Well,
I know it’s very British to go on about the weather but really at the moment it
is putting on a display of all it’s got. One day it’s 15 degrees and the next
it’s 5 and it’s impossible to know what to wear until you open the door: for a
week I didn’t wear a coat (and I am usually pretty weedy and have been known to
feel cold in August!), then yesterday I had 4 layers, plus a coat, 2 pairs of
socks, a hat and gloves!
We’ve
also had quite a lot of rain since the weekend and the mountains, which had
very little snow compared to normal, now have a very pretty covering –
including Babadag (where the paragliders jump from) and Mendos (the one next to
it).
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| Babadag from the sea front |
On
Sunday and Monday there was a Lodos wind which is notoriously dangerous for
sailors and also caused all flights to Istanbul to be cancelled–over 100
flights over 3 days.
There
is snow forecast over most of central Anatolia for Wednesday when we are supposed
to be driving up to Ankara. The road to
Ankara goes through Afyon where it once took Cem 11 hours to do 5km as a result
of a heavy snowfall. There were other
causes: it was Ramazan and everyone stopped to break fast at sundown, then set
off again at the same time and as most of the busy routes in Turkey seem to go
through Afyon that was a lot of traffic!
There were 5 or 6 of them in the car–he was bringing his cousins down to
Fethiye for Christmas/New Year/end of Ramazan, but Cem was the only
driver. All the small shops ran out of
snacks and drinks and Cem knocked on the door of one of the long-distance buses
and lied that his pregnant wife in the car was dying for a coffee – to get
himself a cup (the intercity buses give drinks and snacks to passengers). Eventually, after being stationary for a
while they all dozed off and woke to find that the traffic jam had cleared and
they were parked in the middle of a dual carriageway!
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| check out the snow in the distance! |
I
do NOT want to end up stuck in a jam like that.
These days the police can actually refuse to allow you to proceed when
the road is bad if you don’t have either chains or snow tyres. We have chains but they are a pain as someone
has to get out of the car and fiddle around to get them on.
Another
thing that the police are hotter on is driving licences. When you arrive from the UK you are allowed
to drive on your UK licence for 6 months, after which you are supposed to apply
for a Turkish licence. This makes me
about 22 years out of date! I have been
asked a couple of times when I have been stopped for other things and I always
say that I come and go a lot but now they are actually checking and fining
people. I have been meaning to get it
done for a few years, what actually put me off was that I thought it would make
sense to change my UK licence to the ‘new’ style (old new – the small one as opposed
to the folded-up sheet I still have), then apply for a Turkish one. However I kept being put off from doing that
by the bit at the bottom of the form that says “It is illegal to apply for a UK
driving licence if you are resident abroad – and punishable by prison sentence,
fine blahblah”!
Also,
being honest, I hate anything official in Turkey as it always involves running
round to numerous offices, getting 10 different stamps and signatures and providing
8 photographs, so imagine my delight that Cem’s partner Mustafa – retired police
chief – is sorting out licences as well as visa applications (and any other
official business – and who better to do it than a man who used to be involved!
Check him, and his good reviews, out on Calis Beach Forum as the Inspector)
I
have handed him a copy of my licence, 3 photos and my ID card and though I will
probably have to turn up at the doctors so he can sign the medical paper, I am
hopeful that I might soon, FINALLY, have a Turkish licence!
