Month: May 2025

I came to Istanbul this time with a long list of ‘must see’ attractions in the city but apart from at the week-end when the city was overrun with a huge number of visitors and tourists, the timing of my dental appointments has made it practically impossible to tick any of them off the list. I was supposed to go on a Bosphorus evening cruise with food, drinks and entertainment on Saturday but this didn’t go as planned, fortunately for me I have to say.

I’d booked but not paid in advance and the arrangement was that I was supposed to have been transported from and back to my hotel but in the event was asked to walk a good ten minutes to a pick-up point outside a seedy hotel to the north. This made me rather annoyed and as it was a cold, windy evening and no taxi had arrived at the allotted time I just decided to call it an evening and headed back to my hotel. So too bad for them.

Today was (is at the time of writing) my last day in Istanbul and as for all I know this might be the last time I’ll ever get the chance to visit I decided that I’d head back down to Karakoy for lunch and check out the situation at the Galata Tower on the way. If there were no crowds or an enormous queue, like yesterday, I thought I might then do the climb up (figuratively speaking). And there was neither, so I did.

The price for doing so, 30€, came as a bit of a shock but I thought if you’re in Istanbul you’ve got to do it, which I guess is what the authorities also thought when they arrived at that figure. But anyway, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience so I swiped my card yet again and off I went clutching my no-refunds, use only once on the day of issue ticket. Somewhat unsurprisingly I found that the entrance is via a flight of fairly steep stone steps, so too bad if you have limited mobility and can’t scale them.

At the top of them is an entrance hall that’s all very swish and modern – not the way you’d expect a mediaeval tower to be at all. And that’s the way the whole tower is – it’s been thoroughly modernised throughout as a 21st century tourist attraction. There are a few museum pieces and artifacts on various floors as you make your way down – on foot on some very narrow and precarious staircases some of which have no handrails – but these don’t seem to be of much interest to most people although they are very well presented.

The big attraction, of course, is, or are, the views of Istanbul and the Bosphorus from the top of the tower, so having said that I’ll let the pictures tell the story.

After climbing the tower I made my way into Karakoy from a different direction to last time and couldn’t find the same little restaurant where I’d enjoyed an excellent burger and draught beer. So I tried another but somewhat disappointingly it wasn’t half as good. But that’s life isn’t it. I’ll take it easy for the rest of the afternoon – may pop out to buy some Turkish Delight to take back with me – and then have a last Chinese take-away this evening if I can find the room for it.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Istanbul yet again and was relieved this time to have some good weather despite it being a bit windy. And I’ll be coming back a more educated man because I’ve found out that the ‘g’ in Beyoglu* is silent, and it’s pronounced Bayolu, and Karaköy is pronounced Karakee. So how’s that then! What a brilliant Turkish scholar I turned out to be 😉

* The g is supposed to have a little accent over it but WordPress can’t cope with it

I took the Taksim to Kabatas funicular to get to what should be my final dental appointment this afternoon. It’s a brilliant way to do it as it saves a massive amount of walking all the way down the hill and back up again. But even so, Istanbul is not a city that’s friendly towards people with limited mobility because even though the funicular can get you down and back again, although there are escalators at each end, these only go upwards and you still have to descend a lot of steep steps down at both ends under your own steam.

I photo-documented the whole journey today as the shots I took previously were so poor and today’s pics give a good impression of what the trip of only around two or three minutes involves. First some shots of the Metro station at the Taksim Square end.

See what I mean about the steps down into the terminus. People coming up have the benefit of an escalator but those going down don’t.

At the bottom there are signs in Turkish and English to direct you to the trains and as everywhere in Istanbul, it seems, at the very bottom there’s a small fast food buffet. Who buys and eats all this food I do not know.

Then you come to a row of entrance turnstiles that only appear to accept credit, debit or previously purchased (by credit or debit card) travel cards. Istanbul seems to be run on credit and debit cards and even small street vendors accept them because everyone has a mobile phone.

