Now some of you have seen how it can rain here! It doesn’t tend to mess around with that very British thing, drizzle. It pours down. And it has been doing so much of that in the last few days that Çalış was flooded on Tuesday. The channel near the beach was so high that some of the little jetties were washed away and many little boats sank. Even the more substantial water taxi jetty was lifted up onto the river bank.
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| storm coming in! |
The drains on the road to the bridge couldn’t cope with the volume of water so the shops along that road were flooded and many lost stock. The channel that runs in front of Poppy overflowed its banks, pouring brown silty water and debris from further upstream into the gardens – and some houses - on the other side.
The hotel also flooded. Being low-lying, we have a system of drainage channels that funnel all the water from round the hotel towards one of two pumps which send it into the drainage system. Unfortunately, the power went off from 5am yesterday morning until about 1pm, which was enough time for the whole of the ground floor to be inundated. After the big flood several years ago, we are aware of the risk and remove much of the furniture from these rooms. Still there are always things that you forget, and we will have to wait until we have cleaned it all out to see just what we have lost.
The temperature change has been nearly as dramatic. I know those of you who have only seen Fethiye sweltering in 40 degree plus temperatures might find it hard to believe, but it really can be cold. The mountains behind the hotel (on the Antalya road) have a stunning cover of snow, while even Babadağ (‘Father Mountain’), the one the paragliders jump from, has a dusting on the summit. In Fethiye, snow is a very rare occurrence. The last time was 18 years ago, just before I came to live here, and everybody has photos to prove it.
The problem with the cold is not the actual temperature but the fact that the houses are designed to be cool in summer. Most of us don’t have central heating or wall-to-wall carpeting and many houses don’t even have damp-proofing. So, the Turkish insistence on wearing slippers round the house, which many foreigners find funny when they first move here, is actually very practical!
Cem, Yılmaz and a few helpers have been working for the last three days, pumping water out of the hotel with a diesel-powered pump that makes so much noise you can hear it half-way across Çalış! Then we will begin the job of cleaning up. I do admire the Turkish attitude in times like this which is just to get on with it. They are very fatalistic and seldom waste time complaining or asking ‘why me?’ So I’m trying to be more like them, though when it started to rain again this evening after a day of sunshine I was finding it a bit hard to be optimistic!
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| the clean-up at Poppy |
