We're most of the way through August now! To be honest, August feels like a month just to be 'got through', mainly due to the temperature/humidity.. Here's a quick snapshot of some of the things we've been doing the last few weeks:
- L has been getting his head round causative verbs, conditional forms, some relative clauses, must/should/need/can, various other bits of Turkish grammar and more vocab.
- Now that J is walking, he and I are becoming regulars at the local playground. Most days we head off there at 8am-ish, just as L's leaving for school.
- I miserably failed to explain to my language helper the set up of the United Kingdom and how England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are different countries, but they are all part of the UK, which is also a country, but how Welsh and Scottish people will get very offended if you suggest that they are English, even though they carry UK passports and the capital of the UK is London, which is in England. Slightly inconveniently, the most commonly used word here for British is İngiliz, which sounds suspiciously like 'English'. I usually try and write a page of Turkish each week for my language helper to correct, so this week I think I'll be writing about the UK.
- We've been making some new friends and meeting up with others... with a mixture of English and Turkish spoken. (But probably a bit more English than Turkish to be honest.)
- We had our residence permit (ikamet) appointments this week, which ending up taking over most of the day before and the day after as well due to various tasks that were necessary.
- We went out one Saturday morning to Belgrad Forest, which is a little outside Istanbul. Riding the metro to the end of the line, taking a bus and then walking a little gets you to the forest entrance, but as we discovered, it is then quite a way to get to the forest paths etc.
- I've been celebrating the imminent return of the Great British Bake Off (even though I will be unable to watch it on iPlayer) by making English muffins, cinnamon rolls and doughnuts.
