Before we voted to remain in the European Union, we went to see Independence Day: Resurgence. Typical of expensive sequels, the blockbuster was poorly scripted, overblown and inconclusive. Not a patch on the original – just like the referendum.
Let’s face it, the European Union is hard to love – the faceless eurocrats in smart suits who run the show (Jean-Claude who?), the savage treatment of Greece (to keep German banks solvent), the every-man-for-himself response to the migrant crisis (not very communautaire), the expensive nonsense of moving the entire EU Parliament from Brussels to Strasbourg just to vote (to keep the French happy), the initial refusal to allow the UK Government to zero-rate sanitary products (only a man would be so stupid). I could go on and on.
Finally, the EU referendum is nearly upon us. Thank the Lord it’s almost over. With every passing week, the arguments on both sides of the campaign have become more hysterical. No, I don’t believe the sky will fall in if the UK leaves the Union. It may get rocky for a while – divorces rarely end sweetly – but common sense will prevail because it’s in everyone’s interests that a deal is done. Yes, I do think high levels of migration to the UK caused by alarming levels of unemployment in some parts of the Eurozone has put pressure on housing and public services. But there are better ways to solve this than throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I must confess, I flip-flopped for a while. It’s an incredibly important decision and I’ve tried to weigh up the pros and cons as best as I could. But I cannot in all conscience vote on the same side as the likes of Nigel Farage and his acolytes of little-Englanders blaming migrants for everything that moves or the unsavoury troupe of neo-liberal Tories led by bonkers Boris whose only answer to the funding problems within the health service is to privatise it. And yes, I do believe there is a link between the cowardly murder of Jo Cox by a fascist nutter and some of the more extreme voices in the leave campaign. You don’t have to pull the trigger to load the gun. Just saying.
I rarely mix business with blogging. I prefer to keep my irreverent witterings personal. But sometimes something comes my way I just can’t let pass. Just recently, Springtime Books published a breast cancer diary called Do you still have cleavage with just one breast? by Sue Lawrence, a Canadian now living in the Netherlands. It’s gritty, brave, straight-talking and inspirational. Many of us have been or will be affected by the evil that is the big C. Sue met it head on. The title says it all.
Here’s the blurb:
On honeymoon and two months pregnant, Sue discovers a lump in her breast. This is her raw, unpolished diary as she navigates the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Brutally honest, she faces the overwhelming terror of the road ahead – for herself and her unborn daughter.
Her candid diary entries reflect the impact the disease has on her marriage and impending motherhood. It ends with Tips for Cancer Warriors – signposts and guidelines for those following in her footsteps.
This remarkable and compelling memoir will empower others to feel whatever they need to feel as they battle this disease – it’s their cancer.
The book contains so many memorable quotes. Here’s just a few:
Mastectomy bras resemble slingshots in white or beige polyester… they bring out the grandmother in you.
I find the cancer story slips out – like I’m an oozing, emotional slut wanting to share my pain with everyone.
Chemotherapy smells of rubber bands and it still sticks at the back of my nose. I want to retch. My hair fell out this morning… my bowels feel like they’re falling out of my ass.
Mark moments that are important to you. Go on a trip. Light candles. Write a diary. Stay in bed and cry. Ever the drama queen, I sent a photo of my cancerous breast down the Athabasca Falls in Canada and then had a Nipple Party complete with a documentary and book… Find your joy. And do it every day.
Sue’s incredible story is available in print and e-book at the usual places. Here’s the link to Amazon.
Lunchtime at the Iron House Brasserie on St John Maddermarket is an egg lover’s heaven – Florentine, Benedict, Royale, fried, scrambled, poached, omeletted – you pays your money, you takes your choice free-range wise. Being contrary in lunch as well as in life, we plumped for the dish of the day instead, a spicy lamb burger with a distinctive Turkish twist washed down with tap water and a fruity Sauvignon Blanc. The venue is classy but unpretentious, the staff attentive but unintrusive. All in all, a fun gig.
After the first bottle, we got the taste. Well, you do don’t you? The sun had got his hat on putting everyone in a bright mood so we opted for a boozy crawl home, first to the Sir Garnet then on to the Champion. I took a few snaps along the way.
Liam was a tad tipsy by the time we fell through the front door of our micro-loft and was snoring like a whoopee cushion by 9pm. ‘Tis my cross to bear.
