News from Poppy Apartments

Dreaming of summer

2012-02-15T06:18:00.001-08:00

This is my twentieth winter inFethiye and it is the worst one I have seen. It isn’t so cold any more, but it has rained so much that the groundhardly gets a chance to dry out before it is bucketing down again – and believeme it can chuck it down. Here is thecanal that runs next to our house (the railing is the bridge!) – a local journalist who came out at night toreport on the flood fell up to her neck in one of the side channels and, as thecouncil policeman who was here said ‘almost became the news’; luckily the onlycasualties were her camera and video recorder.

In Ankara last week the weather was extremelycold – minus five or six in the day, minus twenty and below at night! The snow had been there for a few days whenwe arrived and they are good at keeping the main roads open – one of theimportant routes built on a slope even has underground heating. However it isn’t possible for the snow ploughsto get round all the side roads and there are a lot of hills in Ankara, so there was alot of skidding of cars and people.

Tonight in Fethiye there is a stormwarning. The thunder and lightning don’tbother me but the high winds do as you never quite know what is going to comecrashing down. Last week, two solarpanels (large and heavy glass panels) blew off one friend’s roof. A doctor friend of ours once told me that Aand E at the hospital is busiest after storms like this with people who havebeen hit by flying objects or – somewhat stupidly – been blown off roofs whiletrying to fix them. One man even triedto fix his greenhouse during a storm by climbing up on the top and holding outthe nylon sheeting that had come loose; he ended up several fields away! Still, I hope if it is bad tonight it will atleast be like this tomorrow – this is Çalış beach after a storm a couple ofweeks ago – washed clean.

With all this bad weather, I ambeginning to feel like the guests who send mails in the winter saying ‘can’twait for the summer’! We have to sortout plenty of things before we get going for another season – not least findingall new staff. But we are starting toget bookings through – from Hotels4u too now we finally have a contract withthem.

The weather has also been veryfrustrating to some friends of ours who as chairman (lady actually) and deputyof the Fethiye diving federation have been heading a project to sink a boat inone of the bays. This will provideexciting new diving opportunities, as well becoming a habitat for marine life(yes, surprising as it seems, all sorts of sunken vehicles and junk can enrichthe natural environment). They weregiven a decommissioned boat – all 43m of it – by the coast guard but the boatwas in Samsun on the Black Sea Coast. Bringing it here required a tug to pull it(it has no engine) over a journey along the Black Sea, out through the BosforosStraits at İstanbul, into the Marmara Sea, out through the straits at Çanakkaleto the Aegean Sea and all the way down to Fethiye. This is of course an expensive operation –110,000 lira expensive (about £40,000). They worked hard to get contributionsfrom all the diving companies in town, and support from the council and thechamber of commerce to raise this money. Then they were told that because of the size of the ‘load’ (measured asthe total length of the tug plus rope plus boat) they would have to pay extrato be ‘navigated’ through both straits. This they also managed to sort out with the help of contacts (knowingthe right people always helps in Turkey!)

But there’s one thing they can’torganize – and that’s the weather. Firststorms in the Black Seas region delayedthem. Now the boat has got as far asİstanbul but the weather has delayed it there and the tug has gone off to doanother job in the meantime. Hopefullyfor ALL of us, the weather will improve soon and the boat will reach Fethiyeand be prepared for its final journey to the sea floor. I will keep you posted….

FROST in FETHIYE

2012-01-21T04:00:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

The ground floor of our house ismade 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 towarm the walls so that it is still nice when I come down the next morning. We have even been experimenting with cookingin the oven part – here is Cem with a ‘börek’ (type of pie) we made a couple ofweeks ago (learning in the process to be careful not to BURN things in thestove!)

Upstairs, though, is anothermatter. My alarm clock is a flashydigital thing that shows the temperature – hence I know it was 10 degrees in mybedroom last night! Some of you willknow that I feel the cold a lot and will even sometimes be cold in the summermonths when everyone else is wearing shorts and t-shirts – so you can imaginehow many layers I have on at the moment.

Of course it is only on theMediterranean 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 canget away we want to have a couple of days skiing somewhere. If you ask me, that is the only good thingabout weather this cold!

Kaan is 12!

2012-01-14T07:14:00.000-08:00

Yes, it was Kaan’s twelfth birthdaythis week. Can’t believe that my ‘baby’is almost a teenager (there’s something to look forward to – having two stroppyadolescent 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 ofFebruary as he was 11 weeks premature. Here is how he was then….

He is now just over 5feet tall andyou 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 schoolon his bike this week, as the weather has been absolutely awful. We have had storm-force winds, thunder andlightning and a lot of rain – so much that we were having problems dealing withit in the hotel. As we are lower thanthe surrounding plots, we not only get what rains on us but also a lot comingin from those higher areas. The systemthat channels the water round the outside of the pool and into the pool tanksworks alright but there is also some seepage into the pool engine room and whenit was raining hard the small submersible pump couldn’t get rid of the waterfast enough.

Finally on Tuesday Cem bought apetrol-powered pump which can get rid of the water much faster and which willalso keep going during a power-cut – the other thing which has caused usproblems in the past. This winter weseem to have had more power cuts than for the last few years, sometimes lastinga couple of hours. That’s prettyannoying 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 lessthan about 400tl.

Actually, there has been a bit of ascandal 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 thewiliness of the residents, many people – often whole villages – do not pay forelectricity but ‘steal’ it by stringing up illegal lines. To cover their losses in those areas, theelectricity board has been charging us a tax on our bills - maybe only a coupleof lira for a normal household but as it is worked as a percentage of thetotal, it amounts to a lot of money on the huge summer bills at the hotel. I might just about understand it if theelectricity board was still government owned, but it was privatized about 5years ago and I don’t see why we should be penalized for the fact that they cannotdo their job efficiently. One manfinally stood up to them and has taken a case to court so we are hoping that hewins and we will be able to claim back this money.

And it’s not only electricity thatis expensive here…I’ve just seen in National Geographic a comparison of petrolprices from last year – dollars per gallon. Turkey is the leaderIN THE WORLD, at 10.02, UKsecond at 8.39, while in Americathey pay 4 dollars a gallon. Since in Turkey mostthings are delivered by road (there is not much of a rail network), this addsto the cost of all goods. Our meat,chicken and cheese all cost more than in the UKand USA. Electrical goods have always been much moreexpensive 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

2012-01-05T01:54:00.000-08:00

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

Gingerbread house…our construction skills are improvingevery 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 countedevery day to see how many more presents had been added. Emre is REALLY hard to buy things for now andas even he couldn’t think what he wanted for his main present, it has beendelayed! Kaan had a new bicycle – hisfirst full-size one an the first one that has come to him brand new (the down-sideof being the youngest!) He is so takenwith it that he has started cycling to school this week. I went with him on Monday morning and it wasactually lovely cycling along the sea front at 7.30am, calm water, pink skiesand few people around. Let’s see howlong his enthusiasm lasts though!

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

Two fairies for the Christmas tree….Cem’s cousin’s very cutedaughters 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 afantastic holiday season and wish everyone a healthy, happy 2012!

When is a contract not a contract?...

2011-12-06T06:44:00.000-08:00

It’s been a while since I posted a blog. Been busy tidying up the hotel for the winter and even doing some gardening. The weather has been fantastic – chilly at night but beautifully bright and sunny in the day. I wish it could last all winter but people are starting to talk of water shortages and the farmers are starting to complain and I think we are forecast some rain this week.

Now I’d like to update you on our relationship with THE AGENCY. We have a contract with two British holiday companies. We signed a contract with one of them in July, since when they have been slowly but steadily sending bookings through. That’s not the one I want to tell you about!

The other company, as I have reported in this blog, first sent a very young guy who wasn’t authorised to make any major changes and went scuttling off when I gave him the prices for next year. We then had several wasted journeys to their office in Fethiye for ‘appointments’ that they had made and then forgotten (or couldn’t be bothered to stick around for).

Finally, a more senior guy came to the hotel. I gave him the rates I had agreed with the other company, he adjusted the details slightly – pushing low season prices down significantly but keeping the peak season price the same and we signed a contract. Finally, I thought!

But two weeks later I got an e-mail saying this contract could not be activated because their sales price was higher than the other company. When I looked at the two prices for a week’s stay at Poppy at different times through the season it became obvious why – their mark-up is consistently higher and sometimes double that of the other company.

They say they want ‘parity’ – for which read LOWER rates but firstly, I don’t see why we should treat them differently and secondly, we discussed all this already. Currently, after several more e-mails, we haven’t managed to make a new contract. To be honest, as we start the annual winter battle for payment, I am losing the will to sign. So far we have been paid for just over half this summer’s guests. And I doubt that we will manage to get much more until next spring.

And this, by the way, is a company that just had to ask lenders to come up with a rescue package.

Çalış Christmas Fair

Yesterday was the Christmas fair in Çalış. Unlike last year, the weather was glorious and it was packed with both stalls and customers. It has become a great institution here where the Christmas celebrations are few and far between, all thanks to a hard-working group of people who put it together.

mulled wine - yummy!

Sacrifices

2011-11-18T02:56:00.000-08:00

Last week was Kurban Bayramı (Eid al-Adha), the sacrifice festival in the Muslim world. The festival sounds a bit gruesome, and it did use to be characterized by lots of sheep appearing in people’s gardens in the weeks before the festival to be replaced by a lot of bloody carcasses as the butchers worked their way round on the first morning of the holiday. Luckily this happens a lot less now; partly maybe because the price of an animal is so high that many people can no longer afford it, but also because there are now designated areas for the slaughter, as well as less hands-on ways of doing it. You can now, for example, send a text message to the Red Crescent (like the Red Cross), who will deduct the money from your account, have an animal ‘done’ at the abattoir in your name, distribute most of the meat and send you a ‘taster’!

This is the point of the sacrifice – which by the way commemorates Abraham’s readiness to obey God by sacrificing his son İsmail - not to have a big barbecue with your friends, but to give the meat away. Officially you can consume up to a third of the animal, a third can be given to family and friends but at least a third must be given to those in need. This year the Red Crescent sent the meat to the earthquake victims in Van.

This festival is also the time that Muslims make the pilgrimage to Mecca. The ‘duties’ they perform there, which might seem a bit strange if you have heard any of them (throwing stones is one of them) also represent the story of Abraham’s obedience to God. The stone throwing, for example, recalls how he chased away the devil who was trying to tempt him to disobey.

For us, it is a time to visit family and friends. Everyone gets dressed up and the kids are given sweets and money. We always have breakfast with Cem’s mum (after he and the boys have been to the mosque), and visit some of this relatives. That’s about the extent of our celebration – by the evening we were in the bar at the hotel, having some drinks with some friends!

Murat fishing

On the second day we went out on the boat for the afternoon. The weather was lovely. The holiday lasts for four days, and the kids were off school until the Thursday, but two days was enough for me. I am not good at sitting around all day drinking tea and gossiping…even after all this time in Turkey!

Emre fishing

The season ends

2011-11-03T03:21:00.000-07:00

The summer season is over and the beach front in Çalış is quiet, the sunbeds stacked up and many of the restaurants closed. Though the last holiday-makers have left Poppy (and the pool is beginning to take on a green tinge) there is still plenty of activity. Kenny is here for another two weeks, and a few people have moved in for the winter. We also had a couple of guests at the weekend so I suddenly found myself cooking for 10 and more again. Cem did the honours on Saturday night, making meat and peas (doesn’t sound good in English but everyone assures me it’s delicious).

The end of the season brings mixed feelings. Many people are looking forward to having a rest and I have to confess I enjoyed a long lie-in on Tuesday morning. Some are worried that there is not so much to do in winter; I saw an English guy who lives here the other day and he said he is bored already. For others, the hard part of winter is the fact that they are not earning any money and have to make what they have earned over the summer last the next 6 months!

Last week Ölüdeniz held its annual air festival. Thousands of paragliders come to compete in the competition and many more come to give displays of all things aeronautical. We went down there on Saturday and watched a lot of paragliders, some freefallers (who launched with the paragliders from the mountain then baled out), a display of microlight flying and – the best – a hot air balloon. I have wanted to go up in one since I was a child watching them fly over our house. This one was tethered and only went up 15 or 20m but that was a start. I didn’t realise how close the burner is to the basket – making it pretty hot in there. I would still like to have a proper flight, preferably in Cappadocia (the region of Turkey with the weird ‘fairy chimneys’) where the conditions are perfect for it and the landscape worth seeing.

Monday was Halloween…there were a few parties going on in the bars frequented by expats. I remember when Emre was small and I dressed him up and made a pumpkin lantern and everybody thought I was nuts! Even Kaan is too big to dress up properly now – though he did wear one of his scary masks. We also made a good jack o’lantern - and delicious pumpkin soup with the bits we scraped out.....

Van Earthquake

2011-10-27T02:20:00.000-07:00

I’m sure you have all read about the latest earthquake in Turkey. It struck last Sunday in the region of Van on the east side of Turkey. It measured 7.2 and was at a relatively shallow depth of 20km, meaning it caused a huge amount of damage.

Today the death toll stands at over 500 and over 1000 injured, while thousands of buildings have been destroyed and tens of thousands left homeless.

But it is the individual stories in the news that bring tears to my eyes. Although most of them are sad, there are also some amazing stories, like that of the two week old (premature) baby who survived for 3 days in her mother’s arms. Squashed into a small space and holding her daughter to keep her warm, this mother fed her until her milk dried up and then used her own saliva to keep her from dehydrating – a mother’s protective instinct. The baby is doing very well and both will make a full recovery, though who knows what psychological effects this woman will suffer.

Baby Azra

Another one who will wonder if she is lucky or unlucky is the teacher who was stuck for 8 hours in the rubble of the 1999 İzmit earthquake. In Turkey, government employees are often sent to the eastern regions to work and this lady was sent to Van. She was caught again in this earthquake, again trapped under the rubble but again pulled out alive, this time after a day or so.

