.

(I have to say this was definitely one of my Great Groupon Purchases woopwoop)

It's got sheets and pillows and everything.

It was all finished in time for when Pixen and The Bellster came to Chester.We really HAD worked like Trojans and she had no idea!! 

They picked a fabulous weekend to come.

And meanwhile, as all this was happening back home, Cub was being a Jolly Holly in The Getty in Los Angeles  because Team Zesty hopped on a plane to LA for the  July 4th celebrations.... because ...when you are your own boss.... you just can. :)