Katherine Hepburn is reputed to have said:
Death will be a great relief. No more interviews.
Like the late, great Ms Hepburn, I used to get probed by all and sundry when we were fairies in a faraway land. Alas, it all but dried up when we returned to the old country and became happy nonentities. So, when an invite dropped on the mat requesting my presence at Writing…Just Because, I re-sharpened my blunt quill with a meat cleaver and scribbled a whole load of nonsense about hard-boiled expats, the road to writing ruin and my days as an unrepentant eavesdropper.
You can catch my pearls of wisdom here.
Not much of the news coming out of Turkey these days is positive – refugees, bombs, riots, censorship and the usual rhetoric from the imperious Erdoğan. The western media do so love to stoke up a drama. You could be forgiven for thinking the place is falling apart. Well, it isn’t. But the headlines are putting visitors off. According to some estimates, bookings by Brits are down by over a third. A glance at the travel agent’s window reveals the bargains to be had, reflecting a tourist trade going through lean times. It would be foolish to suggest there aren’t any problems but Turkey remains one of the safest holiday destinations anywhere.
It’s been four years since we returned from Turkey and we’re content with our lot in old Norwich Town. The slowish pace of life suits us well. But, we’re often nostalgic for our easy come, easy go days of Bodrum. During one particularly wistful afternoon in the boozer, Liam and I took a drunken stagger down memory lane. Over the last few years I’ve scribbled a word or two about my best bits of Turkey and I’ve even won writing competitions with my musings. So to cure me of my melancholy, Liam suggested I put them all together. So that’s what I’ve done. And very cathartic it was too. I’ve called it Postcards from the Ege, Jack Scott’s Turkey Trail.
Here’s the blurb:
With such an immense political and cultural heritage, it’s no surprise kaleidoscopic Turkey is such a feast – a prime cut of authenticity, seasoned by the West and spiced by the East. Jack Scott knows a thing or two about the country. He lived there for years and travelled widely – to Istanbul and along its south-western shores from Izmir to Alanya. In Postcards from the Ege, Scott shares some of his must-sees and personal highlights. Follow Scott’s trail. Come to Turkey.
The e-book has just been published on Kindle by Springtime Books. It’s a steal at a couple of quid and if it encourages people to sample the extraordinary land we used to call home then that’s all to the good.
Türkiye’ye Hoşgeldiniz!
The weather may be a little bit rubbish at the moment with low pressure rolling in from the plains of Northern Europe but this hasn’t held back the wisteria dripping from the railings of St Giles Church. Last year’s show was impressive enough but this year’s lilac pageant is Oscar-winning. A gorgeous smell hits the senses as you pass by. Something to savour while it lasts.
Norwich has more medieval churches than you shake a stick at, a church for every week of the year so the saying goes. You can hardly turn a corner without bumping into a stone steeple or Gothic arch. Back in the day, the cloth trade made Norwich rich and the top of the heap paid their way into Heaven by sponsoring medieval masterpieces. The cassock class were more than happy to indulge the myth and take the bung. But in these more secular times, the Faithful are few: come Sunday, most pews are empty. Some churches have been mothballed – boarded up and padlocked to keep out the elements and the vandals. Many others, though, have been given a new lease of life as arts centres, theatres, museums and exhibition spaces. Such is the case with the Church of St Peter the Less on Barrack Street. The pretty 15th century building miraculously survived the Luftwaffe’s bombs which flattened everything else around one night in 1942, and now sits on a grassy mound by a busy roundabout. Since 1980, the church has been home to the Norwich Puppet Theatre, one of those amazing provincial arts organisations that flourish against all the odds.
When not stringing up the cast to amuse little people, the theatre is available for hire (including civil weddings, ironically). So, one Sunday we took our pews for a performance of Twisted Cabaret by the Knightshift Dance Company and jobbing drag queen, Miss Special K. The fusion of modern community dance with old-school gay showbiz was inventive enough but a man in a frock and ginger wig singing ‘Your son’ll come out tomorrow,’ in a deconsecrated church was deliciously subversive. Those God-fearing old merchants must be spinning in their graves. I loved it.
Let’s face it, spring is a bit of a hit and miss affair across these islands so it pays to take full advantage when Mother Nature turns up the heat. As soon as Liam returned from family duties in London I bundled him onto a bus for the short hop to Thorpe St Andrew, a pretty riverside spot a mile or three outside town. With Roman scraps, a Scandinavian place-name and a mention in the Domesday Book, the hamlet has ancient roots. Sadly, little survives to this day. Even the church is Victorian Gothic Revival though some ruins of its medieval predecessor, destroyed by fire, still stand.
