It's raining, it's pouring

It’s raining.  It WAS pouring down – the sort of rain that pours off your umbrella soaking you just as much as if you didn’t have one.  Now it has calmed down to be just a gentle pitter-patter.  It is a sound we haven’t heard really – apart from a few drops – since May.  It means I don’t need to water the garden – hooray!  But Kenny is on the boat and Poppy the puppy is rather alarmed as she has never seen anything like it.  She decided the sofa in the bar would be a good place to sleep -  until she got turfed out.  She was lying there so quietly the other night that she got shut into the bar – for the night. When I arrived in the morning she was howling at the door!

Poppy looking for a comfy place to sleep

I’ve got a few lessons going now and have set up the room opposite the bar as my classroom.  Most of last year’s students are starting in the next couple of weeks, plus I have a few new ones.  I have wondered before about setting up a web site for people wanting to learn turkish.  I have so much stuff that I have prepared – and at the moment it doesn’t seem as though it will become a book (though I can’t say I have really tried that hard to get it published).

The hotel is winding down – though I had a new booking through this morning arriving in 3 days time!  Hope the weather holds out – it is showing sunny again from tomorrow and I guess even a little bit of rain is going to be better than the UK.

We had a great day with Grant and Dawn on Saturday.  We went up Babadağ – the mountain that stands above Ölüdeniz.  It rises from sea level to just under 6000 feet and it is where the paragliders who land on the beach take off from.  It is supposed to be one of the best jump sites in Europe – and you certainly would have to look hard to get a better view.

Ölüdeniz - the lagoon

The road up is a lot better than last time I went up, though eventually they are hoping to have a cable car going up there.  The last bit is above the tree level – this is where it gets a bit scarey because you can see the drop at the edge of the road – but we went up in a minibus and some people were even going up on scooters!  When you get to the top, the air is clear and clean and the views of Buttefly Valley, Ölüdeniz beach and lagoon, St Nicholas Island and Fethiye Bay with its scattering of islands is spectacular.  There is a cafe up there now and we had breakfast and sat for a couple of hours watching the paragliders take off.  Some make it look very easy, some make your heart jump as they appear to just get off.  The ‘pilots’ who carry passengers are obviously very experienced and know what they are doing.  I remember from when I jumped that they tell you to wait until they say run – and then run.  Some of the passengers are so keen their legs are still ‘running’ long after they have taken off!

Take off!

 We also saw eagles up there which was nice.  They have nests on the mountain and it really looked as though they were showing off their flying skills.  The mountain apparently also has wolves and jackals, though I haven’t ever seen any.  There are some lovely upland pastures – small flat areas among the wooded slopes that the nomadic people use as summer grazing for their animals.  Being that high up, you really feel like you are on top of the world and I would recommend anyone to go up there.  At the end of this month there is the air festival at Ölüdeniz when hundreds of paragliders from all over the world come here to display their skills.  I am looking forward to that. 

breakfast with a view!

Talking of excellence...

Into October and the season is finishing.  The two rooms that came in yesterday are our last arrivals – unless there are any more last minute bookings.  It is early – some years it ticks along through October and there are usually a few rooms in for the last week when there is a half-term holiday in the UK.  But this year, whether due to economic situation, the ridiculous price of flights or what, October is very quiet.

The weather is still glorious – 30 degrees or so in the day and only a little cooler in the evenings.  Even I haven’t worn my jeans or a jumper yet, and only put on a cardigan to go to Dalaman at 3am to collect Grant and Dawn.  They had a bit of a delay on their Thomas Cook flight – not as bad as the Andy, or as bad as the flight they had in March when the plane turned back to Manchester after nearly 2 hours in the air!  There was a rep at the airport greeting customers with a screeched ‘Thomas Cook!  Anyone travelling with Thomas Cook?’ which got rather irritating after half an hour.  I also felt like pointing out that they had all been travelling with Thomas Cook which was why they were two hours late!

They arrived with the usual piles of things for us, including four pairs of trainers I bought from Sports Direct (including two pairs of size 14s for Emre), chocolate for me, cheese for Cem, sliced bread for Emre and doughnuts for Kaan.  The diet starts next week!  It’s funny the things people miss when they live away from home.  I know some people who have heaps of stuff brought over, although it’s possible to buy many things here now as there are shops selling all those things that Brits might be looking for including bacon, sausages, scampi, bisto, marmite, Heinz beans, Weetabix, custard powder and much more.

Turkish people living abroad will miss their favourite dishes.  We have several times travelled to England with ‘food parcels’ of stuffed vine leaves, pastries and other home-made offerings for friends living over there.  It’s OK, but they tend to be large, heavy bags full and you get some funny looks at customs!

The situation on the border with Syria is bad at the moment with Turkish forces shelling in retaliation for attacks by Syria which have killed a number of civilians.  I feel sorry for the people trying to carry on their daily routines in the area and for the troops moved there – some of whom will be young boys doing their National Service.  On a selfish level, I hope it doesn’t affect tourism in Turkey; the border is more than 1,000km away from Fethiye (roughly the same distance as London to Prague) but we know from past experience that the press at home like to talk up any bad press about Turkey.

just another sunset!

 But to finish on a lighter note – I laughed a lot yesterday when I went to my post box and found that we have also received a ‘Certificate of Excellence’ from Trip Advisor (see last post).  This DESPITE the recent bad comment.  So let’s just take a look at this……

Trip Advisor posts comments written by people who could have NOTHING in common with you, who can write a pack of lies which will never be checked, who may never even have stayed at the hotel; the apparently all-knowing but completely unreachable staff at Trip Advisor will pull comments that THEY believe are invented (we experienced this – they weren’t!) while unscrupulous people will demand a free stay or cheap rates at a hotel with the threat of a bad review if they do not get it (I read about that in the newspaper).  Do we think it may have outlived its usefulness?  I am grateful for all the guests who have written lovely things about us and I hope that we can continue to make some people happy on their holiday..... but I rather fancy getting my certificate framed and hanging it in the toilets!