Poppy update

It’s the last day of May and the weather finally feels like summer is here, though Calis is sadly very quiet.  The annual craft fair was on last Sunday and there were some lovely things, but I don’t think business was as brisk as it has been in previous years just because of the reduced number of tourists.

New improved garden - with canna lilies in flower

This month has been alright for us and June is quite busy from the second week on.  It’s a good job it hasn’t been too mad as I have failed miserably at finding any staff and for a large part of the time it’s me – not just in the kitchen and reception as usual but also in the bar, cleaning the pool, watering the garden….!

Grass after 2 weeks

The garden is coming on nicely.  The brickwork around the new drainage channel is finished.  I had some students from the university staying and one of them is studying landscape gardening so I got him to sew the grass seed which has come up amazingly well.  And my flowers are all doing nicely – since I banished the tortoises to the back corner of the garden!  Not before one of them had laid eggs though – see the picture.  They were bigger than I expected and very round and white.  I have put something over them so hopefully we won’t dig them up (she buried them right in the middle of where I want my vegetable patch!) but whether they hatch apparently depends on heat and humidity and can take anything from 8-11 weeks.

tortoise babies!

Emre has been up and down to Ankara, had his last exam yesterday and is driving back with a friend (via Istanbul – not exactly the direct route!) tonight.  Kaan has another two weeks of school for which he is begging me to get a doctor’s report or write a formal request so he doesn’t have to go in.  Actually, as all their exams are finished, the teachers don’t turn up half the time so I don’t think it will make much difference and he is missing the last few days of term as we are going to England.

So…I have been looking for a lady to do my job while I am away but so far have had no luck at all.  I know the wages here aren’t great but some of the British people living out here complain that they can’t find a job that isn’t 15 hours a day in summer and here I am, happy for someone to work 4 hours a day and take time off if they have visitors but it seems there is no one.  Anyone want a job?!

The cleanest pool in Calis!

Poppy opens for another year

So – it’s been a while.  But I am back to announce: Poppy is open for 2016 season – our nineteenth!

It’s been a strange one so far.  Bookings have obviously been affected by the state of the world and bad publicity about Turkey.  In addition, it took us until March to get most of last year’s money from one of the agencies and all that time we were worried that they could go bust and we wouldn’t see it at all.  With this in mind, we held off doing much work on the hotel.

In the last month, though, bookings have picked up a bit and we started what we thought would be a couple of smallish projects which have turned into much larger ones.  They have also been rather last minute ones, so last weekend we had about 12 workmen in the hotel – painters, tilers, a man laying stones in the garden, another checking all the windows and doors – as well as the boys cleaning the newly-grouted pool and the poor cleaners trying to clean and keep everyone out of the rooms they had done!  My job was to feed the masses – and to keep them all in tea (no mean feat with Turkish people!)

One of the major jobs was the garden where enlarging the drainage channel ended up involving a JCB, a lorry-load of stones and another of soil.  It still isn’t finished, or even at the stage where I can do the nice bit of buying some new plants, but it is looking a lot better than it was!

The painting of a few rooms turned into painting of all rooms, plus the outside of the building at ground floor level all the way round.  The painters have been working at night sometimes – at this time of year they are cramming in all the work they can get before the summer building ban puts a stop to it – and they go home.  Ours were all young Kurdish men from the east of Turkey.  We have also had quite a few Syrian workers.

I have had new tables made for the ground floor balconies – and the boys are busy as I write sanding some chairs to go with them.  I have also changed some of the living room sofa-beds which were getting a bit uncomfortable and bought a new settee for the bar (which I am battling Poppy the cat for ownership of!)

And if you want to know what else we have done…..you will have to come and see!

By the way, the weather has been completely mad, switching from hail storms, thunder and lightning to bright sunshine in half an hour.  It always seems to do that as soon as we fill the pool.  The first hardies have actually been into the pool, though you won’t catch me in there until …oh about July!