Travellers beware. When I swiped my card yesterday the screen turned green with Turkish writing that I did not understand. The turnstile did not move, so I swiped it again with the same result and yet again at another entrance. It was only when I watched other travellers that I realised that you have to push against the turnstile to pass through, so I probably paid the fare several times over learning this simple lesson.

Here are a couple of shots of the empty platform while we waited for the train to arrive and of it emerging upwards out of the tunnel.

The tunnel, the platform and the train all slope downwards (or upwards at the Kabatas end). The sides of the entrances are vertical, of course, and the train floors horizontal with steps in. The entrances have double doors, on the platform and the train carriages, and travellers enter on one side and exit on the other to permit free and easy movement at busy times.

The Kabatas end is smaller in size than the Taksim terminal and more modern but the procedures are similar. You exit onto the platform and ascend by escalator to the outside world via an entrance/exit hall which naturally has a ubiquitous fast food buffet.

They are building a super new ferry transfer terminal at Kabatas which now appears to be almost finished. There’s a large model of it in the entrance/exit foyer.

And to finish off with, some shots of the new terminal itself.

Istanbul is a fast-moving city and there’s a massive amount of rebuilding and development work going on. But anyone thinking of visiting need not be deterred as the amount of disruption to the tourist trade is minimal. You just need to think of it as being a part of the innate character of the city 😀

But this young lady is a bloody good dentist! She understands that for certain procedures you can’t spare the patient. Like when you’re fitting something – like an implant crown – that has to be snug, the patient has to be able tell the dentist where it’s uncomfortable and not fitting right. Where it’s cutting into the gum, for example. And to be able to do that, no pain killer can be administered during the procedures leading up to the final fitting.

So she didn’t and it hurt like hell. Again! But my goodness, I think she did a lovely job and it was worth it. She only gave me a couple of small pain killer injections once she’d finished and although it took a little while, the pain eventually subsided. She asked me to sit quietly for 10 minutes or so and then I went back in for her to finish her work off to her own satisfaction. Like trimming away excess cement around the gum level and making sure everything was neat and tidy and she even gave me a free descale.

And that was it. My treatment had come to an end and she suggested that I might like to return at some time in the future to fill a gap at back upper left with a final implant. I may do so, but I can’t before March next year due to my future travel plans, and anyway, it’s been there since a hack English dentist removed a tooth that he mucked up 57 years ago. So you could say that I’ve got used to it, but we’ll see 😉

Last Sunday dawned warm and sunny so I decided it was time for a decent walk. I’ve not been doing as much walking this time in Istanbul because I’ve been getting a bit of discomfort from my right knee, the one I had keyhole surgery on about 14 or 15 years ago before coming to France.

I think I damaged it again slightly when I pulled my old X-Air out of the barn over soft ground before flying it up to its new owner on 5th March and I’ve been trying to get it to heal again as the consultant told me at the time that the surgery would probably only be good for about 15 years, after which, who knows. I don’t want to get involved in knee replacement and all that stuff and in any case, I’m booked to go off to Australia in the Autumn so haven’t the time.

My hotel, Hotel Mara, is very well placed just off the main tourist street, Istiklal Avenue, along which the trams run from Taksim Square to Tunel.

So I decided to walk down and then turn left with the idea of finding my way down to the Galata Tower and thence to the ferry terminal at Karakoy. This being a week-end there were large numbers of tourists, many of them locals, doing the same as me and as usual, the police were out in force. They seem to make protecting locations with Christian connections a priority and as this was a Sunday, not only was there a police presence outside a large Christian church on Istiklal Avenue there was also an armoured car.

I carried on walking down to the end of Istiklal Avenue but this time, instead of heading straight down towards the Galata Tower, I branched off to the right with the idea of exploring the streets behind it and hopefully making my way up to the tower from its rear.

