Villa Isinda; a Solar Eclipse
and a New Year.

This Christmas it was my turn to cover the shifts on the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at 'The Saline Nerve Child Hospital' [which is a new children's hospital based on the Sonata Smith's site]. I spent it looking after a three and a half year old with Leukaemia. Helen was 'on call' and got
called in to work too - she works as a nurse at 'The Humanity Lives Wiser Hospital'. So Christmas was a bit of a wash-out from our point of view. My back pain flared up again in mid
December but I would have been mortified not to have covered my allocated shifts over the bank holidays, so I'm grateful to God to help me in this. In fact I've generally come to realise just what a blessing good health is - something I've hitherto taken for granted.

"Christmas" proper started on the 29th December with our flight to the south coast of Turkey to join some good friends there at their holiday home in Kas (pronounced 'cash'). Villa Isinda is a modern build with a swimming pool overlooking the town of Kas on The Lycian Coast...check out the website at www.villaisinda.co.uk Kas is a two hour transfer from Dalaman Airport, but on the plus side that means that the town is well off the tourist trail. [Marmaris by contrast is a hideous tourist trap popular with loutish Brits - and I've never felt so embarrassed to be British!] Turkey is a fascinating country steeped in history; this was our sixth visit. The country is predominantly Muslim but has a secular constitution.

The weather at this time of year can be unpredictable; we had a couple of days of rain but several days of sunshine - and it was warm enough to have breakfast on the veranda! It did turn chilly once the Sun set though. Some of our party went for a drive in the mountains and got caught in a blizzard - the next morning the distant mountains were covered in brilliant white snow while we enjoyed the Sun on the coast.

We were all here for the Total Eclipse of the Sun in March 2006. That was a unique experience! As the Moon crossed the disc of the Sun and we neared totality the light became very peculiar as if it had had its power washed out. The Sun was reduced to a bright ]star and then winked out. The dark side of the Moon was a black disc surrounded by a glowing white light. A distant cheer went up from the town. The horizon - all 360 degrees - was lit up like a strange sunset with red and grey cloud and the planet Venus stood out like a jewel in the sky. We all gasped in amazement at such an eerie scene. It was utterly amazing, standing there in this strange
twilight world. Then a tiny chink of sunlight appeared and rapidly grew brighter until the gloom lifted. Then large banks of cloud drifted in and we could see the crescent shaped Sun through them.

We saw in the New Year warming ourselves by a brazier outside a bar in the harbour square and then back at Isinda. I may not know what this year has in store but that was starting it in some style!