And then there are the tragic stories of the mother (also a teacher), found dead with her 8-month old son in her arms and buried with him. And the little boy waiting every day by the remains of an apartment block, hoping they will find his mother alive.

I can’t imagine what it feels like to be trapped under steel and concrete for hours, let alone days. Although I have felt lesser earthquakes here, I can’t imagine what it feels like to be in a building that is shaking so much you can’t find your way to the stairs, or make your way down them. I can’t imagine what it feels like to lose everything you own in a few seconds or worse, to be waiting and hoping your family will be pulled out alive.

The rescue operation and aid operations are continuing and also contains good and bad stories. When I watched the people in İstanbul rushing to donate blankets, beds, clothes and other necessities I thought how relatively little many of these people have but how willing they are to donate it to those less fortunate. But one of the army vehicles carrying aid in the area was attacked by terrorists which is disgusting.

I’m off home now to sort out some things for the aid operation. If you would like to help these people, you can log on to www.redcross.org.uk where these is a Turkish Earthquake Appeal.

The end is near

2011-10-17T00:44:00.000-07:00

The weather has reminded us that we are nearing the end of the season by pouring with rain for three days. It started on Sunday with threatening black clouds all day. It didn’t really get going until the evening, about 7 o’clock, when it rained and blew such a gale that the rain was coming down sideways, pushing its way under doors. Monday and Tuesday were pretty miserable but by Wednesday it was clearing up and now it’s beautiful and bright again, a bit over 20 degrees.

Last Saturday I had my first trip on the boat, Suntrap, and my last swim of the year. We went out with the boys and a friend in the afternoon, swimming and fishing just off Red Island where they caught a couple of good-sized ‘palamut’ (mackerel), then going into Aquarium Bay where we moored up for a while. As we came back in to Fethiye it was getting dark and it was so cosy on the boat with the lights on and the lights shining across from the town. Next summer I think people will really enjoy going out for days – and even staying overnight in quiet bays- especially after Cem has made the improvements he is planning to the boat.

I have started giving more lessons and am taking on new students for the winter. Murat laughed the other day when he listened to me give the same lesson to three different sets of students in one day. Actually, I still enjoy it and am happy with the course and the material I have put together over the last few years. The two sets of new students who have started in the last few weeks say they are already feeling more confident than they were with the lessons they have tried before – which is a good sign.

We have also finally had success in making a contract with Hotels4u for next year. After calling us to the office TWICE and not being there, the contracts manager (very apologetic) came to the hotel and made a contract which gets rid of some of the things we were not happy about – particularly the early booking discount.

The hotel is very quiet now, with just a couple of rooms in (and Kenny) and three more arrivals. I have been busy sorting out the photos from this summer (what a job!) and thought I would put on some of the prize ones….

Frank and Andy

2 angels?

Grant's birthday

Jan's birthday - the gang on the balcony

Murat, Nilgün & co ready for the foam party

Happy Birthday 'slim-ed'!

Another 50th!

2011-10-06T03:00:00.000-07:00

So...we had a party to celebrate Paul’s fiftieth birthday last week and it turned out that two other guests had birthdays that day! It was a great night, with belly dancer and the fire show again. Cem was manning the barbecue as usual, I was in the kitchen and Murat and the boys in the bar. Thankfully, all our friends turn up when they can to help – namely Durmus, who is nearly a permanent fixture here, Hakan the boat captain (more about that later) and our friendly taxi driver Veli (known to some as ‘deli Veli’ or ‘mad Veli’), who came along to have a drink with Cem but got stuck in carrying plates and serving drinks!

Here are Verena and Paul cutting their cakes...pity you can't see the pictures on them but they were good ones!

The Peeters family from Netherlands, who have been staying with us for many years, left this week after a busy holiday including jeep safari, boat trip, diving and more. From this weekend, for the first time since early June, the hotel is down to half occupancy and most of the guests are relaxing and enjoying the gorgeous weather (sunny and warm but not scorching). However, rather unusually, we also have three rooms of lads who are here to party. One of them had a bad start to his holiday when the police brought him back on his first night (after rescuing him from wherever he had passed out) and his girlfriend ‘attacked’ him on their second night here. Anyway they have calmed down a bit and the only problem is that they tend to be a bit loud in the early hours when the rest of the hotel is sleeping.

We have a boat! Cem has taken over ownership of a 12m wooden boat set up for day trips. He assures me it will pay for itself next year, but at the moment he is busy planning all the improvements he wants to make to it. It has two cabins, a sundeck and a ‘fly deck’ on the top and is licensed to take up to 12 people on day trips. It is a nice boat, though I have yet to go out on it. Kaan has taken to spending his lunchtimes on it (when it is not out on a trip), ‘hanging out’ with the captain!

And finally, Cem and I were hopping mad yesterday with hotels4u and the agency that represent them here. They called on Tuesday morning and asked us to go to their offices to make next year’s contract. We agreed to go there at 1 – and duly turned up at that time to be told they were waiting for the contract manager to come from Bodrum. We made a new time of 3 and went into Fethiye to have some lunch, during which they called to say it would be better if we made a new appointment for yesterday (Wednesday). We dashed there yesterday at the arranged time of 1 (between my 12o’clock and 2 o’clock lessons), only to be looked at as if we were mad and told the team were visiting hotels in Ovacık.

To me, this shows either a complete lack of respect for us or total incompetency on their part. I am still deciding which, and waiting to see if they come to the hotel as we have refused to go there again!

Kalkan and around

2011-09-26T01:37:00.000-07:00

I got back last night from a couple of days in Kalkan. My sister and brother-in-law have had a two-week holiday there and I went to visit them and have a little break.

Kalkan is a very pretty town about an hour’s drive from Fethiye. It is on the coast and built on the side of a mountain so the view when you come over the last hill is really spectacular. The view from their hotel – situated quite high up the slope – was also breath-taking.

a pool with a view

The town itself is clustered around the harbour, but there has been lots of building in the last few years so there are many villas spread over the hill. They are not all attractive and in some ways it would be nice if it could have remained how it was but nothing can spoil the quaintness of the centre of the town with its old houses crowded onto steep streets and the stunning blue of the bay, interrupted by a couple of islands.

There are many lovely restaurants there and the nicest places to eat are on some of the roof terraces so you make the most of the views. While the menus are a bit more varied and adventurous than most of the restaurants in Çalış, prices are also significantly higher. Even the shops cater for bigger spenders. There is a bag shop selling very exact copies of designer bags which they have made by a factory in İstanbul – the average price being about 300TL. The copy watches are indistinguishable from the real Breitlings and Vacheron Constantin and while the prices are a fraction of the cost of the real ones, there is nothing for a tenner!

I drove to Kalkan on Friday and Kaan came on the bus on Saturday. Having spent two days lying around and eating a lot (sticky toffee pudding was the highlight for me!) we went off exploring yesterday. Demre is a town about 70km east of Kalkan. The drive itself is lovely as the road follows the coast much of the way.

Lycian tombs at Myra

In Demre, we headed for the Lycian remains of Myra. This is currently being excavated by a team from Akdeniz University, but the Lycian rock tombs and the large Roman theatre are worth seeing. In the town itself, there is the church of St Nicholas where his remains were held (he was bishop of the town in the fourth century) until the chaos at the time the Ottomans took over enabled ‘pirates’ from Italy to steal them and take them back to Bari in Italy.

It is still a site for pilgrimages – mainly by Russians (I guess because he is the patron saint of Russia) – and it was quite busy but the frescoes inside are lovely. Outside, this is Kaan adding to a mosaic that is being done by visiting children to raise money for ongoing renovations to the church.

Back to school

2011-09-20T00:21:00.000-07:00

Hooray! Like mothers everywhere I have finally breathed a sigh of relief as the children went back to school yesterday. Not that they really require much entertaining any more…Emre has been officially working in the hotel and Kaan has spent most of his time here enjoying the constant stream of friends and the pool.

For the boys, Poppy is home – the one place they have known all their lives. Sometimes we have lived in, sometimes (as now) out; when they were younger I didn’t spend so much time here and we would mainly visit to use the pool – even renting the hotel to somebody else to run for two years. But it has always been here and their childhood memories will focus around it.

Emre playing in the pool

They have both had accidents here, Emre falling and splitting his chin (first stitches – more traumatic for me than for him) and Kaan burning his hand on a motorbike exhaust, treading on glass (just last month). I knew Emre could swim when, not far off his third birthday, he fell in the pool and by the time I raced over was keeping himself up and heading for the edge. Kaan learned to swim in Poppy pool and though he was initially rather reluctant, once he got the hang of it he was like a little dolphin, spiralling as he swam down to the bottom to pick up coins we threw in for him.

Kaan and his friend (watching the belly dancer!)

Through Poppy, they meet knew people all the time and – one of the things I enjoy about the hotel – a whole range of people that it might be hard to come across in a normal life. This has also definitely helped with their English as they have listened to many different people and many different accents, rather than just me and the few English friends I have here. In these days of facebook, of course it is easier to keep in touch with these people and I often see that the boys are exchanging messages with guests old and new.

But it isn’t all play…Emre has worked the last two years during his summer holiday and even Kaan is willing to lend a hand when needed. We had one complaint on trip advisor this year from guests that they were ‘met by the owner’s son’ (only heard about this as I got so obsessed with trip advisor last year that I haven’t let myself look at it at all this year!). Now personally I don’t see the problem with this; he’s sixteen years old not six, he wasn’t wearing his pyjamas and he’s quite polite and helpful (as apparently another guest pointed out on the site – thankyou for that!) My mother ran a business while I was growing up and I helped out from a young age – willingly as I earned money, but also with a sense of pride. I think it teaches them responsibility, as well as a whole range of skills (from cooking to pool cleaning) which are bound to be useful to them one day.

And there are also perks of the job. They get to go horse riding, diving, on boat trips and to the Turkish bath with guests. So even if I have been pretty busy this summer and not had time to take them away as I usually do, they haven’t really had a bad summer.

Kaan diving

Cem and I actually started in the hotel business running Camelia Apartments in 1996 especially because it would allow us to be together – and with Emre who turned one that summer – more than if he took job and I was at home. And at Poppy that is still true, even if I am a bit relieved now to have a few hours peace while they are at school!

Great balls of fire!

2011-09-13T23:03:00.000-07:00

Just when you think life can’t get any more hectic, it does!

Yılmaz has finished work now so I am now chief cook and bottle washer, as well as all the other jobs I do. The cooking doesn’t bother me, actually I quite enjoy it, but it means I am in from 8am until about 10 or 11 at night which is a long day. Thank goodness we have mostly repeat guests in who are understanding if things take a little longer. Not all though…we had some new arrivals in who complained that they went to reception and there was nobody there to help them. Unfortunately we are not a big enough business to have somebody sat on reception all day, but as all the other guests agreed, it isn’t hard to spot one of us running round in the kitchen or bar and ask for help.

I did have a couple of days off while friends Grant and Dawn were here. We had one lovely day in Kalkan and Patara beach (18km of sand, great waves), and another day we went to Günlüklü beach and Göcek. Günlüklü is named for the trees that grow there, one of the few places in the world where they grow naturally. They are called ‘liquid amber’ trees because of the amber sap they produce which is highly valued in the cosmetics and perfume industry. They also have very pretty bright green leaves and provide great shade and the beach has been tidied up a lot and is a lovely spot now.

Cem in his usual place

The hotel is still full, but now the children have gone back it is noticeably quieter. Until the evening that is when, especially with Frank around, the bar is quite lively. We upset the neighbours the other night and have promised to be more careful about the noise levels. It isn’t the music, so much as the laughter which at least means people are having a good time. Will have to make sure they do it inside the bar with the doors shut after midnight though!

Had a great ‘Turkish night’ last week. We ordered a belly dancer as usual and she was pretty good, though that was partly because she had plenty of enthusiastic guests to work with. But she also brought along an added extra (her other half I think) in the form of our barman of several years ago who goes by the name of Sylvester (can’t even remember his real name) and is now doing fire shows. Now I have to confess that I was very dubious about letting him lose in the bar with lighted missiles, remembering him as quite keen but a bit of a twit and having visions of him hurling his ‘flaming balls’ into the audience, if not setting fire to the bar roof. However I had to eat my words when he put on the best fire show I have EVER seen. He was truly amazing and finished up doing somersaults, still swinging his fire balls. Needless-to-say, guests who had come along were suitable impressed and those who hadn’t because they thought it would be just another belly dancing show were disappointed.

Just goes to show, you never know what will happen at Poppy! It’s nearly 9am now, and I wonder what today will bring…

Holidays and children

2011-08-31T06:47:00.000-07:00

Still busy here, which is why it has taken me so long to get round to writing again. This week is the holiday celebrating the end of Ramazan, the month of fasting, so there are lots of Turkish people on holiday. We had several rooms of guests, some friends and family booked in, but we have had to turn away plenty more who didn’t make a reservation.

Yesterday, Cem took the boys and some of the visitors to the mosque early in the morning (I say early, but actually they were the naughty ones who skidded in just as the prayers were starting!) Then we all went to breakfast at his mum’s house. Traditionally, the younger people visit their elders on the first day of bayram (holiday), drinking tea and eating far too much baklava and chocolate. When the kids were little I used to dread it as by the end of the day they were completely hyperactive, if not being sick!

I had another day off last week when I went diving with Kaan. I am not exactly a reluctant diver – when I do it I really enjoy it – but I find I have to make the effort to go (not to mention finding some of the ‘diving types’ tedious to say the least!) Kaan had done his first dive ever the week before and was so keen that he wanted to do his PADI Open Water course. He did two dives with his instructor, completing exercises like removing his mask underwater.

I dived with beginners, going to a few metres in the morning and about 10 metres on the afternoon dive. As usual, I loved that feeling of being free under the water and was amazed by the beautiful colours of the fish. Still, the effort of getting all that gear on and off means I probably won’t go again for another couple of years! Kaan on the other hand, passed his course and is now a qualified diver and is going again on Friday.