The trams don’t come down this far but this is where the line ends, outside the Metro station.

I then began to head steadily downwards making my way towards the harbour, and hoping to find the Galata Tower along the way.

Eventually, looking to my left, there it was.

There was quite a crowd milling around in the area at the base of the tower and I can only wonder how big it would be at the height of the tourist season. The ticket office to climb the tower was one of the old Taksim trams and as the cost of entry was only 30 TL I considered going myself. However, the length of the queue and the speed of its progress soon made me decide otherwise.

Instead I opted to continue my walk down the steep, winding streets to find the ferry terminal at Karakoy.

Below the tower I came across this very photogenic flight of steps that led back up to where I’d just come from. While waiting for the crowd to clear a bit and an opportunity to take some photographs I managed to drop my phone onto the concrete road surface and I was very concerned that it might have been damaged. However, I’m relieved that it seems to be unscathed but I’ll have to see over time if in fact that is the case.

I then continued my journey downwards towards the harbour.

And finally it and the Galata Bridge came into sight.

You need to use an underpass in order to get across the very busy road junction. The underpass is a hive of small shops selling everything from mobile phones to underwear and this is a shot of its entrance on the other side.

From there I found my way round to the ferry quayside next to the Galata Bridge. You can walk across the bridge if you want to go from Beyoglu to Fatih on the other side.

This is the somewhat undistinguished looking ferry terminal entrance.

This is not just an area popular with tourists. Today it was alive with local fishermen and the odd sharp-eyed cat seeing if they could find an opportunity to get a share of any of their spoils. They occasionally did when they were tossed the odd tiddler that was too small to count as a proper catch.

A final look back before I made my around to the Galataport side and thence to Karakoy itself.

The next is a shot of a cruise liner moored at Galataport taken from the ‘other’ side of the security screen before I turned left into a side road leading to Karakoy.

I love Karakoy and I heartily recommend anyone visiting Istanbul to go there. Its narrow streets are traffic free apart from the odd motor scooter that are everywhere and its little bars, cafés and restaurants are quaint and super inviting.

And you’ll also come across the odd Shisha bar there too, as in the next picture.

As well as purchasing food and drinks there, you can also hire the use of a Shisha pipe, or Hookah, and as I passed by it was apparent that a number of patrons of both sexes were doing exactly that. There is a misconception that Shishas are for smoking hashish, but although some no doubt are, this is not their intended primary purpose. They are mainly for smoking special blends of Turkish tobacco flavoured with herbal and floral aromatics.

The smoke is filtered through water contained in the main bowl of the Shisha and many people believe that because of that smoking a Shisha is safer than smoking cigarettes. But this definitely isn’t so. The water does not filter out any of the tars and other harmful materials contained in the tobacco smoke and any smokers who are tempted to give a Shisha a go are strongly advised not to do so. The reason is that a 30 minute Shisha session is the same as smoking 100, yes that’s right, 100 normal cigarettes and although Shishas have been around for hundreds of years they present a huge health threat, much more so than ‘ordinary’ smoking, which is very widely prevalent in Turkey among all age groups.

I thence made my way through the narrow windy street to find somewhere to buy a beer and a burger, which I did. And most enjoyable it was too, sitting in the sun filtered through an overhead vine.

A last look back at where I’d enjoyed my alfresco meal. Excellent.

I love Karakoy. If you’re in Istanbul, give it a go. You won’t regret it.

I had to go back to the dentist today for follow-up work prior to the final fitting of my implants. The young lady dentist told me last week that she was going to hurt me again today and boy, was she not lying!

My appointment was originally set for 6.00 pm but I received a call at about 3.45 pm asking if I could get there in half an hour. I said that I could because there’s a funicular railway that runs from Taksim Square down to Kabatas which I’d not tried before but had scouted out yesterday. It would save me ages compared to walking as it only takes about two or three minutes and costs just 40 TL (about 1€) each way, so well worth the saving in shoe leather alone.

