It's not quite as hot as last week, but
very sticky. The best place to be in
this weather is the pool, which is freezing since we emptied and refilled it
yesterday. It doesn’t stop the kids
though, and under this sun it will be back to more reasonable temperatures by
tomorrow.
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| Kaan and Matt in the pool |
The pool was also the venue for a
‘dive show’ this week when divers from European Diving Centre came to give
people a chance to try SCUBA diving.
They had a lot of takers this week including two children of seven and
nine who are too young to dive in the sea but did a tour of the pool with so
much confidence that they both got a round of applause when they came up! There was also a guest who had always wanted
to try scuba diving and thought he wouldn’t have a chance after he had a heart
attack a few years ago; needless-to-say he was very happy.
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| Sarah getting ready to try SCUBA |
Sarah and Matt who have had more
than 20 holidays to Çalış (at Poppy since 2000) had never tried SCUBA
before. They had a go and loved it so
much they went out on the boat the next day to experience ‘real’ diving in the
sea with the fish. They loved this too
and have plenty of photos of their great day out.
Turkish Night on Friday was good
fun. There were about 35 people for the
barbecue and others who came just to join in the dancing. The belly dancer is
one who has been before and is good at getting people up to join in and enjoy;
as with most of them, she does a little routine that involves blindfolding and
playing a little game with one of the men.
However this time she was the one to get a surprise when one of the
guests (who celebrated his sixteenth birthday with a cake in the bar this week)
came out in his mankini - a la
Borat.
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| Roger having a GOOD time! |
The good news is we finally received
payment for May’s guests, which was handy as we had a rather huge electricity
bill come in yesterday. Even accounting
for all the a/c units, fridges, pool filters etc. over £400 for 10 days seems a
bit excessive. We are going to query it
but without much hope as last time we did that the electricity board agreed the
metre wasn’t working properly and made us pay to change it – but also made us
pay the inflated bill!
We also signed a contract with one
of the agencies for next summer. This
was relatively hassle-free. Two
glamorous and very positive ladies came to do the new contract; they even
decided to change the listing of Poppy on their website from two to three-star
(apartments are not included in the official star rating so it is a company
rating). However while we were
discussing business in general one of them said she manages contracts across
fifteen countries and she has learned that properties with less than 100 rooms
and especially those offering self-catering accommodation just don’t make
money.
That’s why I shudder when the
electric bill comes in!
