Floods in Çalış

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

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

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

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

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...