I expected the train to look like something off an Austrian ski slope, but no. It’s very modern and looks like an ordinary underground train, except it slopes and has steps in its floors. Here’s a shot I took of it on my return journey.

It wasn’t very busy on my way down so I was able to take the next shot at my leisure. Not so on my return back up to Taksim Square because the carriages were packed out like a normal rush-hour train.

I have a pretty high pain threshold but this afternoon I suffered the most painful dental treatment I’ve ever received. The dentist is replacing the implant pins in my right lower jaw and inserting a new one in my left upper front. She started without giving me any pain killer but the pain, especially in my lower jaw, was so intense that it literally made my toes curl and my eyes water. And it didn’t get much better after the injections because she pressed on almost without any delay to finish her work. Back tomorrow at 3.00 pm. I can hardly wait…

While making my way back afterwards to the Metro station at Kabatas I had to pass a development site that fronts onto the main road and this is the amusing sight that caught my eye – a proud rooster looking after his flock of hens and living in harmony with the cats. Maybe the workmen like boiled eggs with their breakfasts, I don’t know, but I think this could be only in Turkey.

This is the Metro entrance.

And here are a couple of final shots that I took after most of the crowd had cleared the platform.

The images are very poor but I’ll try again when I return to the clinic tomorrow. I managed to drop my phone onto the concrete yesterday and I hope that nothing’s been damaged as up to now I’ve been very happy with the picture quality I’ve been getting.

The Hotel Mara where I’m staying is quite interesting and I’m not absolutely sure what to make of it. The bed is as hard as a rock, harder even than my new bed at home which I’m beginning to loathe, but I’m making the best of it. Every morning the longer I stay here my back ache when I get out of bed seems to be easing more quickly, so that’s good.

I suppose I’d describe it as a boutique hotel but with a large element of self-service. My room has only been made up once since I’ve been here and then in only a very cursory way. Apart from a couple more teabags and a few sugar lumps appearing you’d hardly have noticed as I’d already pulled the duvet back over the bed myself. And that has been it as far as room service is concerned.

I’m still using the same hand and bath towels, although to be fair there are spares, but more worryingly, there was only one toilet roll when I arrived and that is now just down to a few sheets. But luckily I’m used to looking after myself so I’ve gone into survival mode as there’s a small supermarket a few doors up the road where I was able to buy a giant kitchen roll, three large bottles of water for tea making, some milk and some more tea bags as I’d already bought some a few days previously.

I don’t know what the score is exactly but I’ve only seen the charming young Turkish maid making up rooms after people have left so it appears that I’m now dug-in and my room won’t be disturbed until I either die or leave, hopefully the latter. I don’t bother with breakfast which the hotel is not providing anyway and just make do with several cups of tea and a few biscuits, which I prefer as all the spiciness is upsetting my stomach this time.

Yesterday’s breakfast was augmented by the cold left-overs from the previous evening’s Chinese takeaway, which is also just up the road and makes a nice change from kebabs and burgers. So that was very wholesome and nutritious. I ordered only 3 dishes (sweet and sour chicken, beef noodles and egg fried rice) but when they turned up there was enough for 5 people conservatively and possibly 6. So I decided I’d have to make the best of it and the remains have just gone out onto the landing in front of the lift in a plastic bag. Remember what I said about self-service 😉

I think this must be the way to go as I also emptied the somewhat tiny rubbish bin in my room myself and in doing so found a roll of fresh plastic rubbish bags in the bottom of it. I will, however, draw the line at buying a spray can of polish to make the horizontal surfaces gleam and impart a fresh aroma of morning dew to the room. After all, I’d hate to do anyone out of a job…

From what I’d been able to see while walking down the hill from Beyoglu towards Galataport I already knew what to expect so when I entered it after my dental appointment I wasn’t surprised to see what looked like a large block of apartments looming ahead of me.

