Every month on Lincguide, Rosy Glow shares her news, personal thoughts and intimate letters on her new life living in Northern Cyprus. This month – mushrooms, dogs and resident aliens.

Dear Sis,
Happy 2010!
It does not seem possible that a new decade has dawned and as you sit in your centrally heated house watching the snow fall outside with no end in sight, Rob is sitting here in his shorts and t-shirt. I, of course, am not so rash and have on lightweight trousers and a long sleeved top but the weather is glorious for January.

We had a busy run up to Christmas as we bit the bullet and went to the Kyrenia Animal Rescue centre and are now the proud parents of Gracie, a golden spaniel cross who is about 8 months old and Bilbo, a brown and white pointer cross who is now about 3 months old. They took up residence with us just before Christmas and have settled in really well and we love having them. Poor Gracie though has recently had the “snip” and whilst she is recovering, she is feeling sorry for herself (and why wouldn’t she?).  KAR helped out a lot with advice and how to get all the mandatory things sorted so we have now registered them with the Belediyesi in Girne and we have a vet who has micro chipped them both. They are both asleep at the moment – bless.

I was both amazed and delighted to find that a lot of Christmas cards made it to North Cyprus and all presents sent were accounted for.  Perhaps the massive problems with our post if finally coming to an end and I can stop telling people to send everything in brown envelopes.  Let’s hope so anyway.

New Year saw us all leave the house at 0730 one morning for the trip to Nicosia to the Residency department.  Traffic was terrible so we arrived at 0845 and upon being given our queue tickets, found out we were numbers 44, 45 and 46. We knew it was going to be a long day and sure enough it was.  The offices closed at mid-day until 1345 for lunch and at 1205 the number showing was 43 which meant we went off to get some lunch and came back at 1330.  Once we were actually in the process was not too bad but we then found the costs had gone up.  We had to pay TL185 with TL7.10 government stamps each.  We got back home around 15.30.  Still, we have to do it so we are now “legal” for another year.

Early gardening starts in earnest next week when Rob and James will clip the hedges we planted around March last year.  They are a good height now and by clipping them they will spread out to fill the gaps and by the summer we should have a good solid hedge so that sunbathing is a little more private. Later today we are going mushroom picking with Ali (water).  He speaks little English and we speak next to no Turkish so it should be a fun outing.  Still, it was very kind of him to offer to take us to the hills to collect wild mushrooms and I have since found out that this part of the island is famous for its mushrooms.  I feel a mushroom omelette or a mushroom stroganoff on the menu tonight maybe.

Well dear Sis as we move effortlessly into January I wish you all good things for 2010.  I wish the snow to go, the prices to come down and the sun to shine on your parade.   I wish to lose weight, to smile more and to be even happier.  I wish chocolate to finally be accepted as good for you, along with wine, biscuits and ice-cream but if I cannot have any of those then I will settle for a peaceful 2010.
Take care and remember I know I’m in my own little world, but it’s ok. They know me here.

Your itinerant sister

Keep up to date with Rosy’s adventures every month on Lincguide.