. . not another walking and flowers post!

This is one of the really good things about blogging; we can get to bore the pants off everyone and, unless we happen to be a ‘stats freak’, never be aware of the yawns and glazed eyes! Bliss!

So, yes, this is about a couple of back-to-back days of gentle wandering with a few impressions of what being a ‘Boffer’ in Okçular is all about. Well, not exactly ‘all’ because this time of year there are plenty of chores to be done like pruning trees and pressure-washing the fossils ferns embedded in the Muğla stone slabs in the yard.

Anyway, enough of all that. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin . .

Once upon a time, by the edge of the forest, there lived this old geezer and his missus. They felt a great affinity with the trees and flowers and creatures of the woods and loved to go a-wandering, communing with Mother Nature and her off-spring. They whispered to the trees and the trees whispered back . .

. . even the elemental spirits, hidden from the eyes of the sceptical, would appear to them from time to time.

Spring has sprung – after a cold snap and a late start the buds are budding and the flowers are flowing and flowers are – well – flowering! Come and wander, it’ll do your spirit good!

We thought he was a bold fellow until we noticed that he was securely tied in place. Now, a Southerner like me can make a joke here about Yorkshireites and their funny accents and title this as ‘Chicken in t’ wine’. However J, who is well known as a regional accent buff at Pedant’s Corner, Private Eye, has spotted this over my shoulder and insisted that I insert the following correction which is a direct copy from that illustrious organ:

Dear Ed,

Pedantry Corner:
To Farmer Geddon (Eye 1289), Peter Sharples (Eye 1290) and Charles Warwick (Eye 1291) I am obliged to say “Nay lad!”
Being South Yorkshire born and bred, (although now away many decades), in our area the ‘the’ was never a ‘t’ at all. The ‘the’ was and is an almost imperceptible hiatus between  two words. The nearest I can come to writing it is “trouble at ‘ mill” – the ‘ in place of the three missing letters of ‘the’. Or, a longer example, “Down ‘ Wicker weer ‘ watter runs ovver ‘ weir.” (three missing thes)
The important thing to remember is that to really represent the accent accurately you must definitely sound these examples out loud wherever you are.
I especially fondly recall ” ‘t i’n’t in ‘ tin” (only one the here).
Yours for ‘ society o’ ‘ preservation o’ regional accents,
Janet Surman.

Alan in Okçular Köyü and forest