Both the boys are having a ball at the moment, spending their days with the kids in the hotel who have melded into a really great gang, age range from about three to about sixteen and a mixture of English, Turkish and one half Ukrainian (our friends’ son). Here are some pictures of them all messing around in the pool. We are kept busy serving burgers, chips, pancakes with ice cream and brownies; it’s noisy and you hardly dare walk past the pool for fear of getting splashed (if not pushed in); and Emre quite often has several assistants (‘Emre’s Angels’) in the bar. But I’ll miss it when the schools go back!

Today is Murat’s birthday so HAPPY BIRTHDAY MURAT! He doesn’t want a fuss to be made. Ha!...he should know us better than that!

Sight-seeing close to home

2011-08-20T09:19:00.000-07:00

All through the summer I recommend the delights of trips to the ancient cities of Tlos, Xanthos and Cadianda, the gorge at Saklıkent (‘hidden city’), the 18km of sandy beach at Patara and other local delights but it’s nice when I actually manage to grab a day off and go there myself!

Yesterday I decided to have a day out. Emre didn’t want to come (far too cool to hang out with mum now…and has the perfect excuse of being needed more when I am not in the hotel), so it was just Kaan and I. We went to the gorge first. The restaurant in the gorge has been removed since the last time I was there – much better to have all the commercial stuff outside and leave the place itself in its natural state. The fast-flowing water is icy cold – even at this time of year – and wading across the deepest bit (deep enough to wet my shorts) actually hurts my legs. After that, it’s splashing through ankle-deep water for a while but we walked a kilometre or so this time, going through places where the two sides are nearly touching overhead. The limestone sides are polished smooth by the water and Kaan found lots of little caves to climb into. The gorge supposedly goes back 18km into the mountains, but you would need to be a climber (or a mountain goat) to see the further reaches of it.

see how small people are in the bottom!

After returning to the start point, we decided to try the ‘rafting’ that they have been doing there for the last 5 years of so. Rafting is a little misleading as you are in an inflatable ‘ringo’ and though they give you a paddle and instruct you to paddle left if you want to go right – and vice versa – actually you tend to just go round and round whichever way you paddle!

It was fun, but actually more ‘rapid’ than I had expected. They send a guide with you, and though he was a young boy, I was glad to have him along. The biggest thing to be careful of is the large rocks in the shallows, on which it would be very easy to bump your backside. To avoid this, the guide spends a large part of his time yelling ‘lift your bum’ – which we learned to do pretty fast! The water, even further down, is still pretty cold and by the end of the trip (which takes about half an hour), with the cold and bumping, I had lost all feeling in my bum!

tomb at Xanthos (with theatre behind)

We then drove on to Xanthos. This was the largest city of the Lycian Federation, a place with a history going back to at least the eighth century BC. Perched up on the hill-side, with a good view of the surrounding area, you might imagine that it was safe from invaders; in fact twice during its troubled past, the residents chose mass suicide over surrender, once to the Persians and once to Roman Emperor Brutus who attacked with his army when the locals were failing to pay his taxes!

There are archeologists at work on the site at the moment – a combination of French and Turkish I believe. Xanthos has also been made a World Heritage Site (along with nearby Letoon) which must add to its profile in the world of archeology. There are some great mosaics there, which they have mostly covered over for protection, though you get a peak at parts of it….

I am sure they will discover many more pieces and I am looking forward to hearing more about the history of this ancient city. Actually, I could quite fancy doing a bit of digging myself if I had the time, though I’m not sure I have the patience needed to brush away the layers of dirt with a little paint brush!

Banks - grrr!

2011-08-13T06:06:00.000-07:00

Why do banks always seem to conspire against me? I have such trouble using the card issued by my UK bank when I buy things online. Some sites will only take a UK address as the billing address when you choose to pay with visa, others won’t let me put in a UK address for the goods to be sent to (I seldom have things sent directly here as I’ve had so much go astray in the past) and a Turkish billing address. The latest problem is a new security system that requires you to set up a password for use when buying things online. That’s sounds like a good idea, but when I tried to complete the ‘authentification details’ I again fell down at the box that asked for ‘UK postcode of billing address’. Aghhhh!!! I am not the only one living abroad and using a UK bank card so why do these sites not take us into account?

We have been feeling the aftershocks of Aegean flights going bust. Seems that quite a few of our guests had booked flights through them so, to date, we have had 6 cancellations, four rooms whose arrival/departure has changed by a day or two and one ‘no show’. It is frustrating to have rooms free at the end of August; we get no compensation for rooms cancelled although we could have sold those rooms three times over. There is little chance of filling them now as flight prices have soared to £450 and £500 per person! It’s also quite laughable that the companies see an opportunity and double flight prices (due to sudden demand) but e-mail us and suggest we drop our prices so they can fill the rooms. Really, with all the tricks they get up to, I’m amazed that these companies GO bankrupt.

Since most people now book flights and accommodation separately, the companies we deal with are not necessarily aware that people have lost their flights. Guests are obviously having trouble getting through to the companies and I have had one room that the company informed me had cancelled, then mailed me saying did I have a room booked in that name since they didn’t have a record of it and the guests were trying to change their arrival date. Another guest, very strangely, managed to telephone our next-door neighbour, who came over with a message saying they would be two days late! And another rather strange one…guests who arrived last week, booked in for three weeks, said they were actually going to be staying at their sister’s villa and if we would give them some money back for the room they would give us the key and we could let out the room. As we declined to do this, explaining that we haven’t had the money for the room yet and are unlikely to get it for another few months, they left with the key and we haven’t seen them since. Would you do this with a hotel in the UK, I wonder?

Emre

Cem catches a fish

It’s quiet here today as Cem and the boys have taken some guests diving. It will be Kaan’s first time and he has been so excited he has read most of the diving manual already! A little bit late, but here are some photos of the Poppy boat trip we did two weeks ago.

Mrs. Parker looking thoughtful!

Dust and more dust

2011-08-04T06:42:00.000-07:00

So..another holiday company bites the dust. Aegean flights and Holidays4u went into administration yesterday causing more grief to people who had booked holidays with them, as well as hoteliers and many others who will lose money owed to them. Thankfully, this time, we are not one of those as we didn’t work with them, though funnily enough their local agent has been asking us for prices for 2012 for a couple of weeks and I finally got round to e-mailing them yesterday! Guess we won’t now be working together.

Some of the news makes me cross though, even if it doesn’t affect us directly. The Daily Mail says: ‘in the past there have been problems with foreign hotels following the collapse of British travel companies. Some have expected customers to pay again for fear they will not get the money owed to them by the travel company.’ The truth is that we are advised to ask for payment which guests can reclaim in the UK, whereas there is NO organization guaranteeing our money and in most cases we DON’T get paid.

When Goldtrail went bankrupt last year they owed us £2500 for guests who had stayed up to that point. We didn’t actually ask anybody to pay extra for their rooms as they were all due to leave within a couple of days anyway. So far, despite filling in several forms and sending copies of all the bookings I have received nothing. The last letter I got from the administrators said they don’t know how much, if anything, we will get or when it might be paid!

We also have had no money for this year's guests from Hotels4u (different from Holidays4u). They are part of Thomas Cook so I hope there is no chance of them going bust, and I think the problem is again with the local agent who gets paid from the UK and then uses our money for as long as they can get away with it. Seeing as we are now half way through the season, I think it is about time they handed some over.

On a brighter note, it was Emre’s birthday on Tuesday. I can’t believe he is sixteen, though he works hard every day on his teenage attitude! Here he is with his cake in the shape of a laptop which was his present (at least half of it was, the other half he had saved).

The boys also had a lovely time yesterday doing a quad bike safari. A friend of mine bought it as a treat for them and it looks like a great trip, especially for teenagers (though Cem and Murat also seemed to enjoy it). They went up into the forest beyond Poppy and rode through streams and up slopes and even went into an old chromium ore mine, which I have never seen. They came back tired and VERY dusty – reminded me of the old days when Cem was doing jeep safari...

Two great nights

2011-07-26T12:40:00.000-07:00

I had a lovely weekend. On Friday night we had a barbecue at Poppy to which about about 35 people came. Our lovely friends Marja and Saadettin and their son Sami, who live in Finland, are over for a holiday and they came along. After everyone had eaten, it turned into a bit of a disco with 70’s and 80’s music (played by DJ Cem…did you know he really used to be a DJ, both on the local radio and at the local disco?!)

We all ‘let our hair down’ and had a good bop, even Libby who is four, seen here dancing with her mum.

Do you know this man??*

On Saturday night, we had been invited to a wedding. I have been in e-mail contact with Pınar since last year when I started sending articles to Todays Zaman, one of the English language newspapers in Turkey, as she edits the expat page. Her brother was getting married and it was a really international wedding as he has lived in Canada, the States and now lives in Austria. Although I felt as though I knew them both from e-mails, I was really looking forward to meeting them properly.

The wedding was on a boat and we boarded in Fethiye at about 7 o’clock. A bit later, the boat set off and we travelled round to one of the bays, where the bride and groom boarded from a small boat. Their friends had organized some lovely surprises for them, including dance routines and a video where they asked each of the guests to record a message for them. We also let off about 30 Chinese lanterns and some of our guests, who were eating on the beach at Çalış, saw the lanterns going up!

It was a lovely night and we really enjoyed meeting them and sharing their special occasion. We wish Yılmaz and Bahanur all the best or, as they say in Turkish, ‘bir yastıkta kocasınlar’…..‘may they grow old on one pillow’!

The restaurants in Çalış are having very mixed reviews this year. Some that have always been reliable, have been disappointing and in one amazing case, a group of five arriving at a restaurant they had thought they would try for the first time, were met by a waiter who sighed and looked as if it would be such hard work to find a table for them that they changed their minds and went elsewhere! Yet many restaurant owners are complaining that business is poor?!

We have a private boat trip going out from Poppy tomorrow which is always fun…and I get another day off. Hooray!

A week of surprises

2011-07-19T05:13:00.000-07:00

It’s summer, we are full, it’s 40 degrees or so during the day and I seem to have spent the last week sorting out problems. Most of these are the result of errors in agency bookings. It is, of course, easy these days to book your holiday from home and since computers are pretty reliable, people think once they have made the booking and got a confirmation, everything will be fine. What often happens is that they are booking through an internet site, who pass it on to the travel agent, who pass it to their representative out here, who send it on to us….several steps where mistakes can be made.

We already had the guests last month whose booking got through to me for one day later than their actual arrival. When we tried to contact the company they had actually booked through, we found it had already gone out of business!

We have had another couple of rooms arriving the night before we were expecting them but that has been their own mistake in booking; some people don’t realize that if they are arriving at, say 2am on 10^th, it counts as the night of the 9^th. This would be easily sorted if the websites just explained it on the page where people choose the dates for their accommodation. This isn't just a problem at Poppy but is happening all over the place and can result in guests having to wait 12 hours for their room.

Another problem we had this week was a very nice family who arrived on Friday – as expected – but had actually booked two rooms, though we only got a reservation for one. We didn’t have a room free at Poppy until Thursday so the agency offered them a couple of options (moving to Hisarönü, moving to a hotel). In the end, they decided to stay here in the one apartment and they were lucky as a second one unexpectedly became free yesterday.

Transfers have also been rather stressful. Last week, when the bus was 40 minutes late to collect some guests for their return journey, I called the emergency number to check it was on its way and got shouted at by a very unhelpful guy. Other guests had had their flight changed and the transfer company hadn’t been informed; luckily we realized this in advance or they could have missed their flight. And another minibus arrived with four seats free when there were five people waiting to leave! The driver shrugged his shoulders and asked a lady to sit on her husband’s lap, which she did, but I was not impressed.

Altogether, I have started waking up in the night wondering what problems will be awaiting me in the morning. On the bright side, we have a lot of our regular guests in over the next few weeks so I KNOW there will not be any problems with their bookings!

Had a good Turkish night on Sunday with live music and belly dancer. Here are a couple of pix….

Beaches and boat trips

2011-07-09T07:52:00.000-07:00

We had a lovely time at the surf cafe. We were only down there for a couple of hours but it was buzzing the whole time with windsurfers, kite surfers and people taking out small sail boats. Those Çalış winds really ARE good for something!

I took a whole day off in the week and went on a boat trip with Kenny. Those of you who know Poppy know that Kenny is part of the establishment; for anyone returning here, one of the first questions is ‘is Kenny still here?’ – a bit unnecessary as he has been here from May to mid-November for the last seven years (maybe eight – we can neither of us remember!) Also, the apartment we call number 6 is popularly known as ‘next to Kenny’, popularly being the correct term as I am also frequently asked ‘can we have the apartment next to Kenny?’.

Kaan and Kenny on Oasis boat

So how does our Kenny – known as Celal Amca (uncle Jelal) to locals – spend his time here? Again, those of you have been before will know that he spends at least 3 days a week on a boat trip. He always goes with the same boat – Oasis – which is never too crowded and where they always look after him well. He goes on the twelve islands trip twice a week, where he does a lot of swimming and ‘fish-watching’; and Göcek trip on Sunday when he also gets the chance to do a bit of shopping in Göcek market, as well as checking out the yachts in the marina.

Every day is different on the boat and on Wednesday when we went the excitement was one of the boys catching a couple of squid and an octopus (which they put back). I swam a couple of times, but also enjoyed lazing around reading my book, while Kaan (11 years old) and Kenny (70 and a bit years old) entertained each other.

Kenny and Kaan 'fish watching'

On the days when he doesn’t take to the sea, Kenny mostly just takes it easy, goes for strolls about and catches up on his ‘housework’. He knows plenty of people around, including all our regular guests, so he is never short of people to socialize with if he wants to. And when he doesn’t feel like it, he has everything he needs in his room, including television (!) to watch English football and some films on.

