Inbetween all of these pictures I will go back to something I mentioned earlier of an opportunity that was beyond any expectation, came from nowhere, and is something that I could see making Mum more than smile. In fact, if she was alive today I am positive that you all would never stop hearing about it.
After four weeks of waiting, Fikret, the son of the owner of the site I was encamped at came to me. At this stage we had exchanged hellos in passing but seldom much more. In fact I had spent more time making his Father coffee in the mornings in return for his delivery of fresh walnuts from the trees. He was also unaware of the reason why I was there other than this was the man who arrived saying he maybe here for a week and was still here...After saying his hello, he approached me and said "I think Goreme is very special to you, that is why you are still here no?" I smiled, his conversation moving to "I want to show you something, maybe it is good for you".
Somewhat bemused I duly accepted the offer of being shown and followed him across the road and up a small winding path between and behind some fairy chimneys. What I was to be shown is what you see below in the pictures. Fikret was to offer me the opportunity to take temporary possession for the next 5 years of three cave rooms of his families very own fairy chimney that they have not lived in for the past 10 years. The cost to me being simply the cost of renovations. I hope that in time this will be somewhere that can be of use to any of you that wish to visit Goreme and it's valleys, and somewhere that when people walk past that path over the coming years and as they peer through the chimneys they will catch a glimpse of a garden of sunshine from the sunflowers that will be planted in the land attached to it.
I still to this day do not fully understand why Fikret chose to make me the offer. In honesty I am not sure it matters. I am simply grateful.
Some of you also know that Mums dog Tara died on the morning of her funeral in the passenger seat of her car as the vet checked Tara over. Tara had been wavering between being her normal rather vocal self (I could probably revisit a name I had for her, if you ever met her you know what I mean) and being more lethargic than i'd ever known. When Jan came to visit Mum in hospital and stayed overnight at the flat whilst I was there I remember her texting me to say that I had a very unwell dog, only to have Tara return to her somewhat normal energy full self the following morning completely baffling us both.
That morning of the funeral as Tara died, I found myself in one of those situations where you can do nothing but explain to the vet and his assistant the truth of the day ahead. There was no other decision to be made in my mind than to have Tara cremated and her ashes returned to me. So it hasn't only been Mums ashes that I have brought here to Turkey, since it appeared that they refused to be seperated, Tara has been with her all the way through her journey.
Perhaps that may go some way to explaining the amount of dogs that turn up unannounced and follow me wherever I go. This one below in Goreme being the perfect example, or maybe I just smell funny....
This journey all stemed from the day we discovered the truth from the Doctors and I handed Mum a notebook in her hopsital bed and asked her to write in it all of the things she would like to do. Promising that between us we would make them happen. She wrote of her wish to return to Turkey. Could we have made this journey between the six week periods of treatment? Most certainly without question. My greatest fear was never the time or the coulds, ifs or buts, it was being conscious of the fact that there was a very real chance that Mum could die whilst we travelled. But that fear was far surpassed by the happiness that I knew it would bring her. Could we have made the journey more than once? Again, without question. The distance I have now travelled to reach Goreme is some 16000km, or to place that into perspective, four round trips from England to Armutulan should you go the directest of routes. I know some thought I was crazy to do this in an old volkswagen bus, but Mum never taught us praticality, she taught us style and fun. The fact that the bus is stewed plums and custard in colour is purely coincidental, in the same way that Eric Bristow was the first person I walked into whilst hunting for my cabin on the ferry from Portsmouth.....
All I can say is a little faith and a little belief can take you a very long way, and lead you to find Christmas trees in the most unexpected of places...
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