Back to Fethiye

A massive catchup edition, as I struggle to finally get the Blog up to date...

After an exciting week in Bodrum, it was back to Fethiye to try and get back to business as usual. Winter will soon be coming, so while the weather is still good, we decided to get on with getting a wood burner for the salon, before the rush.

These are very popular in Turkey, as they are cheap to run and provide a lot of heat. Unfortunately although they come in an amazing array of sizes and styles, they are all brown. We didn't want a brown one, so set about trying to track down a cast iron, black one. Eventually we located the very thing in a small ironmongers on the outskirts of town. Although it is quite small, it is very heavy, and took two very strong men to lift it out of the shop onto the back of the flatbed truck. After it was loaded, we sheepishly watched them as we explained that they would have to carry it up to the third floor in our apartment building!

They struggled up with it, and hovvered on the threshold while they kicked off their shoes before bringing it inside. For a price, they agreed to 'plumb' it in, which involves building a chimney out of various lengths and elbows of metal flue, and then stuffing this into the chimney hole in the corner. This service (delivery and fitting) set us back the princely sum of 3.5 lira (about a pound)!

The next day we picked up some logs and coal, which we can store in the utility room outside the front door, and set about getting our first fire going. It works really effectively, the wood gets it going and hot, and then the coal catches and burns slow and hot. The top of the fire is a hot plate, which we use to boil water in the kettle for tea and to fill the hottie botties before going to bed. All very cosy.

Sunday saw a visit to Calis market for pancakes and to meet Pat's latest set of house guests, Pauline and her mother Joan. We retired back to Pat's to swim, for dinner and to make some plans for the week. Monday night - quiz night, Tuesday - Kaya, Thursday - Emali.

The working week begins

Monday saw the first day of work for Iain, I was still waiting for my login to be confirmed, so had anoher week 'off'. We've set up the back room as an office, and it was great sitting there, Iain working and listening to Radio 2 on the internet, with the sun streaming through the windows, while I worked on editing the Bodrum Cup video.

Skype is working a treat for keeping in touch with work colleagues, and costs just 1.5p per minute! The line is perfect. Throughout the day we were interrupted by knocks at the door and small clutches of children after their sweets, for today is the first day of Seker Bayram - the 'sweet' holiday which follows the end of Ramazan.

That night we met Pat etc at the Kosem for quiz night and fish and chips. It was good to catch up with a few of the other faces we haven't had a chance to see yet. We did well at the quiz, coming joint second, but conceded the prize to the other team as we wanted to go home.

Next day, I left Iain hard at work, and went with Pat, Chris, Pauline and Joan to visit the abandoned Greek village of Kaya. Chris, Pauline and I explored the site, and visited the churches while Pat and Joan rested up in the cafe drinking tea.

As the afternoon worn on, we decided to carry on to Oludeniz to watch the paragliders coming down as they prepared for the air games, and we supped a cold beer.

Thursday saw us taking a trip to the village in the mountains called Elmali, which literally means 'Appley', because the chief source of occupation here is growing apples. Iain decided he'd like to come too, and after working for the last three days, felt he'd earned a day off, so we drove too and met the other three in the village of Seki for tea.

We continued the drive up the twisty winding mountain roads, reaching an altitude of 1, 900 metres. One of the main highlights of Elmali is a seventeeth century Mosque, but we arrived as the call to prayer began, so we seized the opportunity to get a pide lunch followed by the speciality ice-cream of the town - burnt milk flavour. Sounds revolting but was gorgeous. An amble through the back streets of the old town revealed many old Ottoman houses made of mud, wattle and daub, and we eventually we rounded onto the Mosque, now empty of worshippers. We ladies donned our headscarves, and we all kicked of our shoes to have a look inside at the beautiful Iznic handpainted tiles.

We decided to head back home a different way, and see if we could find a seasonal lake which Iain had found on the map, and which was renowned for migratory birds. We headed off, stopping to have a look around some unusual wooden barns which are direct decendants architectorally from the Lycian Tombs. After getting lost a couple of times, and getting directions from locals, we found ourselves on a rough stoney track, which by all accounts, we could expect to go on for 10-20 km. Iain was worried about the ability of the Toyota to clear the rocks, and about punctures and suspension, so we agreed to return back the way we came - we should be able to clear the hair raising mountain road while it was still light.

It had been a long day, and a long drive, so about 5km from Fethiye Iain agreed to let me drive the rest of the way. This became a bit of a baptism of fire for my first driving experience on the *wrong* side of the road. The light was fading fast, and it was hard to see in the dimsy twilight. Added to which many of the other drivers seemed reluctant to put their lights on, and the town centre is manic. However, I did well and arrived at Migros right behind Pat. We enjoyed a well earned beer before getting some shopping in and heading home to light the fire.

For Pauline and Joan's last evening, we collected Clare and headed over to Pat's for dinner, along with Jan and Mike from Yakamoz Hotel. It made for a great night, and we all enjoyed ourselves very much before saying farewell to Pauline and Joan.

The next day we arranged to meet up with Ann and Don and sparked up the slow cooker for the first time to prepare lamb shanks with roasted vedge. Clare is alone most evenings while Recep works in a bar, so we invited her over too. We had a great evening catching up with them, in the cosy warmth of the fire.