It wasn’t a block of apartments, of course, but one of the three enormous cruise liners that were moored alongside taking up the whole of the quayside from one end of Galataport to the other.

I decided to head towards the northern end of Galataport before turning back and walking down to Karakoy at the southern end and on my way I saw this sign.

I’m not sure I’d be keen to hang around in an underground cruise terminal this close to the sea as so far I’ve not been that impressed by the quality of basic Turkish engineering. The buildings that have stood for hundreds of years stand much more chance of being around in a few hundred more than what’s going up now, but what do I know…

The Galataport entrance that I’d used last time I was here was now closed and I’d been ‘advised’ by a policeman with a machine gun to walk a bit further down the road and find another way in. From the look of it it was maybe being used exclusively by cruise passengers, or maybe it was being redeveloped as works were going on outside. Nevertheless, there was plenty of port activity going on there.

That’s the Asian side of Istanbul on the other side of the Bosphorus and in the left of centre in the next shot is the Bosphorus Bridge.

Now photographs of what caught my eye walking the length of Galataport from Kabatas at the northern end to Karakoy, what was an enjoyable experience made even better this time by the lovely weather. The first of the three cruise ships, a Viking liner registered in Bergen, Norway. I’ll bet those Norwegians could be doing with a bit of sun after their winter 😉

The liner was the Viking Mars.

Then came a modernist ‘sculpture’ celebrating Istanbul calling itself ‘The City of Names’. It does so, apparently, in honour of all the places from which visitors to the city come. It appears to be in the form of a long roll of coloured stainless steel tape into which all the place names have been punched. Now look, I don’t mean to be overly churlish, but although you can make one or two of them out, you can’t read them, so it seems to me to be colourful but a bit pointless really 😕

Carrying hastily on, the next cruise ship, registered in Hamilton, Bermuda, the Sun Princess.

Looking back up from the quayside you could see passengers swimming around in the ship’s pool which has transparent sides and hangs out over the deck below it. A somewhat weird experience, actually, probably even weirder for other passengers looking up from the deck underneath 🙂

Lastly, the third cruise liner, the Celebrity Equinox.

A couple of shots looking back from the quayside towards the road behind it which is separated from it by a security barrier.

I couldn’t eat much as my mouth was numb after my dental work but stopped in a quayside café along the way for a plate of chips (frites) and a draught local beer. Then I took a last look back up the quay before heading out into the streets of Karakoy.

The last time I was here I was looking for a route back to my hotel via the Galata Tower but this time I didn’t need to so was able to explore Karakoy a bit more. And I was very pleasantly surprised by what I found.

I headed out of Karakoy past a service station showing fuel prices of around 1€ per litre for all grades and types which made me whince when I think what we’re paying in France and the UK. But anyway, I left Karakoy with the thought that I’d have to come back again soon.

Here in Istanbul.

Before leaving for my dental appointment on Thursday morning, I thought I’d have a stroll up to Taksim Square and back. And this is what I saw there. Yup, lots of tourists walking around and enjoying the warm Spring sunshine.

But wait a minute…. what’s that over there by the wall?

Hell yes! It’s a water cannon!

But the recent disturbances here in Istanbul don’t seem to have affected the tourist trade too much, although the smaller hotels in Beyoglu where I am, like the one I’m in, do seem to have vacant rooms and, like mine, appear to be dropping their prices a bit.

There is a more than even the usual police presence everywhere either standing around in small groups with machine guns over their shoulders or dashing about in cars with their hooters that sound like a loud burp as they weave their way through the crowds. But otherwise life goes on pretty much as usual for tourists and locals alike.

The last time I was in Istanbul, in February, it rained every day bar one and I left to return to France in snow. I arrived last Wednesday night at around midnight and came straight to my hotel and when I left at 1.15pm the next day to head for the clinic for my first dental appointment of this trip it was already around 25 degrees C.