His sister and family come out to visit in May and September and he returns reluctantly to the UK in November to see his doctor and have his check-ups; but what a great way to spend your retirement… who wouldn’t choose Çalış over Bradford!

Battering winds and the coming storm

2011-07-02T05:21:00.000-07:00

We have just about recovered from last weekend. The group of students (from Pakistan) and the hen weekend girls kept us on our toes and ate us out of nearly everything in the kitchen! The desserts particularly went down a treat and after they left on Sunday I had to go home to make more brownie, cheesecake and apple pie. With my little helper Kaan of course, who loves doing things in the kitchen.

a few of the students trying our hat collection

The weather has actually been wonderful, relatively cool for this time of year. The breeze is so pleasant that it feels several degrees cooler than it actually is; a couple of guests have been caught out, especially at the beach, getting burned because they didn’t notice how strong the sun was. Anyone who has visited Çalış knows that we usually enjoy the breeze; it keeps us cool on even the hottest days of summer (much more comfortable than Fethiye or Ölüdeniz) and has made Çalış popular for windsurfing, even enabling it to host the Turkey kite-surf championships a couple of years ago.

Yet one of the big travel guides used to describe Çalış as a stretch of sand and shingle beach ‘battered by winds’. Why they want to make one of our selling points sound like a disadvantage I can’t imagine. We might not fit their idea of homely pensions in rustic Turkish villages, but they could at least mention how popular Çalış is with families and older couples who are looking for a laid-back resort with beautiful scenery, stunning sunsets and a bit of Turkish flavour.

The hotel has been quieter this week, a short lull before the storm. We took the opportunity to empty and refill the pool on Sunday/Monday. We do this once or twice over the summer as even with our best care, there is a point at which it is better to empty it, scrub it down and start afresh. The only trouble is that the new water is always freezing when it first goes in. Here is Emre ‘braving’ it while the pool was filling. Doesn’t take long at this time of year to heat up though and at least it stops it getting too hot as some of the pools around do.

Kaan and I went horse riding again. And today we are off to the beach – for the first time this year. Going to go along to the surf café actually so we can enjoy watching some of the surfers being ‘battered by the wind’!

Where's Basil?

2011-06-25T08:03:00.000-07:00

What a week! It started very well with a party last Saturday for Jan’s birthday. The funny thing was that there were TWO other guests in the hotel with birthdays the same day so lots of celebrating and lots of birthday cake. Here is Jan cutting hers.

The fireworks were Cem’s idea. I am a bit paranoid about fireworks and was worried we would set fire to the bar roof. They were fine though and looked very nice. We also sent up a Chinese lantern which took a while to get going but then floated off well. Last year, Cem got obsessed with making Chinese Lanterns from bin bags, straws and birthday cake candles. Some of them flew very well, some of them not so well – at which point Emre would be sent off on his bike to follow it and make sure it didn’t set fire to anything.

Jan, Graham and ‘the gang’ left last night. Sorry to see them go but I know they’ll be back – this year if Jan has her way!

School finished here last week so Turkish families have started arriving on holiday. We have had a couple of rooms in this week, though we have also had to turn some away as we had no availability for last night.

And when I say no availability – even the new roof suite was booked, which meant we spent a lot of this week trying to get it finished! It looks great now, a few finishing touches still to be made but with the bed arriving at about 2pm yesterday and the carpenter still fitting the door at 6pm we were lucky the guests didn’t get here until 2am.

I had actually been dreading yesterday all week. I knew it would be a frantic day as we had four rooms of British guests arriving and a group of 28 students from İstanbul. But I could never have imagined quite how crazy it would be.

First, three of the four agency rooms arrived a night early – having made their booking from the 24^th, not thinking that 2am on 24^th counts as the night of the 23^rd! With a bit of switching of rooms, we were able to take them early. Wouldn’t have wanted to disappoint them as they are here for just three days on a hen weekend! Here they are ready to go out last night; needless-to-say they caused quite a stir round Çalış.

So, that was the start of the day. Mid-morning Kaan called me in one of his little panics, to say there was water pouring out of a pipe in the boiler room. It took a while to locate the pipe and close the valve. Then we had to wait for the plumber. In the afternoon, one of the main fuses blew so there was no electricity to SOME parts of the hotel and we were waiting for the electrician. And finally the carpenter’s circular saw broke down.

It all got fixed, and the guests all arrived (some earlier than planned, and some much later!) But felt a little like Fawlty Towers round here for a while!

Fleeing voters and flying Turks

2011-06-14T02:32:00.000-07:00

We had elections here on Sunday but not the result we would have liked. Note I don’t say ‘the result we hoped for’ because there wasn’t much chance of it happening, but still…The party that has been in power since 2002 won again with close to 50% of the vote. Muğla (our region) is one of only seven in the country where the opposition CHP (Republican People’s Party) won.

The winning party, called the ‘Justice and Development Party’, are politically centre-right and have, admittedly, had a positive effect on the economy. However, though they claim not to be a religious party, many of their members were previously members of an Islamist party and a lot of people are afraid they will undermine the secular nature of Turkish society.

This is why issues such as the wearing of headscarves by students and government workers, to many foreigners a seemingly harmless topic, become the subject of such passion here. One of the latest topics to cause uproar is the plan for censorship of the internet. I am obviously concerned about this too though I don’t know how extensive it will be; what I do know is that it will cause a lot of discussion, protests and demonstrations.

Election day itself is quite a social event here. It is always on a Sunday as schools (and teachers) are used for the elections. I sat outside in the car while Cem’s cousin and a couple of others went in to vote (I was voting at a different place) and watched the people arrive in cars, on scooters, bicycles and on foot, hanging around to chat to friends. There was also some drama as the police had decided it would be a good time to ‘catch up with’ people on their wanted list (we’re not talking bank robbers and murderers, more people with unpaid debts or bounced cheques). We saw one man beat a hasty retreat when he found his name was on the list and one of Cem’s friends was not so lucky and spent the night in the cells.

The good news this week is that we got paid the early booking money. Don’t know whether our threats to head office had any effect but at least it came through.

Better than that, all the guests seem delighted with the newly-decorated apartments. We had a lovely couple staying last week who were booked in for last year – until Goldtrail went bust. They made it to Poppy this year and enjoyed their stay. At the moment we have two ladies, one of whom teaches swimming and says she has seen many, many pools but never one as clean as ours!

We have also had a family from South Africa staying – possibly our furthest-travelled guests. They came partly for the Enduro World Championship leg which was held here last Friday and Saturday. Emre was on duty as a marshal, entrusted with retying the plastic tape when they broke it (often) and waving a flag to attract someone when there was an accident (thankfully not so often). The winners came from Spain, Italy and Finland, with France also doing well but our South African guests, one of whom is a competitor himself, said the overall standard was very high.

There was also a performance by the ‘flying Turk’ (not Cem after a night on the vodka!) The ramps were set up in the marketplace for him to do his acrobatics. See the video below – but don’t try this at home!

Sun sun sun

2011-06-06T09:23:00.000-07:00

The rain has gone and it’s sun sun sun from now on – over 30°C degrees (86°F ) today. It makes doing the laundry much easier as things dry in just a couple of hours. Unfortunately it also makes doing the ironing harder as our press iron is in the room next to the boiler and it feels like taking a sauna. We had a mountain of laundry today as five rooms went home, so I have been doing a bit at a time and coming out for air!

boys and Grant couldn't wait for their dinner

As we move into the busy season, we are having struggles on all sides with agencies. Still no money from the early bookings (due on 15 May). I have sent a mail to their central office saying that we won’t accept the discounted rate as they have broken the contract by not paying on time. No answer yet, but I am not expecting it to be an easy battle.

Another local agency who we have a contract with but who sent exactly NO rooms all last summer, suddenly sent a booking through for two rooms for a time when I cannot accommodate them. This is officially our mistake for not informing them to stop selling for this period, but working with several agencies who are all taking internet bookings (and sometimes cancellations) it is hard to keep them informed of the room availability day by day. I feel under attack as if I don’t want to stop selling early and be left with empty rooms, but if they suddenly take a booking for three rooms that we can’t squeeze in, their answer is always ‘it’s your mistake so you find alternative accommodation and pay the difference’.

We have also experienced a problem we have never had before – again I think resulting from web site sales by small and possibly not very Professional sites. The guests we were expecting on Saturday (booked in with us from 4 June) arrived in the early hours of Saturday morning (the night of 3 June). They had booked from 3 June – written on their booking slip – but the reservation we received was for 4 June. We actually didn’t have a room available and had to put them into the apartments opposite for one night – not a good start to their holiday, though they are settled in here now.

On top of this, we have been having a problem with water pressure which we had never experienced before. Various plumbers and central heating experts were called, all of whom tried something which seemed to fix the problem – until a day or two later when the pressure would drop again. Finally, the maddest repairman in town – who we have to keep fuelled with Efes – came and found the problem…a 2m piece of metal piping linking the boiler to the hot water system was so full of limescale that only a trickle was getting through.

Hooray – heaps of hot water again. Thankyou to our lovely guests who have been so understanding through this small drama. Hello to Richard and Jenny who went home on Sunday (back again in the summer) and Travis who had his 12th birthday here.

Kaan and friends playing together!

Rain doesn’t stop play

2011-05-31T07:02:00.000-07:00

It’s been raining in Fethiye! The weather has been mixed for the last few days, plenty of sunshine but some showers too. Yesterday there were more showers than sun – drizzle actually which is not something we see a lot of here. It was still warm and didn’t really stop guests from doing things – but they did get a bit soggy when they didn’t time it right. As it’s half term week at home there are some families with children out too but the kids don’t seem to care and are in the pool even while it’s raining. It is better today and supposed to get hotter and hotter through the week.

It was unfortunate that the weather was miserable on Saturday morning as that was the day of the fourth Çalış Carnival. Most of the stalls didn’t bother setting up for the exhibition and though the sun came out for the parade in the afternoon, I think quite a few participants and spectators had been put off. Kaan and I made sure we painted a square each in the communal painting as we have each year. Other than that, the best thing was a forestry department helicopter which landed just above the beach (scattering people in every direction as they realized it really was going to land…health and safety at its best!)

painting at the carnival

Saturday was also Grant’s ‘official’ birthday. It isn’t actually his birthday until June but as it’s a big one Dawn thought he would enjoy celebrating it out here. We decorated the bar with the balloons and banners she had brought over – and when he walked in he asked whose birthday it was!! The cake was a masterpiece – with a particularly fetching photo of him balancing a lemon on his nose printed into the icing.

Grant's birthday cake

There was no water in Çalış yesterday. The water board was fixing pipes somewhere and said it would be back on between 5 and 6; actually it was the middle of the night before it came back properly by which time some guests were a little fed up (especially as it had rained most of the day!) and I was seriously stressed.

But everything seems worthwhile at times like this….a guest who arrived at Poppy for the first time a couple of days ago just told me she can’t believe people ‘dare’ (her word) write anything nasty on the internet about us; she loves it here and is going to put on a good recommendation when she gets home. Hopefully Trip Advisor will not start removing our good reviews like they did last year…

Hordes of students and football hooligans

2011-05-23T09:10:00.001-07:00

The news for this week….

Fenerbahçe won the football league here. Everything still hung on the last match which was yesterday evening, so with Cem, the boys and many friends and family supporting Fenerbahçe, there was a lot of excitement round here. Personally I wasn’t bothered - my team is Beşiktaş and I only support them to annoy Cem – but I would rather they are all happy and celebrating than miserable and sulking. Some of you know how seriously they take their football here, and how noisy they are about it. Even the municipal tannoy system crackled into life at the end of the match with the Fenerbahçe march…so apologies to any guests who were hoping for an early night!

It was also noisy for a while on Saturday. As I mentioned last week, Turkish guests are not very good at making reservations and here is a good example. Twenty-six sixteen year old girls and nine teachers on a school trip turned up at about 6pm on Saturday night looking for diner and rooms for the night. That would not be SO unreasonable, except for the fact that they stayed here last year and had our phone number! We sorted the rooms out (including evicting Murat from his room) and then Cem went shopping while Yılmaz and I ran around in the kitchen, but it would have been less stressful if they had just telephoned even a couple of hours before to say they were on their way!

Still plenty of bookings coming in and we are full for middle of June and middle of July. We are now having a struggle with the agency, who sold at 15% discount for all bookings up to start of May (that is 15% off OUR money of course not theirs!), on the basis that they would pay 50% of all those bookings on 15 May. Guess what – they haven’t! It is getting so tiring, calling and visiting (and listening to their stories about what a difficult time THEY are having), that we are considering not working with them. The other agency we have a contract with are – apparently (we have only just started working with them) – much more reliable.

But mostly this week I am happy because Frank and Lorraine are here, Grant and Dawn are here (see photo of Kaan and Grant below) and my sister and brother-in-law are coming tomorrow so I’m giving myself the day off!

Kaan and Grant 'bombing'

.Horse riding and other stuff

2011-05-17T04:44:00.000-07:00

I’ve been busy with my most hated task – checking all 20 rooms to make sure the taps aren’t dripping, the air conditioning works and they have their full complement of cups, plates, saucepans etc. etc. I hate it because it involves running up and down stairs and in and out of rooms until my feet hurt. I hate it because however many lists I make, there is always something you miss first time round. And I hate it because it is a never-ending task…even when I am satisfied that a room is ‘done’, of course light bulbs blow, cups get broken and people walk off with things, meaning that they need checking before each new guest.

This year I added to my job by buying new pillows, pillow protectors, shower curtains, table cloths and bedspreads, all of which had to be distributed/fitted/hung. One day I would like to get a pedometer and see how far I walk just round the hotel; it must be good fitness training! Happily I’m pretty much finished – for now – and the rooms are looking good.

