Again it has been rather quiet hereabouts, but we did have a wedding. The wedding invitation came in the form of a wonderfully elaborate card in pink and silver wrapped around a drinking glass. Yes, I kid you not; we the invitees received a little present from the inviters. We stowed the glass with the other two hundred and then tried to solve who was getting married, to whom and when. It turned out to be Memet-Taxi's sister - the thin one. But . . . when to go?

You probably know that wedding ceremonies in Turkey span about three days, and we have not yet solved the problem of when we are supposed to attend. We have got it wrong every time in the past and I am particularly upset by that because I have never yet had an alcoholic drink at a Turkish wedding. We might be there on the Friday and be required to sit drinking tea for hours; then to rub salt into the wound we lie in bed on the Saturday and hear the whooping of the lads and women as the whole village celebrates in traditional style.

By the way some years back there was a massive explosion in the middle of the night. We enquired the next day as to the source and were told that it was at the wedding party. Our informant opined with a very straight face that firing off firearms at a wedding was OK (“Normal”) but that a “bomba” was not really on (“Cok Ayip”).

So this time we tried the second night. Oh dear . . . Maybe two hundred ladies sitting around in a large square, bloody kids tear-arsing round everywhere and the guys milling around on the outskirts. I did a quick sortie around the lads looking for the bottles, but discovered nothing.

Now I’m the first to admit that I have always been a complete Wally on the dance floor; in any country, any craze and at any time. I thought I had done quite well in the first few months of “the twist” back in the early 60s,  but five years later my first wife admitted that she had only dated me because she had felt sorry for me

Back to the present . . . they insisted that we danced.

She’s quite a good dancer so that took some attention away from the idiot flailing around swatting innocent kids left right and centre. It seemed as though I was out there for an hour but it was probably half of that. Then the loony-band stopped for a smoke and I was excused. The nearest shop was only a hundred metres away so I fled there for sustenance. I’m glad to say that I found several kindred spirits there including Nearly-Normal Nuri and his brother Normal Nuri, and I was not at all reluctant to buy the jar providing that I took the first chug.

When I returned to the gig they were back to the dancing, however we were not pressured to re-join; it could be that they had seen enough of my demonstration and had felt enough pain.

We did the rounds for a while, pidgin-thanking everyone we thought we knew and slowly edged towards the gate.

Oh, of course we did the present thing. Our previous gifts of electric-toasters and cutlery had always been greeted with a sort of blank incomprehension. By now we had learned to pin some cash onto the bride’s frock. How much? Heck, we still don’t know, and we may well be considered either stupid rich tourists or extremely mean. We simply don’t know.
 
As a matter of fact on that night I’m not sure whose frock I pinned the money on.

Hey, whatever; we wish the young couple a long, loving and happy marriage, health and wealth, all the kids they want and a blessed peaceful life.