A Village Called Sirince, A Bar Called Horizons

Saturday, 21 August 2010. The coach leaves St John's Basilica and takes us to a small village called Sirince, pronounced Seh-RIN-jay.

We visit the Artemis Restaurant where we are given a glass of wine and a pancake stuffed with spinach. Apart from being just a little dry, the pancake was lovely. The wine was produced in the village which has been producing wine for quite a while.

Sirince is one of those villages that exchanged populations with Greece after the First World War.

The Greeks who lived here went to a village in Greece and that village's Turks came back to Turkey to live here.

There's some debate as to whether it was the Orthodox Christian Greeks or the returning Turks who instigated the wine making but the Turks either started or continued it and we sampled it and honestly couldn't tell whether it was Greek or Turkish in flavour... The restaurant cat - or it may have been a stray - purred as it brushed past me under the table and clawed the leg of the woman sitting opposite...

Sirince is one of those places where you wonder how they all make a living if not for tourists. I suspect many of the inhabitants work in Selcuk but the main street is a row of shops or stalls selling clothes, baskets and all sorts of stuff that I never ever buy on holiday... Actually if all tourists are like me, then it's to be hoped the majority of the population have a job in Selcuk!

Even the local road train only had one carriage. We had a couple of old ladies sitting opposite us on the coach and they reminded us a lot of Sadie and Joan who we met on an Island Star cruise. They were skilled experts at haggling to the point of making loud disapproving sucking noises if anyone else was in danger of paying too much! We waited in the hot sun for the coach to come back to pick us up. The locals were mainly sitting in the shade or having a siesta and probably thought us all mad...

A row of catering size tins, once containing cooking oil held a row of sunflowers.

That night in the Horizons bar we again sat to enjoy the music of Tomas and Maris - 2 Intense. At the end of one set Tomas brought the guitar off stage and gave it to me. The nylon-strung classical guitar felt nothing like my Fender Stratocaster, but I ran through the opening riff to Johnny B Goode and then dropped into Concrete and Clay whilst becoming aware that tables around us had gone quiet to listen.

"Come up and do one at the end of the next set," said Tomas. The end of the set came really quickly and as I was called up on stage, Fran realised our camera was still in the cabin and dashed off to get it! Talk about support - as I take the stage she runs out of the room!!! Once on stage I'm realising another challenge. Tomas did not use a strap or a guitar pick. My fingernails are not long enough so I had to strum and pluck with my finger ends. Also his legs are longer than mine. So whilst sitting on the stool Tomas's thigh is horizontal and supporting the guitar whereas mine is sloping down and the guitar wants to slide away from me!

So I play Concrete and Clay and am rewarded with a large burst of applause from the room. I thank Tomas and Maris - who has been keeping time, playing an egg-sized rhythm shaker throughout without even knowing the song! During the break between sets someone comes up to say how much they enjoyed my song and that I should go on again... Ooh aye! Feed the ego!!!

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