FROST in FETHIYE

Well, I have forgotten the storms now as for the last week the weather has been abnormally cold here.  There has been FROST in the mornings and ICE on puddles!  I know that might not sound so awful to those of you who experience it most mornings through winter, but you have to bear in mind that we are not used to it!

Many of the plants in the garden are looking very sad.  Some will recover but some – including the banana trees and possible some larger trees won’t.  The pipes here are generally not insulated and the tanks and solar panels are very exposed on the roofs.  I haven’t seen any this time, but in past cold spells I have often seen pipes and panels that have burst, causing hot water to pour off the roof.

Worst of all – as far as I am concerned – is the difficulty of heating the houses.  Most do not have central heating and with tiled floors, large windows and no cavity walls they are designed for summer heat rather than being cozy in low temperatures.  Many people rely on air conditioning units to heat, but it is such a small heat, blowing high up near the ceiling that it often barely takes the chill off the air.  Everyone who lives here gets used to wearing slippers (yes – even the people who laugh at slippers when they first move here!) and sitting around wrapped in blankets!

The ground floor of our house is made bearable by the wood-burning stove.  I have only just mastered the art of lighting it, and it is a bit messy, but after an hour or so it definitely makes the room pretty warm and seems to warm the walls so that it is still nice when I come down the next morning.  We have even been experimenting with cooking in the oven part – here is Cem with a ‘börek’ (type of pie) we made a couple of weeks ago (learning in the process to be careful not to BURN things in the stove!)

Upstairs, though, is another matter.  My alarm clock is a flashy digital thing that shows the temperature – hence I know it was 10 degrees in my bedroom last night!  Some of you will know that I feel the cold a lot and will even sometimes be cold in the summer months when everyone else is wearing shorts and t-shirts – so you can imagine how many layers I have on at the moment.

Of course it is only on the Mediterranean coast here that we are so unaccustomed to the cold.  Parts of Turkey – including the capital Ankara - are again under snow and further east many villages are cut off by snow.  It’s school holidays next week and if we can get away we want to have a couple of days skiing somewhere.  If you ask me, that is the only good thing about weather this cold!

Kaan is 12!

Yes, it was Kaan’s twelfth birthday this week.  Can’t believe that my ‘baby’ is almost a teenager (there’s something to look forward to – having two stroppy adolescent boys around the house!)  Although his birthday is the 9th January, we didn’t actually take him ‘home’ (he was born in St Thomas’ London) until the end of February as he was 11 weeks premature.  Here is how he was then….

He is now just over 5feet tall and you would never guess that he weighed 3lb 3oz when he was born!  Here he is with his ‘bicycle’ cake…

He hasn’t been able to go to school on his bike this week, as the weather has been absolutely awful.  We have had storm-force winds, thunder and lightning and a lot of rain – so much that we were having problems dealing with it in the hotel.  As we are lower than the surrounding plots, we not only get what rains on us but also a lot coming in from those higher areas.  The system that channels the water round the outside of the pool and into the pool tanks works alright but there is also some seepage into the pool engine room and when it was raining hard the small submersible pump couldn’t get rid of the water fast enough.

Finally on Tuesday Cem bought a petrol-powered pump which can get rid of the water much faster and which will also keep going during a power-cut – the other thing which has caused us problems in the past.  This winter we seem to have had more power cuts than for the last few years, sometimes lasting a couple of hours.  That’s pretty annoying when we pay such a fortune for electricity.  Our last MONTHLY bill at home was 270tl – just about £100 – and the hotel bill, even in the winter months, is never less than about 400tl.

Actually, there has been a bit of a scandal concerning the electricity company which might (not holding my breath) result in us getting some money back.  Due to the remoteness of much of the eastern parts of Turkey and the wiliness of the residents, many people – often whole villages – do not pay for electricity but ‘steal’ it by stringing up illegal lines.  To cover their losses in those areas, the electricity board has been charging us a tax on our bills - maybe only a couple of lira for a normal household but as it is worked as a percentage of the total, it amounts to a lot of money on the huge summer bills at the hotel.  I might just about understand it if the electricity board was still government owned, but it was privatized about 5 years ago and I don’t see why we should be penalized for the fact that they cannot do their job efficiently.  One man finally stood up to them and has taken a case to court so we are hoping that he wins and we will be able to claim back this money.

And it’s not only electricity that is expensive here…I’ve just seen in National Geographic a comparison of petrol prices from last year – dollars per gallon.  Turkey is the leader IN THE WORLD, at 10.02, UK second at 8.39, while in America they pay 4 dollars a gallon.  Since in Turkey most things are delivered by road (there is not much of a rail network), this adds to the cost of all goods.  Our meat, chicken and cheese all cost more than in the UK and USA.  Electrical goods have always been much more expensive here and cars – well don’t even get me started on the cost of cars!

So how come we are still seen as a ‘cheap’ holiday destination…..?!!

New Year's resolutions

I have been very poor at blogging recently, so here is a photo summary of Christmas and New Year in the Cakir household.:

Gingerbread house…our construction skills are improving every year and this year we added trees to the garden.  Now, the boys are busy deconstructing it, which keeps them away from the Christmas cake!

                                            

Boys with the tree.  Kaan was the first to put a present under it (mine) and then counted every day to see how many more presents had been added.  Emre is REALLY hard to buy things for now and as even he couldn’t think what he wanted for his main present, it has been delayed!  Kaan had a new bicycle – his first full-size one an the first one that has come to him brand new (the down-side of being the youngest!)  He is so taken with it that he has started cycling to school this week.  I went with him on Monday morning and it was actually lovely cycling along the sea front at 7.30am, calm water, pink skies and few people around.  Let’s see how long his enthusiasm lasts though!

Cem and Murat trying to put together one of Kaan’s presents – a bird that flies.  The moral is don’t buy anything that needs constructing (unless you are good at engineering) and especially don’t buy anything with instructions in Chinese!

Two fairies for the Christmas tree….Cem’s cousin’s very cute daughters who celebrated Christmas and New Year with us.

Dinner on New Year – a true ‘fusion’ (for which read muddle) of Turkish and English with quiche, roast potatoes and cauliflower cheese (me) and chicken, liver and various starters from Cem’s mum.

My New Year’s resolution is to post a bit more often again.  In the meantime, I hope you all enjoyed a fantastic holiday season and wish everyone a healthy, happy 2012!