Back in Cologne

The weather has turned cold suddenly. It`s raining and I dont know if it`s better this way or not because till last week it was so unbearably hot.

Suhail has come down from Paris and we did a session yesterday which he is very enthusiastic about. This evening he and Bablu are planning to cook an Indian (or semi Indian) meal for Ayse`s brother Ali, who is coming over. So Suhail (according to Bablu) is "chief cook for the vegetarian part" and Bablu himself "chief cook for the chicken part" and I am the general dogsbody. (Actually with these two guys in the kitchen it will be an excellent time for me to catch up on mailing since at the current time the comp is being put to half a dozen uses. Mainly by Suhail, busy burning music from Heinz.)

The difficult part about living here is it is rather cut off from the city and from any shopping centre. The closest is 5 Km away which means you are totally dependent on the car. The plus side is that it is very peaceful and you wake up to the sound of birds twittering in the morning and there is a big garden at the back where Heinz has set up a dining set and a barbeque which has turned out a couple of exquisite stuff - sausages, chicken, steak etc.

Ayse has just given me the happy news that in Turkey (which we will be visiting in a few days) it is 44 degrees C. How nice.