As usual, Istanbul was swarming with people just as it was at midnight the night I arrived – it really does seem to be a 24 hour city – and this time most were out in tee shirts and shorts. I was in jeans and a polo shirt and by the time I got back to my hotel early in the evening I was feeling a bit over-warm! Summer does seem to have arrived in Istanbul and already three ginormous cruise liners were berthed at the Galataport when I walked along there on Thursday afternoon of which more later.

I am in a different hotel this time and to say I’m underwhelmed by it is an understatement. We Brits have an expression that describes it – fur coat but no knickers. What that means is that it looks good on first impressions but when you get down to where it matters, it’s somewhat lacking.

The outside and interior of the hotel look pleasant enough, clean and in good condition, but it’s where it matters, in the room, that it falls flat on its face. To start off with, my room is small and airless – reminds me of a prison cell, not that I’ve been in one except when I visited Alcatraz.

There is a window that opens onto a filthy gap between the buildings that has a large metal extractor pipe in it from a kitchen next door that roars away through the evening until the kitchen closes, but I suppose I should think myself lucky as the adjacent rooms along the corridor have no external windows at all – just ones with curtains that look inwards onto the corridors themselves.

Because it was hot when I left for the dental clinic I left the window open thinking it would be OK as there’s an insect screen on the outside. Wrong. When I got back there was this big boy lying on the floor in front of the step up to the bathroom – an enormous cockroach (let’s just call it a beetle) about 20 cms long on its back waving its legs in the air.

I managed to pick it up and put it out of the window, but imagine that thing crawling across your face in the middle of the night! And talking about the middle of the night, the wall between my room and the one next to it is thin enough that I had a problem getting to sleep on the first night because there was a gentleman snoring like a stuck pig in there and still was when I woke up a couple of times in the night because I was hot.

I asked for a room with a large bed and that’s what I got. The trouble though is that the room is so small, there’s no room for anything else. There’s nowhere to put your case, even, let alone anywhere to put clothes which, apart from my overcoat, I’ve had to leave in my case. The case itself I have to open on the bed.

And the smallness continues into the bathroom. On first glance it looks OK until you realise that there’s nowhere to put your washing and shaving kit except a rather suspect looking cupboard – even a small shelf would be nice – and worse still, there’s only one tiny double hook for your hand and shower towels.

At least there’s a shower, I hear you say. Yes there is, but getting into it is a challenge. Luckily I’ve lost 6 kgs in weight since I was last in Istanbul and I can just squeeze through the roughly 30-35 cm gap between the shower cabinet doors.

Anyone more portly would have great difficulty getting in and out and I can just imagine the catastrophe that would ensue when the shower does what it seems all hotel showers in Istanbul do, which is switch from cold to scalding hot in an instant. They would squeal and jump and probably bring the whole shower cabinet collapsing down.

But I’m not yet finished with the bathroom. There’s more in the shape of a roughly 30 cm high step going in and out. Going in would definitely be challenging for anyone with mobility problems but anyone could come skidding out if they weren’t careful coming back into the bedroom with wet feet.

OK, am I finished? No, far from it I’m afraid. The room is advertised as having tea and coffee making facilities, and it does, or at least did when I arrived. They were in the form of 2 airline sized cups of water (you know, the thin plastic ones with peal-off foil lids), 4 tea bags and a few sugar lumps. I could see where this was going so while I was out I bought 3 litres of water, a pack of Liptons tea bags and some sugar, and lucky I did because when I got back I found that the ones originally provided by the hotel which I’d used hadn’t been replaced.

And neither had my room been made up even though the young lady who should have done it saw me leaving.

Is that it then? Well, no. When I booked my room back in February I’m pretty certain that I included breakfast in the cost. Why wouldn’t I? However, I was told when I enquired this morning that it isn’t and was directed to a small café next door where I was provided with a very indifferent meal consisting of lots of cheese at a cost of 8€.