Thorpe St Andrew is where people go to feed swans and muck about in boats on a sunny day. It’s also where people like me watch people feeding swans and mucking about in boats on a sunny day – from the comfort of a riverside watering hole. So that’s what we did.
Walkers, birders and water sports devotees can catch the little ferry from Thorpe Green to the Whitlingham Country Park, gateway to the Norfolk Broads. There’s no bar there so we gave it a wide berth. Next time, we’ll charge up the hip flask first.
I get regular requests from people asking to guest post here at Pansy HQ. Generally, I politely refuse because the subject matter just doesn’t work for me – too commercial/ too dull/ too libellous/ too weird/ totally irrevelant (delete accordingly). Occasionally, though, something falls on the mat that rings my bell. This is such a post. Why? Because it’s from someone who’s written a fascinating memoir about Turkey and the post is about the agony of learning Turkish. I failed pathetically to grasp even the barebones of the language. Liam fared much better. So, ladies and gents, please give it up for talented bilingual Yankee author, Ann Marie Mershon.
Who would have thought I’d live in Turkey? It evoked an image of mustachioed Bedouins galumphing out of the desert on camels—and I could barely find it on a map.
No, thank you.
An American teacher, I yearned for adventure, an escape from a world that was imploding on me. A painful divorce had left me on the perimeter of social gatherings, keenly aware of my image as a divorcee. Not really a pariah, I felt like one.
This excerpt comes from the preface of You must only to love them, lessons learned in Turkey, which recounts my trials and joys adapting to life in Istanbul. Smarting from a recent divorce, I had decided to establish a new life overseas, intending to find a teaching job in Paris or Salzburg. Through a number of possibly serendipitous events, I landed in Istanbul instead (with my little dog). So began my love affair with Turkey and the Turks.
Actually, it wasn’t a love affair right off, as I battled loneliness and the frustrations of language as I navigated my new world. It was probably to my disadvantage that I lived on the remote and very English-speaking campus of Koç Lisesi (20 miles east of Central Istanbul), but the school kindly offered free Turkish lessons for foreign hires and there were a number of Turkish administrators living on campus. They also offered service busses to get us into the city on the weekends. which was a godsend.
I’d prepared for my move by purchasing and diligently studying a book called Teach Yourself Turkish. Each new lesson brought more questions than insights, but I forged on, thinking I’d learned the basics before moving to Istanbul. At least I knew tuvalet (toilet), bira (beer), and şarap (wine). What more could one need? Well, anlamadım came in handy (I don’t understand).
I thought I’d learned numbers, but once I tried to buy something in Istanbul I realized that Turks talked REALLY fast. Gosh, what was that word that meant ‘slowly’? My first forays from campus into the Turkish world were riddled with anlamadims and yavaşes. I guess that’s typical.
Turkish class on Wednesdays after school was helpful, but I needed more conversation and less grammar. My GOODNESS, the grammar was overwhelming. I wished that our charming teacher had first explained the basics of Turkish. Here’s what I think they are:
It took me years to learn more than the rudiments of Turkish, and I’ve come to an amazing realization. The best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in it. When I finally lived off-campus in a sweet apartment up the hill in Arnavutköy, I began to truly learn Turkish. I had no choice if I wanted to survive, as few people in my little community spoke English. I chatted with the checkout person at DIA, I sat talking with the electrician as he fixed my hair dryer, and I met a boat captain who often invited me for a cup of tea on his back deck. It was a delight. The Turks helped me learn their language, just as they help us whenever we’re in need. It’s just who they are.
You must only to love them is available through Amazon.
Ann Marie Mershon is a Minnesota writer who taught high school students in Istanbul between 2005 and 2011. She kept a weekly blog while she lived there. She also published a guidebook with Edda Weissenbacher, Istanbul’s Bazaar Quarter, Backstreet Walking Tours. She now lives on a lake near the Canadian border with her husband and their two dogs. Visit Ann Marie’s website at annmariemershon.com.
Fancy a free print copy of You must only to love them? Enter the Goodreads giveaway here (May 1-May 16 – US residents only). Or for a free e-book, enter here (May 10-17).
Perking the Pansies 