On Sunday I gave myself the afternoon off and went horse riding with Kaan. It was the first time we had been to the place in Çalış. The horses are not big but they were quite lively and seemed happy to be going out. The great thing about it is that you ride right along the edge of the sea – in the water if you want! Kaan was very good - it’s a couple of years since he’s been riding, but he was confident and in control and really looked the part. I will still send people to the lovely stables in Kaya village for a good ride. Their horses are superb and they cater for all levels of riders from beginners to experienced – giving lessons in the school as well as taking people out around the quiet tracks of the village. But the horses in Çalış are fun for a ride along the beach.

Kaan the cowboy

19 May is another holiday here – this time Youth and Sport Festival. The children have 5 days off school and I arrived at the hotel this morning to find we have 7 rooms of guests from Ankara, who seem between them, to have about 25 children! It’s certainly woken the place up, especially as the children were all excited on their first morning and therefore extra noisy.

Actually, there are only 3 weeks left until the school summer holiday begins here – even earlier than usual because of the general election. With Ramazan (the month of fasting) starting at the beginning of August, most Turkish people will be looking to take their holiday in late June or July. Unfortunately, many will be disappointed as hotels are pretty full already for that time and Turkish people are notoriously bad at making reservations (like the 7 rooms who turned up here at 7 last night without a booking). Maybe this year they will learn!

how cute is that - a 2-day old foal (and Kaan of course!)

Weddings

2011-05-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

So…weddings seem to be the theme of the week! I enjoyed watching a few bits of the royal wedding. Being away from it all gives me a strange fondness for ceremony and traditions, though I am sure if lived there I would be sick to death of it. I had to laugh at the comparisons between this wedding and Charles and Diana’s – all of which suggested that the signs from this one were much better. But I don’t remember anyone at the time suggesting that the future for Charles and Di was anything less than wonderful. Then again, I didn’t pay much attention to that one either – I was fourteen at the time and thought she must be mad to be marrying someone SO old!

There are a lot of customs surrounding Turkish weddings. Some of them are no longer in favour – understandable when you learn that weddings traditionally lasted forty days! In villages they still often last three days, starting with the groom going with a group of his relatives to collect the bride from her home!

In towns, the celebrations usually include a henna party the night before the wedding, when the bride celebrates her last night in her parental home with her female relatives. The following evening the wedding ceremony takes place. Both involve a lot of dancing, a very large cake (six or seven tiers is the norm) and a lot of noise from the ‘davul’ (drum) and ‘zurna’ – a flute-type instrument with sounds, to my ear at least, like a large and very angry mosquito. Oh – and when they get really excited they tend to fire shots from guns, supposedly into the air though if there is raki involved too things occasionally end rather badly.

One of the truly amazing things about Turkish weddings, when compared to the UK, is that they are arranged and done in just a few weeks. The wedding we went to last weekend, a very smart affair in Tuana Beach Club with a popular local singer and musicians, was arranged in three weeks! And you don’t have to spend ages thinking what to buy the happy couple because the tradition is to pin gold or money on them so they can go and buy what they need…much more sensible.

Our wedding at Montana Hotel

We had a wedding that was a mixture of English and Turkish – as were the guests. We started with drinks around the pool at Montana Hotel (above Ölüdeniz) where we did the official signing of the register. Tradition says that whoever treads first on the other’s foot at this point will be the ‘boss’ at home. And that was me! We then took over the hotel restaurant for a meal and – of course – a lot of dancing. The belly dancer was a nice change for the English guests!

Fethiye is now a popular place for weddings, with the lagoon at Ölüdeniz and weddings aboard gulets being particularly favoured. I recently investigated wedding options for a friend, including a hotel wedding in Çalış, a beach wedding at Ölüdeniz and a gulet wedding. The prices varied a lot and some of the people involved seemed to me to be charging a bit more than necessary but it’s certainly still possible to have a lovely wedding here at a reasonable price.

We even held a wedding at Poppy a few years ago for our neighbour’s son. A friend who does wedding organization did the decorations and we did the rest. Now if we could just have a pool that converted to a dance floor….!

Poppy decorated for a wedding

A host of celebrations

2011-04-25T06:09:00.000-07:00

It’s been rather a hectic week. Apart from still trying to finish things off at the hotel, 23 April is Children’s Day in Turkey. It is celebrated everywhere with fantastic dance and gymnastic displays for which the children (and teachers) spend months preparing. Kaan’s school go even further and organize an International Children’s Dance Festival.

The day was designated Children’s Festival in 1927 with the aim of celebrating children as the future of the nation. The date is significant because it commemorates the first day the Turkish Grand National Assembly met in 1920 as they struggled to establish the new republic against the Allies who were happily dividing up the land that is now Turkey! Atatürk, the first Prime Minister of the new Republic, dedicated the date to the children who would be the protectors of its freedom. The actual name of the holiday is National Sovereignty and Children’s Festival.

To support this, one of the traditions of Children’s Day is for children to take over top official roles for the day and give their ideas and wishes. It has also always been the aim to make it an international holiday and many children from other countries are invited to take part in the celebrations.

Kaan’s school have about 500 children visiting from 12 countries. They come from places as diverse as Russia and Indonesia and spend the week being taken out and entertained, as well as entertaining with their dancing. Last night was the actual competition and the Indonesian group won for the second year, but it is lovely just to see all the different costumes and the different styles of dance.

One of the dancers from Kazakistan

Some of the groups stay in hotels and some stay with families; we have a 10-year old Lithuanian boy who endured a 3-day coach journey to get here and has the same to face going home this week. He is quiet and polite but speaks good English for a 10 year old and after the first night, when he spoke with his mum and was a bit teary, he has been fine!

Kaan and his friend

In addition to all this, we had a big wedding to go to on Saturday. Some of you might have seen the Cem’s pictures of the bridal car which he organized and drove – nothing sleek and elegant of course but a huge, mean Dodge Ram pick up! The groom was delighted but I think the bride must have struggled to climb into it in her gown.
Then, of course, it was Easter weekend, which doesn't get a lot of attention here except among the ex-pats but we did celebrate with a few (specially brought over) chocolate eggs.

And finally, though it didn’t focus in our activities, 23 April is also St George’s Day and here are a couple of facts that amazed me when I discovered them. Firstly, St George is in no way exclusively English and is actually the patron saint of quite a list lot of countries – including Lithuania; and secondly, though there are various accounts of his life, he appears to have come from Cappadocia in Turkey!

2011 season has opened at Poppy

2011-04-17T06:51:00.001-07:00

2011 season’s first guests arrived yesterday and it has been a bit of a rush to get things ready. We still have the painters in and a lot of cleaning up to do but the front of the hotel looks great now the scaffold has come down and the pool is full.

Poppy Apartments 2011 new look

Actually it always seems to turn into a race to get ready in time. The year we built the hotel our very first guests were arriving in the middle of May and with just a few days to go, there was no paving round the pool and no steps up to the bar. Last year, we were still in the midst of stripping all the furniture and repainting it when we got a last minute reservation for a group of four rooms. Not wanting to turn it down, we ran around sorting out rooms and tidying up the common areas, only to have the dust cloud prevent them from coming.

In Turkey it is quite normal to leave things until the last minute. There is a Turkish proverb which says ‘don’t roll your trouser leg up until you see the stream’! I have tried really hard to think of an English equivalent but can’t come up with one; ours tend to lean more towards the ‘a stitch in time saves nine’ and ‘don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today’ philosophy!

I have to say it is one of the things that I have struggled to adjust too. I don’t get as stressed as I used to but I am still the sort of girl who would rather roll my trouser leg up if I know the stream is up ahead – even if it is still a way away!

I got excited this week when I got a letter from the accountants dealing with the demise of Goldtrail. I thought that there might actually be a pay out coming as I recently received £88 from the travel trust to cover the few nights for guests who were in at the time they went into administration. No such luck, though. Nine months after I put my claim in they have sent a letter acknowledging our claim of £2330 but saying they could not yet give any information about how much of that we are likely to receive – or when.

It would have come in very handy at the moment with the cost of the work on the hotel. As with most jobs, once you start it tends to grow so that you are doing – and spending – more than you anticipated. And we are still chasing money from the agency for last year’s guests. Since the bottle of Jack Daniels and promise to pay all in February they have been very hard to pin down….

….patience is a virtue, particularly in Turkey!

wedding anniversary last week spent waiting for electric board!

Fethiye Museum and the British Museum

2011-04-09T07:39:00.000-07:00

Work on the hotel is progressing – slowly. The outside has been painted – in parts; other bits are still the old yellowish colour. I was so impressed when the painters arrived and the first thing they did was to put up a professional-looking scaffold. However I haven’t seen them use it since; it seems they prefer to hang off balconies or the roof reaching as far as they can – and then a bit more. I wonder if our insurance covers industrial accidents!

Kaan and I finally went to check out the refurbished Fethiye Museum last week. It’s not very big and doesn’t take long to look around but the pieces are quite well displayed now. There are a few statues and carved panels; one of the most significant pieces is a mosaic floor from the Temple of Apollo at Letoon which shows the symbols of Apollo – a bow and arrow and a lyre. The rest is mostly small pots, coins and jewellery.

The most amazing thing, for me, is the age of the things there; it starts with a cabinet of late Bronze Age items some of which date from 3000 BC! Most of the things belonged to the Lycian people who lived in this area from that time until about the sixth century AD. Letoon, where the mosaic was found, was the spiritual centre of Lycia but other important settlements include Tlos, Xanthos (jeep safaris usually visit these), Cadianda and Telmessos, which was located where Fethiye is today and is still visible in the form of the amphitheatre and rock tombs.

One of the interesting things about Lycia and its people is that it represents the first example of a democratic federation. Each settlement was a self-governing city-state but joined together in the Lycian League to organize trade between cities and defence of the area. Free male citizens of each city elected their representatives on the League’s Assembly whose number depended on the size of the city. Another interesting fact is the number of important leaders who came to Lycia, including Alexander the Great and the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who built huge grain stores at Patara during his stay there.

You can see the remains of these and many other features of Lycia during a visit to Fethiye. Actually, you can visit some of it without even coming to Fethiye as there are some large pieces in the British Museum. Years ago, after Cem had spent the summer showing jeep safari customers the Harpy Tomb at Xanthos, we visited the British Museum. When we got to the Xanthian room and he saw the real tomb (the one on site is a copy) he got – understandably – a little worked up and we left the museum shortly afterwards! During a visit to the area in 1838, Charles Fellows sent 70 crates of artefacts back to the British Museum and while I don’t dispute his work in uncovering some of these things and making sure they were preserved, I think it is time most of them were returned here, to be displayed in the Fethiye museum!

Blackpool and Fethiye are shaking!

2011-04-01T08:37:00.000-07:00

How weird is this? I was hiding in reception because tiles were being lowered from the roof and rather a lot seemed to be falling out of the bucket, threatening to cause serious damage to anyone who happened to be walking underneath. I was checking the newspapers and had just read that Blackpool experienced an earthquake at 3.30 this morning. Now some of you will know that Blackpool is the home of some dear friends of ours – so I was just trying to open MSN to ask Grant if he had been jumping around at that time, when I felt the table shake and realised we were having an earthquake!

It’s not so unusual here, but it has been several months since I felt the last one. We checked on the Government site where the details are published almost immediately, and it registered 6.3 in strength but the centre was 12km deep under the sea off Rhodes.

Living here, you get quite used to feeling quakes, and quite good at judging how big they are. Sometimes it seems as though your chair or bed has suddenly become wobbly, sometimes it feels as if you’ve had one too many drinks and your head is spinning. But the thing to remember is that these relatively small and frequent tremors are good; they show that the plates are moving and not building up pressure for a big quake.

Since the big earthquake near İstanbul in 1999, some Turks have shown a tendency to panic at the slightest hint of an earthquake. I don’t imagine it was reported in the UK, but over here the newspapers were full of how the only person to jump out of a window during the terrible earthquake in Japan was a Turkish guy living near Tokyo; he jumped out once, went back inside, felt the second quake and jumped out AGAIN! The newspapers explained it with this phrase: ‘Even in Japan, a Turk is still a Turk’!

However, at Poppy I am pleased to report that nobody jumped out of any windows and even the guy who was sitting on the roof at the time (of course with no safety line – this it Turkey!) looked very puzzled when we told him to take care. I have also been up on the roof in the last couple of days – not exactly sitting on it, as the workers do, but poking my head through it to get an idea of the view from the soon-to-be-there balcony of the brand new roof apartment. It is going to be great up there; you can even get a glimpse of the sea in a couple of places!

Other work is progressing, never quite as quickly as I hope but perhaps that is because I’m too impatient. And that just goes to show that even in Turkey, a Brit is still a Brit!!

(By the way I am having some trouble posting blogs since blogspot has been banned in Turkey; please bear with me!)

Building work continues

2011-03-27T06:48:00.000-07:00

We spent all yesterday choosing a colour to paint the hotel. Actually, we started looking at paint catalogues a few weeks ago and had sort of decided on one colour, but I was having second thoughts. It is very hard to look at a small splodge of colour on a paint catalogue and imagine what that will look like transferred to an enormous building. I know, because twice I have chosen a colour I thought would look good – and been disappointed.

Turkey hasn’t yet expanded to tester pots for the indecisive (I have two pots of paint bought and then rejected when we were painting our bedroom recently!) Still, we drove the builder so mad pouring over endless catalogues that he bought the smallest available tins of several colours for us to try. In the end, the one we had sort of decided on a few weeks ago seems to be what we are going for and Cem and I both like it at the moment; but then again we have only tried it on a two metre square section of wall and there is quite a lot to go..!

The plumber has finished work in the rooms and the bathrooms have all been re-grouted. He is now crawling around in loft spaces to change the direction of flow or drain pipes so we can get rid of the unsightly down pipes on the front of the building. Yesterday I thought we should all be wearing hard hats as when he dismantled bits of it, they would come crashing down from above with no warning. But of course this is Turkey and there are no health and safety bullies around!

what a mess!

