Monday 7th September 2020

The nurse in the hospital told me to change Nina’s bandage every other day and that we should come back to hospital on Monday for the first dressing change. Also we had the solar guys come on the boat at 10.30 to start the work on our solar system. Tim took Nina and me in the dinghy to the beach by the taxi stand. The taxi driver took us to the hospital, but to the main entrance instead of to Emergency.  After a bit of explaining to 2 different people what we came for a Nurse asked me for Nina’s passport and I had to pay 16TL for the dressing change (around $3.50).  

The nurse then guided us down another level to a room with another nurse doing bandages. She was quite rough taking Nina’s bandage off gesticulating and obviously being not very pleased with how the bandage was done in the first place. She got a syringe out with iodine in it and Nina out no, no – she thought the Nurse was going to inject her with it, but she just used it to drizzle on the wound. She made a much easier bandage and we where off again to find another taxi with a brand new bandage – back to the dinghy beach. We packed the foot in a plastic bag and ferried Nina back.

Luca wanted to go to shore to do some shopping and go to McDonalds and go to the gaming place again, so we agreed I would take him, since he has been asking for days to go to Marmaris again. I took him to the gaming place and went to the stationary shop again to get some more crafts stuff for Nina while she has to be stationary and went to search for a wool / thread shop. Nina wanted to do friendship bracelets and we didn’t find one on our last excursion. After a bit of back and forth I found one and bought some macramé for her, some cotton to crochet and knit and some thread and beads to make friendship bracelets. By then the hour was up, so I went back to get Luca and he didn’t want to go shopping after all anymore. We went straight to McDonalds (gringe – I managed to keep them away from it for 13 and 10 years, I guess that’s a pretty good track record). Luca ordered 3 meals, one for him, one for Nina and one for Tim and we went back to the dinghy landing place and called Tim to pick us up.  

The solar guys where almost finished for the day and Nina unpacked all her treats very happily. A bit later Luca realised that he had forgotten his phone in the gaming parlor on the desk. Tim took him back in, but it was gone…The next day the Solar guys came again to finish some work. Tim went to top up data in town with Luca and got me a Sim card for my phone as well. Firstly because the kids seem to chew the data away on youtube videos they watch secretly, so we have a data backup for when we actually need internet and also the emergency with Nina showed us that its really better if we can get hold of each other somehow.

After sorting our groceries and bilges it was clear we are getting low on so many things and always just stocking up in little markets. So I took a taxi to a big Migros and managed to stock up some things. It was the most relaxed grocery shop I had in the past months. That used to be my job back at home and I sure as hell preferred to do it on my own while the kids where at school and Tim at work. I could actually look at all the different isles properly and slowly, inspect interesting items, figure out prices etc. I bought a small basket full, since I was on my own and we had to transfer things from the taxi to the beach, from the beach to the dinghy and from the dinghy to the boat. But it felt good to have all the basics back on board and a good selection of fresh fruit and vegetables.

We BBQed some chicken and I made a salad and we had that with fresh bread on deck.  The next day was one of those days where I would prefer to be at home. Nina was starting to get frustrated with her inability to swim and move. We had just invested 4,500 NZD in getting the solar system repaired just to realise that the 2 brand new batteries we purchased 2 months ago are stuffed due to the system not working properly and that we are now no better off and need to either purchase 3 brand new batteries again or one really expensive Lithium battery. Tim got really frustrated and me too, so it ended up in an argument and another huge bill to fix the mess that we don’t have a budget for. Everyone was grumpy and the mood was stink for a few days – The end.