Another week, another country.......

Back to my beloved Foca, to the house where my mother lived and has now become a retreat for my sister and I when we need to escape the real world.

We've only been here two days and already I walk slower, sleep more and eat more healthily than ever...........I think I am finally winding down. It's pretty hard not to.

Foca is a beautiful tiny fishing village on the west coast of Turkey, 70km north of Izmir. Totally unspoilt, there are no English people, no buildings above three storeys allowed to be built and best of all, great food to be had.

Our first night was a treat....we wandered along the seafront to one of the restaurants (although very small, Foca has an abundance of great restaurants to choose from). We ate freshly made houmous with dill (I would never have thought this combination would work, but it did), a salad full of local leaves (nettles, thick, strong rocket and lots of leaves I didn't recognise), plus a shrimp casserole - freshly caught prawns cooked with garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms and olive oil and topped with local cheese. It was delicious. We were both too full for dessert but then were told there was a surprise to come! A terracotta dish of halva.......not the way we would normally eat it though.........it was halva, cooked with milk and olive oil, served hot sprinkled with chopped hazelnuts, and was amazing (you do need to have a sweet tooth for this, as with all Turkish dessert and cakes).

After that there was more free wine and finally to top it all, a nearby table of men presented us with some of their red snapper that had been cooked in salt and then set alight as a birthday celebration dish - what an evening!

Tuesday morning is market day - another chance to eat great food as all the traders insist on you trying everything. And of course, we are a complete novelty, not being locals, so they have great fun making us eat things they suspect we won't like. But we return to the house laden with fresh cheese, local honey, herbs, local olives and olive oil and the best bit, thick creamy local yoghurt - I am in heaven.