That Sunday, we'd been invited out, fishing, with Stuart on his 5 metre power boat. It was a lovely sunny day, and he took us around the islands in the bay, while we trailed the lines in search of fish. As we motored out of the bay, we spied a yacht with Norwegian flags - it was our old mate Bent, who we'd met a couple of years ago, when we'd been out with him and he'd lost his dingy. We circled his boat and said our hello's and caught up with the news. He was only out for a few more days before taking the boat out for over-wintering and heading back to Norway. We wouldn't be able to see him properly this time, but we'll catch up again next time.

We stopped off to climb the deserted Red Island and have a look at the old lighthouse, now unmanned. No bites on the lines, so we sped off to Turunc bay to swim and have our packed lunch, consisting of last night's leftover lamb and vedge - yum.

Back to work for Monday, and the rains arrived. Heavy rain, thunder, lightening, very dramatic. Tuesday saw more of the same weather, and today the power was on and off all day - playing havoc with Iain trying to work and me sorting out the Bodrum Cup video. I met up with Pat, Chris and Jan that evening to go to the cinema to watch the Devil wears Prada, while Iain sourced himself a USB modem to allow him to work through any future power cuts.

Wednesday was my first appearance at the Gardening Club, to be hosted by Pat, who has been busy baking scones in preparation. There are now 60 members, and a good 30/40 of them attended, despite it being a very wet day. I've been co-opted to run the membership list, while Pat organises the programme and Jan keeps the money in the Hotel safe. It was great catching up with the gossip with both new people and may who I'd not seen for ages. I do believe some people actually talked about gardening, but I avoided them!

Iain drove over to join us after work, and some of Pat's friends, Sharon and Pete over from England came down over for dinner with their little boy, Sam. Trying to get the car out to go home, we found ourselves stuck in the mud, but with a helping push from me and Pete, we were soon free!

We got home, to find the video had finally finished processing, it had taken 12 hours just to finish the joining and conversion, so we watched the final cut.

Thursday saw a welcome return of the sunshine, and that afternoon the 'Golden Dice' backgammon contest was due to start. Chris had entered along with Mustafa the carpet seller - his regular partner. We met them at the venue, and were surprised to see there were no other foreigners, but quite alot of women.

Chris was drawn first, and was playing an old Turkish man who had difficulty seeing the numbers on the dice. He was a great character saying 'no problem, no problem' all the time and bursting into song with, bizarrely, Frere Jacques!

Chris won his way through to the next day, as did Mustafa, and we left them to it while we went back to show Pat the video and give her some copies to take back to England and post onto the Canadians. Both of them were knocked out on day two, but they'd done well to get so far through.

The next day, Pat was flying back to England for 10 days , to see friends and collect her Turkish citizenship. It was raining on and off when we arrived to pick up her to take her to Dalaman, but we emerged to sunshine on the other side of the Gocek tunnel. After dropping her off, we decided to check out the local beach, Sarigerme, while the weather here was good.

Back in town, we'd heard that the two guy's who perform a drag act had just opened a new bar, Kismet, so after dinner we took a stroll along the Kordon to say hi, check it out and wish them well. They are a very exuberant couple and they've done a grand job on the bar, which is very sociable. There was no one else there when we arrived so we had a good chat, before we were joined by a few other people. Their official opening will be the following Saturday. We agreed to call in the next afternoon to write a story for Fethiye Times.

The next day was sunny, but had turned cold. We sorted out a few bits of shopping, ie a new printer/scanner/copier and got back to find Adem in the garden working on the car port. I had another slow cook on, so we invited them over for dinner. As promised we visted Kismet and met another set of new people and got some photo's for the website.

Adem, Nese and Dilara came over at 7 and really enjoyed the slow cooked meat, amazed at the 'clever cooker' which requires so little attention or electric. We can't believe they aren't available here. After dinner, we piled across the landing to watch the Bodrum Cup video on Adem's gigantic new 50 inch Sony Plasma/LCD TV, complete with surround sound. It was amazing. We all really enjoyed it.

For Sunday, we'd invited Clare to come with us to Letoon and Patara to check out the beach, which is in the top 10 best beaches in the world, and to look at the recent excavations that have uncovered so many new buildingsl preserved by the sand and silt over the last 2000 odd years.

We took a picnic of spicy sausage, olives, tomatoes, bread, cheese and wine and barbecued while sitting on an old roman road in front of the remains of the romans baths, very atmospheric. At this time of year, the weather is still good, not too hot for exploring and wandering around, but is deserted of people. It was a lovely sunny day, but the air was still cold. For the price of a piece of bread, we were adopted by a little dog who accompanied us all around the site as we explored the mostly intact amphitheatre, and surrounding ruins.

Like the famous four, we trekked through the dunes with our doggy-guide to see the uncovered light house and then spent an hour sitting on the beach soaking up the sun, before heading back to Calis to watch the sunset with a G&T.

Yesterday was Monday 6 November and as I now have my login through I have started working now too. Iain is required back to the UK, so we have sorted out our flights and transfers in readiness.

That's all for now and I'm finally up to date! Hurrah! Posts will be shorted from now on..... hopefully!! :o)