There are plasterers working away all over the hotel and even the garden has had a shake up – literally as it has been ploughed up prior to reseeding with something called mouse ear (don’t somehow think that is the botanical name) which doesn’t need mowing. Cem, Yılmaz, Murat and various friends are doing their bit to add to the noise, mess and general chaos by sanding the furniture that missed their attentions last year. Some of you know what a huge job that turned into last year. Luckily there are only three rooms left to do.

the dream team (Cem and Kaan)

So…any of you coming back for a repeat stay this year will see the new improved Poppy Apartments!

The other thing that we are working on at the moment – all be it more quietly - is finding staff. This is no easy task. Yılmaz and Elif will be here for their third year, cooking and cleaning respectively, but we have to find another cleaner (last year I had a frantic call from Cem while I was in London saying HE was cleaning rooms) and a new barman as Cengiz is going to do his national service. By the way, for those of you who know him, he has cut his hair in preparation and I didn’t recognize him!

Finding staff here is no easy matter. In the past, we have made some mistakes – partly due to desperation – hiring both Turkish people AND a couple of English people that have not worked out well (that’s the nice way of putting it), so we are a bit more choosy now. We have had two ladies come to see us about the cleaning job; one lives an hour and a half away by bus and the other has never worked before and hadn’t even told her husband she was applying for a job. Needless to say, we are still looking….

Plumbers and headaches

2011-03-19T05:15:00.000-07:00

Finally…work has started on the hotel. We have had to decide what is urgent and what can be put off until next year as, despite our dire threats of not taking their guests this year and the resultant apologies (and bottle of Jack Daniels forwarded to Cem), we have still not received the remainder of the money from one of the agencies for last year’s guests. They are supposed to pay 50% of the money for this year’s advance bookings in May, but that seems increasingly unlikely. What seems almost certain is that we will start the season with another big dispute with them, sitting in their office explaining that it is hard to pay electric bills, wages etc. when there is no money coming in. We also make threats to leave the next arrivals at the gate, but the trouble is they know these threats are empty as we don’t want to ruin anybody’s holiday. So they have us over a barrel really.

Anyway, there is very nice young plumber in the hotel, quietly and efficiently going round each room fixing the many leaks and drips. Since we built the hotel, the most persistent problems have been of the plumbing variety. Part of the problem is poor quality materials – pipes that with no warning split and turn rooms into paddling pools, not to mention a strange toilet-flush system that relies crucially on a piece of string. If the string is too long, the toilet doesn’t flush properly; too short and the reservoir never closes off and the water runs continuously. It’s not enough to get them the right length as each time you pull it, the nylon thread slips slightly and will eventually be too long again. Who invented this system?

Another problem is the workmanship. If I ever build anything again, I will take most care choosing the plumber. The one we used when building the hotel fancied himself as a bit of an artist and designed pipe connections to rival spaghetti junction for the number of bends and turns they take. Perhaps he ordered too many pipes and felt he needed to get them all in somewhere, I don’t know. Anyway, I don’t need to detail the result of these bends on the free flow of water through the pipes. Suffice it to say that we are now aware of the various ‘black spots’ in the plumbing system and leave easy access to these points.

Tuesday was Cem’s birthday. We didn’t make a big deal of it, but we had a couple of friends round for dinner and some drinks. Entertainment was in the form of the boys’ wii – and it’s amazing how grown men are happy to look ridiculous spinning imaginary hula hoops, or flying – in bird form – between imaginary perches, as long as there is enough vodka involved.

Cem celebrating his birthday

I had a couple of glasses of red wine, but not enough to deserve the fuzzy head I had yesterday morning. It wasn’t aided by the fact that the whole world seemed determined to make a lot of noise – starting with the hotel opposite us whose generator was working at full volume, and the building site next door which had a very large digger delivered - toe-curling screeches as it drove down off the lorry, then the drone of it digging out the foundations for walls.

I went to the hotel to give a lesson and the marble men turned up to polish the travertine round the pool. This involves a machine which looks a bit like those that polish floors in schools and hospitals, but grinds the top layer off the marble – you can imagine the noise that makes. To top it all, the plumber decided to tackle the room with the biggest problem, which involved breaking the wall with an angle grinder.

Oh well – it will all be worth it if the plumbing problems are sorted!

Seasonal Adjustments

2011-03-11T07:15:00.000-08:00

Sometimes guests have asked me, looking at the seemingly endless days of sunshine, if I don’t ‘miss the seasons’. Actually, there is much more variation through the year here than most people experience at home.

Firstly the weather. I won’t go into it much (I seem to mention it a lot!) but the summer sunshine definitely does NOT last all year round. The two worst months of January and February are out of the way and as usual I was amazed that as soon as we get into March, spring is in the air and the sun seems to be warmer. Still, there is some rain and it poured down so hard while I was at the market on Sunday that everyone was marooned under the canopies. These are not, however, are guarantee of staying dry since the water builds up on top of them until it reaches some crucial point and then empties itself in a bucket load – splat – not good if you are standing under that point!

With the spring weather, the whole world seems to come alive again. The Poppy tortoises were out the other day – three of them, still covered in dirt (they dig themselves underground to hibernate), playing chase round the garden with a view to making up for lost time! Soon the martins will be here again – their fourteenth year – to raise more babies and leave their messages all down the front wall (and on Kenny’s window sill!)

A trip to the market also reminds you what time of year it is as many things are seasonal. At the moment oranges are plentiful and cheap, but strawberries will be around soon and then the wonderful cherries. Even some fish are seasonal so ‘hamsi’ (sardines), which are very popular here, are only good for a few months in winter and you must have those from the Black Sea as they are (apparently) the best.

But the biggest difference, or course, is due to tourism. Through the winter everywhere is quiet and I can walk the dog on the beach and not pass another person. Soon, the beach will be full of sunbeds, umbrellas and frying bodies.

As we count the weeks until the season opens, many businesses have started repairs and improvements; builders are racing to get houses finished before the building ban comes into effect and everyone is getting ready for some hard work (and looking forward to earning money again). We also all start talking about what sort of a season it will be, and how things like the price of fuel and unrest in Egypt will affect bookings.

I have this to say… we have never before had so many reservations at this time of year. So, barring any more volcanic clouds or bankrupt tour operators, fingers crossed it is going to be a good year.


waves at the beach last week

Wonder-full Turkey

2011-03-01T05:24:00.000-08:00

While we were in İstanbul, we went to the military museum and were lucky enough to see the Mehter performing. If you don’t know – and I didn’t even after 18 years in Turkey -the Mehter was the Ottoman military band. They marched into war alongside the army serving the dual purpose of rallying their own troops and striking fear into the enemy.

The current band, who give performances all over the world, are extremely smart and their marches really are rousing with their combination of percussion and the plaintive oboe-like zurna. But what really struck me is the fact that they were probably the FIRST military marching band in the world. The Mehter terrified the Crusaders who travelled through Ottoman lands and supported the Ottoman forces as they marched through Europe right up to Vienna. In this way, the idea for military bands was born in other countries.


part of the Mehter band

What’s more, the music of the Mehter – rousing songs and marches written especially for them – was also much admired, and its form was copied by both Mozart and Beethoven. So why have we never heard about them?

Wondering this made me remember that there are actually a whole host of things that Turkey SHOULD be famous for…but isn’t. Here are some of them…

The oldest urban settlement in the world is at Çatalhöyük in Anatolian Turkey, the site of a thriving, planned city nearly 9,000 years ago. The oldest shipwreck was found in 1982 at Kaş – just along the coast from here. It is a late Bronze Age merchant boat with a cargo that included copper, tin, glass, olives and trinkets like tortoise shells and ostrich eggs.

You probably know that the city of Troy, which the Greeks supposedly infiltrated with the help of their Trojan Horse, is in Turkey. Some of you will have seen our own Trojan Horse at Poppy – a winning entry in the Çalış Carnival Parade two years ago. But did you know that Caesar uttered those famous words ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’ here after victory over tribes in the Black Sea area? Or that Noah’s ark is thought to have come to rest as the floods subsided on Mount Ararat in north east Turkey?

Yılmaz and our Trojan horse

Turkey was the birthplace of historic legends like Aesop, Homer, King Midas (of the golden touch) and the apostle Saint Paul, while Cleopatra and Alexander the Great came through here on their travels. By the way, legend has it that Alexander the Great and his men conquered the town of Telmessos (modern Fethiye) by coming ashore disguised as musicians, with their weapons hidden in flute boxes.

Turkey has an estimated 9000 species of flowers, compared to 11,500 in the whole of Europe. Tulips are native to Turkey and it is said that the Turkish sultan sent them as a gift to Holland. It is also suggested that tomatoes and cherries originated here.

Altogether, though I have been raving about İstanbul and what a unique city it is, the same can really be said for the whole of Turkey. It is a country with so much to see and so much to offer and, though I understand that many of the visitors choose it because it is ‘good value’, I hope when they are here they take a little time to look around and see some of the wonders it has to offer!

The sights of İstanbul

2011-02-22T05:47:00.000-08:00

So – getting back to İstanbul – there is so much to see and do it is hard to know where to begin. But the city is divided naturally into sections so it is best to focus on one area in a day; this is what we did.

The historical heart of İstanbul is on the European side, south of the Golden Horn waterway. Topkapı Palace was the home of the Sultans from 1465 until the nineteenth century. It was home to up to 4,000 people and contained mosques, schools, a hospital and workshops, as well as a 400-room harem. The ‘crown jewels’ are on display there – including thrones made of solid gold and an 86 carat diamond.

the gateway to Topkapı palace

Right next to this is Ayasofya, the stunning church which later became a mosque and is now a museum. Finished in 537 on the site of two older churches, it was the largest cathedral in the world for nearly a thousand years. The dome, which is 55 metres above the floor and not supported by any columns, was one of the most ambitious structures of its time. Although various earthquakes have caused the dome to collapse, it has always been rebuilt and still stands almost 1500 years later!


Ayasofya

Just along the street from Ayasofya is the entrance to the Yerebatan Sarnacı – an underground water cistern open to the public. What is so amazing about a water cistern you might ask? This one was built in the sixth century under the command of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian. It contains 336 marble columns, brought water from 19km away for use at the Byzantine palace and later at Topkapı and can hold up to 80,000 tons of water. Bet you’re impressed now!

That’s another thing that makes İstanbul so unique – the histories of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires converge here to make everything bigger and grander. One of the stories I love is that of Sultan Mehmet – known as The Conqueror – and how he took Constantinople from the Byzantines. His Ottoman troops put the city under siege from across the Golden Horn, but they couldn’t access it by boat as the Byzantines had put a boom across the entrance to the waterway. His solution? To build a road of greased logs and make his men carry the ships and boats – estimated to be about 80 in number – over land! After his victory Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror made the city the capital of the Ottoman Empire and had Topkapı Palace built as the home of the Sultans there.

Another place worth a visit in Istanbul, and one that gives you a view over the site of all this turbulent history, is the Galata Tower. Itself built in 1348, it is situated on the European shore but north of the Golden Horn, looking across towards Topkapı and Ayasofya. I have to admit to having an attack of vertigo when I stepped out onto the parapet – but the walkway IS 51 metres above the ground with only a waist-high wall around it. Not wanting to miss out, I made a slow and very tentative tour of the whole walkway and then disappeared inside. Luckily, Cem took the time to take some photos!

view from Galata Tower

İSTANBUL!

2011-02-14T09:53:00.000-08:00

I have been feeling very ashamed that the boys have visited London many times and know most of its major sights but had yet to see İstanbul. We decided it was time to correct this and took a night bus from Ankara to İstanbul on Thursday. I haven’t been on a bus in the Uk for a long time but I suspect that the bus system here is rather superior. Our journey was just 5 hours on a bus with wide, reclining seats (only 3 in each row) and a television for each passenger, a half-hour stop and a change of driver.

In the three days we have been here, we have managed to cram a lot in. I visited İstanbul myself about 17 years ago and I enjoyed it but I can’t believe now what a relatively mild impression it made on me. Possibly it was because I had just returned from visiting southern Africa and had cultural ‘overload’, or perhaps it was because I was on my way to spend a summer in Fethiye and decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my life; whatever the reason, I managed to forget a lot of it. Now, I am completely wowed by the city and am going to recommend everyone to visit!

What has so amazed me? Firstly, the layout of the city. You can look at a map and see that it is divided by the Bosphorous into two halves popularly referred to as the European side and Asian side (Turks prefer Anatolian); but until you are here it is hard to appreciate the importance of this. The Bosphoros is a strait that joins the Black Sea to the Marmara Sea (which opens into the Aegean), with a width of up to 3km and incredibly strong currents. It makes the Thames look like a little stream! Tankers and container ships queue up, their shapes looming in the distance, waiting for permission to pass through with oil from Russia or Chinese goods coming in to the docks in İstanbul. Add to this the numerous ‘vapur’ or ferries carrying people and cars across the strait and out to the islands, cruise boats giving people the waterfront tour of İstanbul and many little fishing boats buzzing amongst them and you will start to understand what a busy waterway this is.


Kaan on the ferry

The ferries are a piece of İstanbul culture, the standard journey to work for many people but also great fun for us tourists (you couldn’t say the same about the London underground!). You leave one side of the city (nominally one continent!) and cross to the other, getting a great view of the such sights as the Dolmabahçe Palace, Haydarpaşa Station and Aya Sofia. You can get a glass of tea from the çaycı to warm you up and if you stand outside you can throw bread for the seagulls whose aerobatic skills are stunning – they caught every piece the boys threw in midair!

The other thing about its position straddling the water is that the mega city of İstanbul, ‘the largest metropolitan city proper in Europe’ (Wikipedia) has districts near the centre that resemble small seaside towns in character. Places like Bebek and Tarabya along the European shore, have the boats, the fish mongers and the water-front promenade. In addition, they are full of traditional wooden buildings – very quaint and very beautiful, though I guess very expensive too!

I will save the other delights for my next blog as I have to start packing to leave but it is safe to say I will make sure it’s not 17 years before I return!

