Frozen Cypriots meeting – 24 May 2016
By Kathy Martin…
You may well have seen my blog about the first gathering, on 19th May 2016, of members and friends from the Frozen Cypriots group. The link is at the end of this blog.
First, a huge apology to Eren Erdoğan, after I issued my last blog I received this message
“Hi Kathy I hope it’s all well with you. Loved reading your blog.
Just a little correction and information for you to know,
I (Eren Erdoğan) started Frozen Cypriots
and wrote the Frozen Cypriots statement,
not as you indicated Mete Teoman or Salahi Akinci”
Therefore, I am EXTREMELY HAPPY to give credit
where credit is DEFINITELY DUE!
The statement is “We will not tolerate any political attachments, posts or sayings in any form, it will be deleted. This group is open to anyone friendly. It’s suited to people who live away from Cyprus and have nostalgic attachments to Cyprus. Feel free to chat and upload your pictures. English is the main language, Turkish and Greek are welcomed, as long as they get translated to English”.
Eren also asked me to say
“Frozen Cypriots will have gathering in late September, I believe we will have quite a few coming in from overseas, I am trying to organize Photo Exhibitions with Richard Chamberlain and some others, small food festival and our famous walk from Elefteria Square to Kyrenia gate. Hopefully we can organize it without a hitch.”
24 May 2016 once again I arrived early, only to find Alesta’s restaurant had a problem with their internet – engineer came rapidly and sorted the problem.
Margaret Lonergan, Sheila and Graham Heald arrived a short while later, closely followed by Aynur and Mike Rigby. We were just getting to know each other, when my great friends Gill and Ivor Moon showed up. Ali Guvenay (owner of Alesta’s restaurant) took excellent care of our orders and with Le Yen’s (his delightful waitress) assistance our food and drink needs were met. Shortly after we had started on our meze, Aydın and Figen Taşeloğlu, with their delightful daughter Bilge Ebru, came and joined us. Aydın and Aynur are brother and sister.
There is a slightly amusing story in that I have known Aydın for a long time, seeing him regularly at the Doğankoy Coffee Shop. When I met Aynur Rigby at the coffee shop on Tuesday 17th May, Aydın came to the coffee shop and Aynur on spotting him said to me “Oh! There’s my brother, allow me to introduce you”. At which point Aydın and I exclaimed “We know each and have done so for some time”! However, neither of us had ever considered mentioning Aynur – me as a Facebook Frozen Cypriots’s friend and Aydın as his sister!
Various group photos were taken as shown.
Chris Elliott, from Cyprusscene had arrived to write an article on Alesta’s 15 year anniversary, so he joined us for a short while.
I told the group about my mistake in my first blog and the fact that Eren had corrected me and about the Frozen Cypriots group meeting in September, but got the impression that most would rather meet in Girne again. Also a specific date is required in September, for visitors from abroad to be able to arrange holidays at work, etc.
As a final note I would like to thank those members who were able to attend and appreciate the kind words from them all. Aynur and I enjoyed setting these meetings up and hope to repeat them in the future. Several apologies were received, by both of us.
This is the link to the first meeting of the Facebook Frozen Cypriots group on Thursday 19th May, which we held at Alesta’s restaurant in Girne/Kyrenia, at lunch time.
