We are nearly at the end of August
and though the heat shows no signs of letting up during the day, the mornings
when I walk the dog are cooler and the shadows longer. The month of fasting – Ramazan – finished
last week with a three-day holiday so there have been quite a few Turkish
people on holiday again.
One of our guests who has been
staying since she was a student (about 6 years ago?) had driven her family from
Ankara to
Kuşadası – 650 km
but approximately 10 hours of driving.
When she arrived she didn’t like the hotel or the place and piled them
all (including ageing mum and dad) back in the car and drove to Poppy – which
would have been another 300
km and 5 hours or so of driving except that she took a
wrong turn and added about 2 hours onto the journey! Needless-to-say they were all a bit frazzled
when they arrived, but it’s nice to know people will go to such lengths to stay
with us!
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| Kaan messing around with new friend Conor |
I have just realized that of 17
rooms currently occupied, 13 of them are returning guests, some on their second
holiday this year! It was very good last
week to welcome Steven and his family to Poppy for the first time. They should have stayed last year but the
demise of holidays4u meant they lost their flights just a short time before they
were due to come. Hopefully it will be their
first but not last stay with us.
We have also had family down from Ankara. I do like to see them but it means I often
come to the hotel at 8am and don’t manage to get home until 10 or 11 at
night. At bayram (the holiday) Cem’s cousin
had bought a whole lamb (for eating – not as a pet). Cem decided they would spit roast it – in the
garden. This involved digging a big hole
for the fire – and burning my cannas during the cooking. Anyway it fed the masses and they seemed to
enjoy it. As a veggie I stayed well away
– stripping the bones for the dog was hard enough and I hope she appreciates
how much I must love her to do it!
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| the lamb being served |
Happily for me, there is lots of
lovely fresh fruit and veg around at the moment and I keep being given produce from people’s
gardens. I came back from a friend’s the
other day with a water melon, a yellow melon, several kilos of assorted peppers
and aubergine and several jars of interesting things they have made out of
their produce (pickles and chutneys). Here
are the stuffed peppers I made yesterday….much prettier than the picture above!
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| stuffed peppers |
It reminded me of the first time I
visited Turkey. My friend Kate and I hired a very small
scooter and went off exploring on it – and got lost. When we stopped to ask the way to a man working
in his fields, he took us to his house so his daughter who spoke some English
could talk to us. We were then taken into
the house for tea and cake and when we left we were presented with not one but THREE
water melons which I put in my little back pack. Sadly, we had to dump two of them just up the
road as I was in danger of falling off the back of the scooter with the extra
weight pulling me down. But we enjoyed
the one that was left and as my first experience of Turkish hospitality it has
stuck in my memory ever since!