Galata bridge and Tower

Beypazarı and baklava with 80 layers

2011-02-09T03:48:00.000-08:00

Every year in the school holidays we come to Ankara to visit Cem’s cousins here. The journey takes about 7 hours – it’s about 500km – and last Thursday when we drove up here we were worried the roads would be icy. Actually, the only thing that was icy was the inside of our borrowed minibus, as we found out after we’d left that the heating system didn’t work properly. Kaan was sat at the back bundled up in his coat and woolly hat!

On Sunday we loaded ALL the family – including mum, auntie, cousins and children into the minibus and went to Beypazarı, a town about an hour’s drive from Ankara. It often seems to me that every town in Turkey is famous for something – usually a food item that is grown there, or a dish that is peculiar to there; so for example, everyone who drives through Afyon buys ‘sucuk’ (spicy sausage) and if you go to Çorum you must try the ‘leblebe’ (chick peas). Beypazarı goes further and is famous for a whole range of things.

Beypazarı

Firstly, carrots. We drove into town and were met by an enormous, rather dubious-looking model carrot. The shops sell carrot juice, carrot jam and carrot ‘sausage’ (actually a sweet sticky confection). The town is also famous for a type of dry crisp bread that is bought as fast as the bakeries can get it out of the oven.

Beypazarı’s stuffed vine leaves are a speciality, due apparently to the high quality and sharp taste of the leaves growing there. We bought a total of about 5kg and Cem (helped by the rest of us) ate about another kilo standing in the shop. The shopkeeper actively encouraged this, giving us one of the pans of vine leaves to finish off and ordering in tea to wash them down with. Don’t you just love Turkey?!

We finished off the ‘meal’ with dessert in the form of baklava. Though you can, of course, find baklava all over Turkey and neighbouring countries, Beypazarı’s apparently beats them all by having 80 layers of pastry. I am not a big fan of baklava but this was lovely, with plenty of walnuts, not too much syrup and light despite the many layers.

The old town of Beypazarı is made up of distinctive wooden houses. Many of them have been renovated, some turned into small hotels, and we visited one that has been made into a ‘living museum’. Apart from the house itself, which was laid out and furnished as it would have been in the mid-nineteenth century when it was built, they had traditional crafts and activities in each room.

doing ebru - or paper marbling

I had a go at ‘ebru’ – the Turkish art of ‘marbling’ paper by sprinkling paints into a trough of water mixed with gum, swirling them together, then putting the paper on the top so it picks up the floating paint. You can see my effort below- but go on the internet to see how stunning it can be!

my first attempt at ebru

Cem went for a different ‘art’ – that of lead pouring. This is an old tradition where lead is heated over a flame and poured into water. It is said to banish evil spirits, while the shape the hardened lead takes allows the pourer to tell your future. The picture below shows it being done (Cem is under the sheet) but unlike with my ebru, we will have to wait to see the results!

Cem having lead poured

School holidays

2011-02-03T01:06:00.000-08:00

The school holiday has begun. In Turkey there are just two terms to the school year – the first from September until mid-January and the second from February until mid-June. The children have a two week holiday now between these two mega-terms. It means that, though they have three months summer holiday, they don’t have any more holiday overall than schools in the UK. But those long terms…the years I have been teaching in school or college I have been nearly on my knees by the time the holiday came and even the students get very jaded and in need of a break.

All the students in Turkey, from year 1 of primary to year 4 of high school get their school report on the last day of each term. Kaan is in primary school where teachers are more lenient and his report was pretty much all 5s. Emre’s crosses the whole range of marks from 5 for English (not as much of a cert as you might expect), to 1 for philosophy! The standards are pretty high in schools here, both in the things they are teaching and the level expected, so for example, 54% in a test will only get you a 2.

Traditionally when students get their reports they take them to show family and close friends and – if they are good – get given little presents or money. Conversely students who have got bad grades will try anything to hide it, from forging reports and changing marks to running away from home!

Last week I wrote about our attempts at skiing at Erendağ near Fethiye, but you may have heard of bigger snow events in Turkey, with the winter ‘Universiade’ (university Olympics) being held in Erzurum. Competitors from 58 countries are taking part in sports, including downhill skiing, ski jump, ice hockey and curling. It is a big event for Turkey to be hosting and they are very proud of it. They have teams in most events, though they are fairly new to many of them. Curling, for example, has been causing much amazement!

one of Turkish competitors in Universiade; Erzurum, Turkey

Erzurum is up in the north east of Turkey, where Cem’s family come from and near where we have been to ski in the past. It has good snow and they have spent a lot of money on the facilities there. There are also good ski slopes at Kartalkaya near Ankara and Uludağ near İstanbul. The latter is now attracting some skiers from abroad.

The weather in Fethiye has been bright and sunny, but very cold. So cold in fact that I have finally given in and let Cem put a wood-burning stove into our house. These are the traditional way of heating here, where few houses have central heating. They are not the most attractive addition to your interior décor but they do make the house nice and warm. Here is Kaan, who is very smitten with it, feeding the stove.

Skiing in Fethiye

2011-01-26T04:57:00.000-08:00

Finally on Sunday we managed to get up to the ski slope at Erendağ. This project was planned and talked about for so long that when it actually opened I think we hardly believed it. On Sunday it was raining stair rods in Fethiye and, hoping that we might see snow, we set off with a couple of friends.

The site is about 80km from Fethiye, in the mountains above Kemer and Saklıkent gorge. The road is good as far as Seki and the last 9km, though dirt road, is wide and not too steep, though we did manage to miss a sign and nearly ended up in someone’s garden. At the turn off the tarmac road there was no snow but gradually as we climbed up there were patches beside the road. The rain turned to sleet and then snow and suddenly we arrived at the restaurant and ski slope of Eren Mountain.

view from the restaurnat at Eren Mountain

The boys and I got fitted with boots and skis straight away – amazingly they had a pair of ski boots to fit Emre’s size 48 feet! Kaan had never been on a drag lift before and it was a pretty bumpy ride up. He fell off once on the way up, but managed it well the second time – even negotiating the numerous other people who had fallen off and were littering the way!

At the top of the slope it was a case of find a way down, the new snow having covered everything. Emre, being kamikaze, headed down the steepest place he could find; Kaan and I were a bit more wary and took some time (and a few tumbles) to find our ‘ski feet’. It’s three years since we last skied and that was on the beautifully snow-ploughed slopes of Sarıkamuş (in the northeast of Turkey).


ready to go!

In the end, we all made it down and the kids skied a bit more while we went for a hot drink by the fire. The overall verdict is there is still quite a lot that needs doing up there, but it’s great to be able to pop up for an afternoon on the ‘piste’ and I really enjoyed just being in the snow again.

The journey home – not so much though! We were, as usual, the last to leave. It was dark, snowing and the car was so full of wet bodies that the windows were completely steamed up. Suffice it to say that I was quite relieved to be back in rainy Fethiye. And it’s still raining now.

The Prime Minister comes to town

2011-01-21T04:17:00.000-08:00

The big news in Fethiye this week was the Prime Minister coming to town. He was here for a couple of hours on Saturday but the visit caused quite a commotion! All the roads in the centre of town were closed and all cars were removed. A stage was erected in the park just off the seafront so all the boats moored on the harbour front were also moved a short way out. The father of a boy who came for an English lesson on Saturday morning reported that ‘a hundred’ buses filled with police had arrived (possibly slight exaggeration!) and Emre reported that from the roof of Burger King he saw several snipers on nearby roofs. There were also helicopters buzzing overhead, panzers (armoured vehicles) ready on the ground and ‘jammers’ – which I have never even heard of – to block remotely operated gadgets, particularly bombs.

I wondered if the Prime Minister at home has as much security when he goes ‘on location’? I really don’t know, having never been present at such an occasion but I rather think that it is probably a bit more low-key. Cem says that is because there are not so many people in the UK who hate the PM. I think there are probably just as many, but they are less likely to act on it. Fiery Turkish tempers make for more of a direct threat; they were even taking loose change from anyone who wanted to go into the reserved area – in case they threw coins at the PM!

Anyway, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was driven through town waving (Emre claims he waved right at him) and distributing diaries (Cem claims he threw one directly at him) before appearing on the specially-built stage to give an hour-long speech. Like all politicians, he spent much of the time praising his party and what they have achieved in the 8 years they have been in office – roads built, hospitals opened etc.….

The one question that many people wanted to hear the answer to was whether there are plans to promote Fethiye to province status. The answer – which he luckily waited until the end to provide – was a resounding ‘no’. I say luckily because as soon as he said that, at least half the crowd listening got up and walked out! It is an issue near that everyone has a strong opinion on, since province status would confer prestige and financial benefits. At the moment, we are a department of Muğla province – Muğla being a town about two hour’s drive away, now smaller than Fethiye (population 61,000 at last count, compared to Fethiye’s 70,000) but to which we have to go for a whole load of official business. Seems silly – but that probably just shows how much Fethiye has grown recently in relation to the other towns in the area.

At Poppy we have been fighting our own little political battle – threatening to tear up our contract with one of the agencies if they didn’t pay the outstanding money from last year. The result was a hasty visit from a sympathetic guy, a long phone-call from the boss…and a bottle of Jack Daniels for Cem (how does everyone know his favourite drink?). Still, happy as Cem was with the gift, we are still waiting to see if the boss comes good on his promise to pay most of the money next week and the remainder in February. I won’t be holding my breath!

How to stop time...

2011-01-14T06:09:00.000-08:00

I was doing a bit of painting at home this week. Being bored I put on the television – and then had to keep stopping painting to listen to the Doctor Oz show. I don’t know if you have seen this guy. He is very famous in America thanks to his appearances on the Oprah Winfrey show and now on his own series. His popularity stems partly from his willingness to discuss even the most embarrassing problems, but also I think from his realistic expectations – he knows we are not going to give up all our bad habits! In Turkey his popularity also, of course, stems from the fact that he is Turkish (at least in origin)!

So why did I have to listen to yesterday’s programme? The subject was the effects of ageing – what they are and what we can do to minimise them in our 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. He EVEN suggested things we can do to REVERSE the effects of time! What a great guy – no wonder he’s so popular! Being a bit late to be trying the 30’s stuff, I listened carefully to what women in their 40’s should be doing. Apparently we should watch out for an increase in cellulite and age spots, we should be ensuring we get enough sleep and looking for face creams containing hydroquinones. We shouldn’t be drinking more than one cup of coffee a day (I’ll need to work a bit on that one!) but we can smother a home-made honey and coffee grounds skin ‘tightener’ on our faces.

I was certainly feeling the passing of time this week when we celebrated Kaan’s ELEVENTH birthday. I remember – and some of you will remember – the panic of his premature birth, shortly after the millennium New Year and the weeks spent at St Thomas’s Hospital in London. Once we did get him home he was such a happy and easy-going baby. He still is really. After the excitement of Christmas and New Year, it’s hard to make a big thing of his birthday and this year he got an odd selection of presents including some books, a jigsaw puzzle and some goldfish. Unlike the little boy on You-Tube, Kaan is very happy with his books – and even happier with his fish. Here he is blowing out the candles on his fishy cake!

Kaan's eleventh birthday

Now Christmas and New Year are out of the way, I hope people will be starting to think of summer holidays. For Turkey, booking flights and holidays early is the best way to get good prices; nearer the time flights are usually more expensive or actually full. It also gives people something to look forward to during the bad weather of January. Just to make you jealous, here is Çalış Beach in January!

Çalış Beach last week

A wish for 2011

2011-01-06T01:08:00.000-08:00

Welcome 2011! I hope it will be a great year for all of you and bring you health, happiness and ‘huzur’ – a lovely Turkish word that means something like ‘peace of mind’.

At Poppy, I hope it brings us plenty of new guests as well as old friends and that we are once again able to help people enjoy their holiday. The nicest thing about running a hotel is when people tell us what a special time they had with us and there were more than ever of those last year.

But today I also made a more general wish for tourism in Turkey. It started when I saw a home-made poster in a car, saying ‘this car is running on the most expensive petrol in the world’. Yes – it’s true! You might think petrol is expensive in your country but I can promise you it is more expensive here.

Besides fuel, there are many things which are now more expensive in Turkey than in the UK. We pay more for meat and cheese, alcoholic drinks, all electrical goods from mobile phones to washing machines and way more for cars. In addition our phone bills are higher, car tax is often more (it varies by car type) and electricity costs as much as it does in the UK. The rise in the cost of living over the last few years has caused a number of Brits who were living here to leave.

And yet the biggest selling-point for Turkey is still that it is ‘cheap’. Where’s the catch? The catch is that at unrealistically low prices, everyone loses out. When a tour operator pays rock bottom prices for hotel rooms, hoteliers are making little or no profit. But guests are also suffering as the standard of service and accommodation falls. If restaurants are obliged to keep prices down to attract business, they will look for ways to make savings – and the food will suffer!

If we want standards to be maintained and improved in Turkey the prices are going to have to be more realistic. It will still be cheaper than many European holiday destinations but the low cost will no longer be the USP…so this is my wish:

Let 2011 be the year when Turkey begins to be promoted by tour operators and travel agents for its REAL qualities; take your pick – and add your own – to the list below:

Beautiful scenery

Fantastic climate

Warm sea and unspoiled beaches

Friendly people

Culture and history

Great food

Adventure sports (paragliding, diving, white water rafting)

Shopping (where else can you find so many designer brands at

affordable prices?!)

Turkey in Turkey

2010-12-30T06:41:00.000-08:00

The Christmas menu at Poppy….

…a large quantity of turkey; I asked Cem to get an 8kg turkey which he did – but it had an eat-by date of 24^thDecember! When he went to change it he found all the large ones were the same, so we ended up with two 5kg turkeys. I cooked them both and I think they were alright, though I stuck to my nut roast. Disappointingly the gimmicky plastic ‘thermometer’, which was supposed to show when they were cooked, didn’t do its stuff. Anyway, there is a lot of turkey in the freezer!

