7 January 2016

Turks

Two Turks live in our spice cupboard along with the coriander, the basil and the curry leaves. Their names are Deniz and Kalkan. Deniz is the salt pot on the left and the pepper pot in red is Kalkan. They are named after coastal resorts in Turkey and we discovered them a few years back on a market stall in Kalkan - "Cheaper than Tesco! Cheaper than Aldi! Cheaper than shop lifting!" At night time they whisper to each other...

DENIZ Oh I wish I was back in Turkey - our beloved homeland.
KALKAN Me too. I never wanted to emigrate. I was happy back in Turkey.
DENIZ It was always warm there and the sea down in the bay was aquamarine.
KALKAN You could hear the donkeys baying from the hills.
DENIZ And the old women dressed in black, lugging firewood home in sacks.
KALKAN And the old men with their worry beads...
DENIZ Their skin leathery and their gold teeth catching the light. They sat for hours by the tavern.
KALKAN The aroma of barbecued lamb and grilled pitta bread hanging in the air.
DENIZ No Kalkan.  I never wanted to emigrate either.
KALKAN But there was no work Deniz. We had to leave.
DENIZ You wanted Germany just like your cousin Kamal in Ludwigsburg.
KALKAN But you wanted England where The Queen lives, You said we'd find work there.
DENIZ And so we did.
KALKAN Remember that week in The Jungle at Calais?
DENIZ It was awful. I couldn't sleep at night. I was so scared.
KALKAN And then we sneaked aboard that Norbert Dentressangle truck with the Afghans.
DENIZ The driver was none the wiser.
KALKAN Brought us all the way here to Yorkshire.
DENIZ But how did we get to Pudding Towers?
KALKAN I don't know. We must have fallen asleep.
DENIZ The mistress is so gentle. The way she shakes us I mean. So gentle.
KALKAN But the master is so rough. I feel my brains jiggling in my skull when he shakes with his big tiger paws.
DENIZ I know what you mean Kalkan. He's beastly...Oh I wish I was back in Turkey.
KALKAN  Me too. He'll be making chilli con carne tonight.
DENIZ Brace yourself my friend. Looks like you need filling up. You're almost empty inside.

16 comments:

  1. That was a delightful read, made me chuckle. Pretty imaginative stuff, well done!

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    1. As you come across as a deep thinking man Blogoratti, it is nice to know that you can still be light-hearted and have a chuckle!

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  2. Kamal happily reports from Ludwigsburg that he went to Turkey for the summer and there married his childhood sweetheart from the home village, Gülay. She is now expecting the first of undoubtedly many children.

    Here, Turkish immigrants are considered just that - immigrants, not refugees. They can live and work here anytime, it's practically (if not politically) Europe.

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    1. If the other Kamal's childhood sweetheart has a daughter they should consider calling her Meike in honour of their kindly German hosts. You could be her godmother and bounce her on your knee, singing a sweet Baden-Württemberg lullaby.

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  3. I love Kalkan and Deniz!

    You have such a great imagination. You should write a book. I'm serious.

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    1. "I'm Serious" is a great title for a book Jennifer. In an early chapter an American tourist called Juniper Baslow is sun-bathing on a Turkish beach when she is accosted by a bottled water seller called Kalkan. He serenades her and they fall in love and in pledging himself to her he says, "I'm serious!" but little does he know that his friend Deniz is plotting a different happy ending.

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  4. And you think I'm strange!!!

    You have proven I am not alone in my strangeness! :)

    (I hope you read my response to your last comment in my blog, Mr. Pudding)!!

    Thanks for the smiles. :)

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    1. Hello again Lee. Thanks for detecting my strangeness. I would rather be strange than boringly normal or average.

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  5. Maybe Deniz and Kalkan could find a time machine and be incorporated into the Bamford House series?

    Ms Soup

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    1. I think my imagination would go haywire if Deniz \nd Kalkan turned up in that old stone farmhouse... "What the bloody 'ell are they Samuel?"
      "Dunno. Like I said woman. I found 'em by t'roadside. Must've fallen off wagon."

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  6. Awesome post ! Liked the names
    http://shilpachandrasekheran.blogspot.in/?m=1

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    1. Thank you Shilpa but the names Kalkan and Deniz are not as exotic as Shilpa!

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  7. I have this cookie jar shaped like an old woman with an apron and a teapot shaped like a old lady balloon seller .....Now they needs a story.I'm thinking.....

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    1. Yes Jan B. Such a story could go viral - like The Harry Potter series - and you will be so famous you will appear on late night chat shows and you will be seen going out with young men in flash cars all because of your "Old Lady" books and the associated films.

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  8. Speaking of Norbert trucks reminded me of a game a friend (from Lewis but who had a house in central France) and I used to have. It involved seeing how far South we could see a Macaskill lorry from Lewis and how far North we could see an ND lorry. I can't recall how far South we saw a Macaskill (somewhere near the border with Spain where they travelled with live shellfish) but the ND lorry was in Inverness.

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Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

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