There
was a general election in Turkey yesterday.
It was the second one this year, the first being in June and leaving the
winning party – the one that has been in power since 2002 - without enough of a
majority to form a government. As none of
the other parties would enter a coalition, they had no choice but to call a
second election.
The
result? They took more votes – up from
41% to only just under 50% - and enough seats to form a government. Not in the Mugla region though (the area that
includes Fethiye, Marmaris and Bodrum) where the CHP (Republican People’s
Party) increased their vote to 48% which I think is the highest of any region.
One
of the amazing things is the turnout. In
both elections, this has been over 85% - compared to 66% at the 2015 UK
elections. The last time there was a
turnout of over 80% in the UK was the 1950s!
But people here are interested and passionate and even when they know
the result won’t be the one they want, they still see voting as a right and a
duty. At the school where we voted, this
was obvious: families came carrying children and cars pulled up at the door
bringing the sick and elderly to vote.
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| Halloween cupakes |
Halloween
(see pictures) means the summer season has finished. The last guests left yesterday which meant
for the first time in six months my alarm didn’t go off at 6 this morning. Needless-to-say I am back in the hotel now,
sorting things out and putting things away.
It
has been a good season for us – thankyou to all who visited Poppy! The only difference I noticed was that there
weren’t so many families in peak season – presumably because of fears over
security. The guests who come early and
late in the summer are mostly regulars who know the situation and are less
influenced by media scare-mongering.
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| Halloween a few years ago (the boys will hate me for this!) |
I
am hopeful too for next season, barring any further international crises. We have already signed contracts with
Hotels4u and Alpharooms. The other
agency that we have been working with, who shall remain nameless, have so far
only paid for May and June’s guests and as we have had this problem with them
for the last two years I am not very keen to re-sign. We are also on
Booking.com site which has the benefit that control of price, availability and
booking terms are all in our hands and can be changed instantly. Sometimes it is a juggling act trying to fill
the hotel but not be overbooked, especially when reservations are coming in from
several sources and the agencies require a couple of days’ notice to stop
selling.
Anyway
I don’t have to worry about this for a few months. Now that the season has finished, we have
started to take in monthly renters, mostly Turkish people who are working in
Fethiye. One group are running an
illegal ‘gambling den’ where they play – wait for it – bingo!! Unlike the Mecca Bingo Hall, it is drawing
mostly male clientele and opens from about 10 at night until 3 in the
morning. The way they talk, you would
think they had invented the game, but as a novelty here (previously, as I have
mentioned before, bingo was something that children played on New Year’s Eve) it
is apparently very popular. Who would
have guessed!
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| view of Fethiye from the rock tomb |
And
finally - I am leaving the country (but not because of the election results!) I am going to Canada to visit a friend and I
am so excited about it. We used to work
together in London but since she moved back to her native Toronto with her
husband and son I haven’t seen her. We
are not even very good at keeping in touch with mails and skype –life just
seems too busy sometimes. So, wish me
luck for the ridiculously long flight – actually 3 flights each way (and some
of you know how much I hate flying!) and if I don’t manage to post while I’m
out there, I will be back…..
