FROST in FETHIYE

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

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

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

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

Upstairs, though, is another matter.  My alarm clock is a flashy digital thing that shows the temperature – hence I know it was 10 degrees in my bedroom last night!  Some of you will know that I feel the cold a lot and will even sometimes be cold in the summer months when everyone else is wearing shorts and t-shirts – so you can imagine how many layers I have on at the moment.

Of course it is only on the Mediterranean 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 can get away we want to have a couple of days skiing somewhere.  If you ask me, that is the only good thing about weather this cold!