Writers' circle.

Writers in a circle

Fish seemed a good idea until I started to fillet 12 sea bass.

Bob and Fatoş dig in, but my Mother is overwhelmed by the many dishes. 

Last October I wrote about about starting a new Writing group in Bodrum and I'm happy to report that we met very two weeks from then on, either in the Maya Hotel or Gambilya Restaurant, to exercise our writing muscles until June arrived and summer activities, travels abroad or visiting friends and relations made us all too busy to continue.  But Sunday marked the Autumn Equinox which brings summer to an end and makes us all think about the coming winter months.   For those in Northern climes, this may be a bit depressing but for us in Southern Turkey its great. July and August have been too hot to do much except recline in the shade, so Autumn heralds a return to activity; both physical and mental.  We celebrated the end of summer with a few glasses of wine and ginger fizz and a pot luck lunch under the pine trees on our terrace.  Just to give credence to our name, Martha got us all sitting in a circle and had us note down our thoughts on "peace"; September 21st being the UN's International Day of Peace.  As our minds ticked over and pens scratched, the only sound was the breeze among the trees.  Peace epitomised!
At the other end of the country peace is long gone. On UN Day of Peace, I could only think of the desperate Syrians, fleeing for their lives across the Turkish border to escape IS.  A peaceful solution will be a long time coming and Turkey will struggle with a refugee crisis that has seen 140,000 cross the border this week alone. Peace doesn't stand a chance.