I know some of the punctuation is wrong. It sometimes goes into overwrite on me, and it is easier to leave a mistake that to rewrite the whole thing.

Tuesday dawned, fairly bright, fairly warm. We rushed to the bathroom to make sure we got the first of the hot water. But maybe it came later in Turkey. It sure wasn't there at seven in the morning. Cold wash - not brave enough for a shower. How I envied the people with the foresight to bring little heating elements or kettles with them. How I missed my morning coffee in bed. How I missed hot water to wash in. Too early for gin.

We decided to try the breakfast. It would be all right. Breakfast is meant to be cold. We walked down the steps and found a table laid out for self-service. We picked up cups and got tea, Turkish tea, which turned out to be fairly strong but not at all bad. Pat put milk in hers but my book said to avoid dairy products which probably had not been refrigerated, so I drank mine black with lots of sugar in it. Due to our dehydration we were very thirsty and managed five or six cups in quick succession each morning. I think the boy-waiters found us a bit unusual in our drinking habits. We didn't appear to drink anything at night, and we couldn't stop drinking in the morning. The choice for breakfast consisted of that same wholesome heavy bread, with little pots of butter (I avoided it) jam or honey and a cheese which looked like rather disgusting lard, cut in small squares. I didn't take any but Pat tried it and I took a crumb off her plate. The other item on the menu for breakfast was olives green rather scrawny looking olives - but rather tasty too. I had about eight each morning. As the week progressed and our breakfast fare was unvaried, I came to like goats’ cheese.

Having completed our breakfast, we made our beds and started out on our first adventure, to explore the little town, Cesme. We didn’t have a map or anything but as we were on the top of the hill and the sea was on the bottom, we couldn’t go wrong by going down hill in as straight a line as we could. We crossed the main road which had very little traffic on it  and then went down a steeply inclined field to a road being made up to accommodate two more hotels which under construction.. We were delighted to see a nanny goat heavy with milk, with her kid sticking quite close by, but trying the lower leaves of the trees as an alternative food source. We got a photo of them, plus a rather mangey flee-ridden donkey that lived in the field too. The field, like all the other ground around was very dry - the soil hard and cracked like concrete that's had something hard dropped on it. A few bits of green grass and weeds grew up through the cracks but lots of lovely wild flowers and poppies of a deep bluey-red.

Having come to the end of the field, we progressed up (wrong direction but only for a few feet) a narrow road with houses on both sides made of thick-walled brick/plaster/adobe/whatever. The building material looked hundreds of years old, and was crumbling in many places. The houses came up to the road - no pavements or garden in front. The road was wide enough for one car only in most places but traffic was not a big problem at any time in Cesme. We turned right again, slightly down hill, and were soon outside a primary school during recess time. The children aged about six to nine were all dreessed in black smocks with white collars. The boys too. Pat thought they looked too cute for words. I thought they looked like an anachronism. My impression of Turkish men had been one of overwhelming masculinity and these little Turks with the back-buttoning smocks looked to me like some Victorian English missionary’s idea of what little boys should wear. But they certainly were not feeling self conscious or uncomfortable in being appraised by strangers They all said, "hello" and giggled. We learned later that their English teachers encouraged them to talk to tourists to try and improve their English but few of the children could manage more than “Hello” and “What is your name?” and “How are you?” And when we replied, they were put in such confusion that they just giggled and rushed off.

Having passed the school, and faced with another junction, we walked slightly to the left again and still down hill past a few food and tourist shops. We looked in the windows but weren't tempted inside.

Having done that block; we had to cross a road which was festooned with ribbons and which was intended to be a pedestrian-only street - but as Caroline told us, the Turkish people had their own ideas about that. About five shops along we came to a carpet shop. I think it was the first one we had come to and,as I had a vague idea of buying a carpet, we stopped outside as I admired a particularly beautiful one hanging in the doorway. "Hello," said the shopkeeper. "How are you today? Are you English?"

“Yes,” we admitted and we praised his excellent English.

"Are you interested in carpets?" he asked? "Well, sort of," I admitted.

"How much is this one?" indicating the one that I'd so much admired.

“Ah,” he said, "Come into my shop and have a cup of tea and I will tell you all about carpets.”

" No," said Pat, “weve really got to get on. We have just arrived and we want to see everything before we buy. We will be back later.”
"Come on Pat.," I coaxed. There was something that drew me to this man, not his carpets but to him. I really wanted to keep talking to him. So Pat gracefully gave in and followed me into the shop. It. was dark and rather dingy in the shop, carpets on all the walls and piled in stacks. Nothing else for sale but carpets. All sizes, all shapes, all colours.

"Do you know anything about carpets?" he asked me.

"No, not a thing," I admitted.

"Well, this carpet you have chosen is a very good quality carpet. It. is silk, and has many thousands of knots in each centimeter.”

"How much?" I insisted. He paused and thought and did some fiddling on his calculator- £250 English pounds he came up with. My face fell. I would not be getting that carpet.

“Too much money for me,” I admitted.

"You have expensive taste." he said, grinning.

"What do you have that is cheaper?"

"Well," he said, "There, those kilims are our cheapest product,” pointing to a pile of woven thin rugs, but the lack of enthusiasm in his voice when talking about them left us in no doubt as to what he felt of their real worth. My guide book says kilims are carpets or rugs, handmade from wool using a technique that virtually hides the knots so that they lie perfectly flat.

"Then there are good quality carpets in smaller sizes," he said, pointing to a pile of carpets which measured about 18 inches by 3 feet. They were pretty too, but not nearly as pretty as my first choice.

“What do they cost?" I asked.

"Oh, much cheaper" he said, about a third of the cost of the large carpet I'd picked before. Well, we decided that a carpet was not something we were not going to rush into buying so we said we'd look around and come back later.

"Do come back," he said. "Come back to see me and have some tea with me, and just come to visit with me. You don't have to buy a carpet. I just like talking to you."

“Where did you learn your English?" Pat asked.

“I spent two years in .the States," he said, "in Texas, Alabama, California and Denver studying to be an air traffic controller when I was in the Turkish Air Force. I have been retired for many years now but my retirement pension is only £100 per month, and it is not enough to live on, so I sell carpets."

"Well, we must go now," we said, "but we'll come to see you later,"

"Yes, please do,” and I knew that I would go back no matter what Pat wanted to do. I felt drawn to this man and fascinated by him.

As we walked down the street, I turned back, and saw that he was standing outside his shop watching our progress, and he waved.