The roast potatoes were spectacular, the hazelnut and apricot stuffing was alright but not amazing and the vegetables were as they should be – though no sprouts because I hate them! Everything arrived at the table pretty much together and hot, unlike the food at a hotel where some of my students had their Christmas meal! There is not so much emphasis in Turkey on getting food to the table piping hot; I have often seen chips being cooked and put on the table half an hour before the rest of the food is ready and have never seen plates being warmed here. Still, this particular meal apparently broke all records by being absolutely cold.

Many local restaurants now do Christmas dinner. A few years ago when we had Cumba bar in Fethiye we did Christmas dinner. When you are cooking for paying customers, you have to do the whole works (even sprouts!) and want everything to be perfect (read hot!) It meant I spent a couple of hours of my Christmas panicking with the chef in the kitchen; maybe that’s why I find cooking for friends a relatively easy job!


the best-dressed bear in town

This week life is fairly normal, with me giving lessons again and the boys back at school. They have a half day on Friday and will be home ready for us to do the whole big meal thing again – with pretty much the same caste of characters – on Friday night. The big difference is that I won’t be doing much of the cooking this time so can look forward to running up and down the stairs a lot less, relaxing a bit more and of course applying myself to the wine a bit better.

Many Turkish people celebrate New Year and it seems to be getting a bigger affair each year with more presents being given, way more decorations and increasingly expensive ‘New Year programmes’ in the restaurants. A lot of people prefer to make it a family affair, with a big meal at home and – rather strangely this – a traditional game of bingo!

We used to do a bit of each – having a meal with Cem’s family, then sneaking out leaving the children there, to party at one of the bars in town. These days we no longer seem to feel the need to go out – whether because of the cost or because we are old and boring I don’t know! Our other tradition, after plenty of partying, used to be going for a swim in the sea. The expats had a Boxing Day swim at Çalış which I am sure had plenty of participants but that was in the day when it is sunny and quite warm. I asked Cem this morning if he was planning on swimming on New Year’s night but he replied with his usual ‘we’ll see’. Perhaps we should move over and let the boys take over that tradition!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS FROM POPPY

2010-12-23T07:14:00.000-08:00

The weather is a bit better and there is no longer water in the hotel- though we still have some work to do cleaning up. Last night was, I think, the longest night. It’s dark now at 5.30pm and though I know that is later than in the UK, it will be nice to have longer days again.

There are only 2 windows left on Kaan’s advent calendar, which means not much time left to get everything ready. Still I am not in too much of a panic. There is not nearly as much pressure as there is in the UK and though I will be cooking dinner for about 18 people, most of them are Turkish so they won’t really notice if something is not quite right!

I am lucky that Cem is an enthusiastic celebrator of Christmas. I never used to think this was strange but speaking to other foreigners married to Turkish men I have found that some of the husbands choose to ignore it altogether. Actually it isn’t just Cem but his family and close friends who have jumped on board and eagerly join in our celebrations. They enjoy the turkey, love the roast potatoes (not a common thing in Turkey) and are amazed by a cake that you make months (or at least weeks) in advance and feed with brandy.

Christmas is also made easier for me thanks to the hotel. Just as it made it easier to celebrate Turkish bayram with 28 members of Cem’s family, it enables us to have large numbers of people for dinner without too much stress. The kitchen is large, there are two ovens, no shortage of plates or cutlery and the mess can be left and cleared up the next day!

So, my preparations are nearly in place. I have tested a new recipe for chicken liver pate; hope it’s nice because I am taking some to some friends who we are seeing tonight. I have never made it before, but it doesn’t seem to be that difficult and with an Anthony Worral Thompson recipe you can’t – hopefully – go wrong! I have made my nut roast and it’s in the freezer. The remainder of the shopping can be done on Friday at the local farmers’ market.

I have bought and wrapped all but a couple of the presents, made a gingerbread house, knitted a few decorations and made a Santa suit for Kaan’s teddy. I think I have earned my Martha Stewart badge or - as my dear Canadian friend Fran says - my ‘Suzie homemaker’ points, for this year! Now I am going to sit back and enjoy a glass of wine and trust that by Saturday it will all be ready – and what isn’t ready, we’ll do without! I leave you with some thoughts about Santa…..Happy Christmas to you all!

From Saint Nicholas to Santa Claus

Did you know Saint Nicholas was born in Patara, just a short way from Fethiye? He became bishop of nearby Myra and was known for his generosity in helping people in need. One of the stories tells of him providing dowries for girls from poor families by dropping sacks of gold through open doors and windows – making the gift anonymous.

After his death, pilgrims started to visit his tomb and many miracles were reported. He was made the patron saint of children, sailors and scholars and given the feast day of 6th January – still the main day for present-giving in some European countries.

His conversion from 3rd century Saint to the jovial red-robed character we know is the result of mass media and marketing during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In 1810, the New York Historical Society commissioned a picture of the first ‘American’ St Nicholas in which he appears as an amiable fatherly figure filling stockings hung over the fireplace.

In 1823, the famous poem ‘The Night Before Christmas’ was published, referring to Saint Nicholas as ‘a right jolly old elf’ who was ‘dressed all in fur’ and drove a ‘miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer’. Pictures showed him wearing a variety of styles and colours of dress, until the early twentieth century when illustrators started to favour the red fur-lined suit. Long-running advertisements for Coca-Cola, which began in 1931, also helped to make this the standard.

So what is left, among all the tinsel and fake snow, of the original Saint? The sacks of presents seem to mirror the sacks of gold he left, the candy canes could be a bishop’s crook and even the bags of chocolate money we buy for the children echo the legend of St Nicholas. Other connections may be more obscure so, for example, the way Santa Claus operates secretly under cover of darkness is similar to the way the Saint made his gifts anonymously. The story is a mixture of fact and fiction but Saint Nicholas is definitely a well-travelled Saint!

Floods in Çalış

2010-12-17T10:45:00.000-08:00

So it seems we are now paying for all the glorious weather we have had until now! The weather has turned with a vengeance and the last few days have seen torrential rain together with cold.

Now some of you have seen how it can rain here! It doesn’t tend to mess around with that very British thing, drizzle. It pours down. And it has been doing so much of that in the last few days that Çalış was flooded on Tuesday. The channel near the beach was so high that some of the little jetties were washed away and many little boats sank. Even the more substantial water taxi jetty was lifted up onto the river bank.

storm coming in!

The drains on the road to the bridge couldn’t cope with the volume of water so the shops along that road were flooded and many lost stock. The channel that runs in front of Poppy overflowed its banks, pouring brown silty water and debris from further upstream into the gardens – and some houses - on the other side.

The hotel also flooded. Being low-lying, we have a system of drainage channels that funnel all the water from round the hotel towards one of two pumps which send it into the drainage system. Unfortunately, the power went off from 5am yesterday morning until about 1pm, which was enough time for the whole of the ground floor to be inundated. After the big flood several years ago, we are aware of the risk and remove much of the furniture from these rooms. Still there are always things that you forget, and we will have to wait until we have cleaned it all out to see just what we have lost.

The temperature change has been nearly as dramatic. I know those of you who have only seen Fethiye sweltering in 40 degree plus temperatures might find it hard to believe, but it really can be cold. The mountains behind the hotel (on the Antalya road) have a stunning cover of snow, while even Babadağ (‘Father Mountain’), the one the paragliders jump from, has a dusting on the summit. In Fethiye, snow is a very rare occurrence. The last time was 18 years ago, just before I came to live here, and everybody has photos to prove it.

The problem with the cold is not the actual temperature but the fact that the houses are designed to be cool in summer. Most of us don’t have central heating or wall-to-wall carpeting and many houses don’t even have damp-proofing. So, the Turkish insistence on wearing slippers round the house, which many foreigners find funny when they first move here, is actually very practical!

Cem, Yılmaz and a few helpers have been working for the last three days, pumping water out of the hotel with a diesel-powered pump that makes so much noise you can hear it half-way across Çalış! Then we will begin the job of cleaning up. I do admire the Turkish attitude in times like this which is just to get on with it. They are very fatalistic and seldom waste time complaining or asking ‘why me?’ So I’m trying to be more like them, though when it started to rain again this evening after a day of sunshine I was finding it a bit hard to be optimistic!

the clean-up at Poppy

'Doing' the tree

2010-12-08T03:57:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, the Calis Carnival Fundraising Committee held the fourth Christmas Fair. It was a great occasion with locals and expats selling mostly hand-made items, from pickles and cakes to jewellery and cards. Santa arrived to hand out presents to the children and there were carols and some great mulled wine for the adults. The only damper was the weather - which picked that one day to pour down. Still, Brits have plenty of experience of coping with bad weather!

Having got in the Christmas spirit (and got some of the 'Christmas spirit' into us!) we - actually Cem - decided it was time to 'do' the tree. We have settled into a routine over the years. This starts with me (the only one with any patience) spending half an hour bending the tree back into shape after being squashed in the cupboard for a year, followed by Cem putting the lights on (obviously this is a sufficiently technical job to require a man!) The children then hang the decorations, pausing only to squabble about what should go where, after which I’m left to wrap tinsel round the barer sections.

This year, the routine was slightly modified due to a Fenerbahçe (football) match on the television, which meant that Cem did his light-hanging in record time and Kaan and I were abandoned to finish most of the decorating. Still, the finished effort makes me smile a goofy smile every time I pass it.

this year's tree

Now I know our tree would not win any ‘chicest tree’ award; nor do I want it to. For me, the Christmas tree is like a family monument and the odd assortment of things on it nearly all bring back memories.

So, there is my mother’s favourite decoration – a delicate crescent moon – which every year I unwrap with trepidation, knowing that one day I will find it in pieces. Then there are the Scandinavian wooden ornaments that a friend used to give me every Christmas back in the UK and which we added to on a trip to Finland a few years ago. There are some angels and reindeers which I made with the children with modelling clay and cookie cutters and there are even a couple of gold-sprayed pine cones that Emre and I collected and painted back in the days when tree decorations were hard to find in Fethiye. This year, Kaan and I have added to these with some knitted candy canes and a snowman.

And looking down on all of these is the oldest item of all. It doesn’t come close to the 124 year-old mini Christmas tree belonging to one English family I read about yesterday, but our fairy is as old as me. To other people she might be looking her age but to me she brings back the memories of forty-something Christmases.

The season isn't over

2010-12-03T07:28:00.000-08:00

You might think that having closed the hotel for 2010, we are able to concentrate on getting bookings for next year. Unfortunately this is not quite the case as we are still struggling to get money from the agencies for this year’s guests.

Some of you will have heard me ranting about this before and I do apologize. But sometimes it gets so frustrating!

Firstly, many people are not aware that we have to wait until after they leave to get payment for their stay. This caused much aggro in July when Goldtrail Holidays went bust and guests were asked by hotels to pay for their stay. The guests were right in pointing out that they had already paid for their whole package; but the hotels were right too as they had not received any money from Goldtrail.

And when I say we get paid after guests have left, I am being generous. Our contract with one of the big companies says payment will be made thirty days after guests check-out but we are currently owed more than a third of the total money for this season. In order to receive this money, we have to keep pushing the local agent, who will use excuses like they are waiting for money to come from the UK.

Today, they made us mad by ‘billing’ us for their free rooms. These are rooms we agreed to allow them to use, free-of-charge, for a promotion. Having failed to use this opportunity, they are now trying to ‘reclaim’ money for a paying guest – money we haven’t even received yet!

One of the companies usually sends payment in the form of a cheque, post-dated for some time in the new year. This would be bad enough by itself, but they add insult to injury by leaving us to pay the postage on the cheque – an insignificant amount but still a pretty poor gesture.

What is the alternative? Working towards taking only direct bookings as we did in the first two years we had the hotel. We have started to get our website updated and will be looking for cost-effective ways to advertise. I used to put ads in all sorts of UK publications, from the Bolton Evening News to Private Eye magazine. These days, however, with so many people booking their holidays on the internet, I will look for other ways to attract new guests….

Countdown to Christmas

2010-11-26T07:23:00.000-08:00

Now the bayram holiday is over I have realised there is only a month left until Christmas. While I am not the sort of person who enjoys a UK-style long run-up to the festive season, with shop windows full of Christmas goods in November and a shopping-day countdown, there are some preparations that have to be made in advance.
So yesterday I went to the spice market in Fethiye and bought the nuts and dried fruit for the Christmas cake. Making the cake is an important part of the Christmas tradition for me, even though I'm the only one in the house who really enjoys eating it. The boys like helping to make it though - especially licking out the bowl (I know -they're not supposed to do this, raw eggs and all that). The best thing about it for me is the smell of it cooking, which reminds me of childhood Christmases.
I also bought an advent calendar for Kaan; Emre, at 15, is far too cool for such things (unless they have chocolate in, of course). The Card Shop in Fethiye had a good selection of calendars, as well as cards, wrap, tags and crackers, thanks to the enterprising English owner who drove a van-load of goodies over from the UK. It made me recall previous years when such things were not available and celebrating Christmas here required a lot of imagination and some skill at crafting.
I have been known to make cards, tags, advent calendars, decorations and even a substitute Christmas tree from bean poles with the bean stalks - and even the odd bean - still attached! These years I take advantage of the availability of some things, but making the cards with the boys has become one of out Christmas traditions.
This year we are using the picture below, which I took a couple of winters ago not far from Fethiye. Yes, we do get to play in the snow here, though at the moment the weather is still lovely and warm....

snow in the mountains near Fethiye

Happy holidays from Turkey

2010-11-18T09:59:00.000-08:00

At Poppy we have been celebrating the holiday of Kurban Bayramı with the help of family and friends from Ankara. The weather is still lovely - guests were all swimming in Oludeniz today. Not me of course - I'm much too wimpy to swim after September!
Apart from the weather we have all entered winter mode...the boys are at school, I'm giving lessons and Cem is playing games on facebook!
I can't believe there's not much more than a month left until Christmas. Once guests have all gone I will have to start thinking about that...