So there you have it. Errr, no you don’t. The free wi-fi must be ADSL because it runs at a snail’s pace. When you can connect to it. Absolutely hopeless. I don’t think I’ll be coming back 😕

Oh, I forgot to mention. As I’d had an injection and couldn’t eat much at lunch time on Wednesday, I just had a (large) portion of chips (frites) and a beer in a café on Galataport followed by a Starbucks latte and lemon cheesecake later on. So that evening I decided that I’d stick to just fruit and treated myself to a box of juicy ripe cherries.

Lovely. Highlight of the day 😀

For over a week now 😉

The weather so far this year has been surprisingly poor. We’ve had one or two nice days but they’ve been the exception because even when the sun has been out it’s been accompanied day after day by a chilly northerly breeze. We had a glorious day yesterday, like being on holiday back in the day except every day here is like being on holiday 🙂 But there was something special about it. Beautiful sunshine, everything all perfect, green and lush but for the moment, no tourists. Usually by now we’re beginning to see swarms of Dutch visitors arriving. Spring is when the cranes fly north and the Dutch head south, but there are very few of them at the moment which is quite surprising and a bit unusual.

I’ve been out checking my fruit trees. I bought my first ‘fruitiers’, two cherries, three years ago from an on-line supplier and was disappointed as soon as I saw them. They were small and puny and not what I expected at all. I already had two plums that I’d received as birthday gifts the year before but they had a very bad start as they were stored for several months before being transferred from their pots to my back garden. None of these initial four trees did any good and I ended up chucking three of them away last year, the two plums and one of the cherries, when I bought three more cherries, two apples and a plum from another supplier. The new trees were infinitely superior and have done incredibly well since I transplanted them from the pots in which they were delivered. They cost a bit more than the first ones I bought but they are in a different league compared to those from the first supplier and the extra was well worth the difference.

Even though it was still small and spindly, I took pity on one of the original cherries that I bought from the first supplier because it looked as though it might stand a chance even though it will probably never be of any size or provide much fruit during my lifetime. I moved it, however, to a less prominent position so it could make way for one of the new trees. I half expected it not to survive the move but it has done and after producing blossom early on it looks as though it’ll produce a tiny amount of fruit. It and the new cherries were covered in blossom but all have surprisingly little fruit to show for it. Unsurprisingly perhaps for the new ones as this is their first year after being put in only last year.

In fact, given how puny the remaining original cherry was and that it was also dug up and moved last year, it has not only added some good growth but also done comparatively better fruit-wise than the two new ones. Here are a few shots of it.

In comparison, the three new cherries, which were of two different varieties, have put on some good growth but despite showing quite a bit of blossom early on, have very little by way of fruit to show for it. Here are some shots of the first of them.

The second – hardly any fruit at all.

And the third.

Compared to the cherries, the new plum has done incredibly well. Not only has it put on some good growth but it’s also showing a fair amount of fruit considering this is it’s first year after being transplanted. Here are the pics of it.

As they will ripen much later then the cherries, it’s a bit too early to judge how the new apples will do. Both have put on growth and currently have plenty of fruit, especially considering how relatively small they are, but there’s no guarantee that it will all set. My favourite one that was severely damaged last year by a deer that ripped off one of its branches the day before I put protection around all my new trees, has lots of tiny fruit but I was dismayed to find that it’s smothered with aphids and ants which are presumably farming them for their nectar, which is what I think they do. I’ve sprayed the tree’s foliage twice with soapy water but I’ve ordered some Neem oil and I’ll be giving it a good coat of it before I leave again shortly for Istanbul. I’ll then have to continue the treatment when I get back.

Here are some shots of the first apple that’s unaffected by aphids.

And here are some shots if the tree with the aphids.

These are very early days and it’s far too soon to anticipate how much fruit all of my trees will deliver this year. I don’t expect much as this is the first year for all of them after being transplanted and they need to get their feet into the ground. They and all of us could also do with a bit of good weather 😕