Into October and the season is
finishing. The two rooms that came in
yesterday are our last arrivals – unless there are any more last minute
bookings. It is early – some years it
ticks along through October and there are usually a few rooms in for the last
week when there is a half-term holiday in the UK.
But this year, whether due to economic situation, the ridiculous price
of flights or what, October is very quiet.
The weather is still glorious – 30
degrees or so in the day and only a little cooler in the evenings. Even I haven’t worn my jeans or a jumper yet,
and only put on a cardigan to go to Dalaman at 3am to collect Grant and
Dawn. They had a bit of a delay on their
Thomas Cook flight – not as bad as the Andy, or as bad as the flight they had
in March when the plane turned back to Manchester
after nearly 2 hours in the air! There
was a rep at the airport greeting customers with a screeched ‘Thomas Cook! Anyone travelling with Thomas Cook?’ which
got rather irritating after half an hour.
I also felt like pointing out that they had all been travelling with
Thomas Cook which was why they were two hours late!
They arrived with the usual piles of
things for us, including four pairs of trainers I bought from Sports Direct
(including two pairs of size 14s for Emre), chocolate for me, cheese for Cem,
sliced bread for Emre and doughnuts for Kaan.
The diet starts next week! It’s
funny the things people miss when they live away from home. I know some people who have heaps of stuff brought
over, although it’s possible to buy many things here now as there are shops
selling all those things that Brits might be looking for including bacon,
sausages, scampi, bisto, marmite, Heinz beans, Weetabix, custard powder and
much more.
Turkish people living abroad will miss
their favourite dishes. We have several
times travelled to England
with ‘food parcels’ of stuffed vine leaves, pastries and other home-made
offerings for friends living over there.
It’s OK, but they tend to be large, heavy bags full and you get some
funny looks at customs!
The situation on the border with Syria is bad at the moment with Turkish forces
shelling in retaliation for attacks by Syria which have killed a number of
civilians. I feel sorry for the people
trying to carry on their daily routines in the area and for the troops moved
there – some of whom will be young boys doing their National Service. On a selfish level, I hope it doesn’t affect
tourism in Turkey; the
border is more than 1,000km away from Fethiye (roughly the same distance as London to Prague) but we
know from past experience that the press at home like to talk up any bad press
about Turkey.
 |
| just another sunset! |
But to finish on a lighter note – I
laughed a lot yesterday when I went to my post box and found that we have also
received a ‘Certificate of Excellence’ from Trip Advisor (see last post). This DESPITE the recent bad comment. So let’s just take a look at this……
Trip Advisor posts comments written
by people who could have NOTHING in common with you, who can write a pack of
lies which will never be checked, who may never even have stayed at the hotel;
the apparently all-knowing but completely unreachable staff at Trip Advisor
will pull comments that THEY believe are invented (we experienced this – they
weren’t!) while unscrupulous people will demand a free stay or cheap rates at a
hotel with the threat of a bad review if they do not get it (I read about that
in the newspaper). Do we think it may
have outlived its usefulness? I am
grateful for all the guests who have written lovely things about us and I hope
that we can continue to make some people happy on their holiday..... but I
rather fancy getting my certificate framed and hanging it in the toilets!
