Bogaz Easter Market
By Margaret Sheard….
Saturday 4th April dawned bright and sunny and we set off to travel to Bogaz for the Easter Market which was held at the Karsel Restaurant in the harbour area, a lovely venue.
We had arranged to meet our friends Wendy Smith and Peter Toms (The Lady and Lad in Red) as they were there promoting the need for blood donors in support of The British Residents’ Society representative and when we arrived they were dressed in their red attire, together with their 4 dogs wearing red feather boa’s and indeed they attracted a lot of attention from the children and their parents who all wanted to take photos of the canine quartet.
We immediately saw 2 giant “chickens” and Pooh Bear running 
around with their baskets of eggs, namely Edward Betts, Tony Cross and Mick Bissett and also one of the Iskele Fire Engines with some of the crew who had come along to add to the atmosphere of the market. There were many stalls, selling plants, bric a brac and clothing etc.
The Easter Market and the Christmas Market are special events but in fact Janet McGhee runs a market at Bogaz Harbour every Saturday with the aim of raising funds for neutering of the harbour 
cats. This is yet another instance of caring people who want to help with the plight of the unwanted animals of North Cyprus.
Although far from home we saw a few familiar faces at the event, some we hadn’t had contact with in a long time so it was nice to be able to renew acquaintances in this way.
The market was very busy with people coming and going all the time and we had the Easter Bonnet competition and raffle to look forward to and in the meantime the children were busy hunting for Easter eggs to win the “most collected” competition.
There was a presentation made to Valerie and Edward Betts, Tony and Angie Cross and Mick and Brenda Bissett of a framed certificate which was a “Golden Heart Award in recognition of their dedication to all of those in need with either 2 legs or 4”.
The winner of the “guess the weight of the cake” competition was Phil 
Trusty and he was presented with the cake.
Later in the morning some of the ladies paraded with their Easter Bonnets which must have taken hours to produce and they all looked stunning but there had to be a winner and this was Angie Cross.
There then followed the raffle with some lovely prizes and I was a lucky winner with two numbers drawn.
I noticed Janet checking on the numbers of eggs collected and it seems the winner of this competition was a young man we believe was called Henry. Well done.
I later sat and talked with Edward Betts and Tony Cross (still dressed in their chicken outfits) and they told me they had been doing this for the past 5 years, Easter as chickens and at Christmas as Father Christmas and his elves. They were very keen to sing the praises of Janet who religiously works so hard every Saturday with the market for the harbour cats.
When all was done we sat in the warming sun and had a snack and a chat by the harbour wall overlooking the bobbing fishing boats before departing from Bogaz after a lovely morning and a very successful market which was well attended.
There are more pictures at the event in the following slideshow.
