Cukurbagli's Blog   My life in Turkey

Here’s another bit about Prague or rather about one particular aspect of Prague which at first horrified me but on reflection I thought it a really humane and compassionate service.

A few yards down the street from where I stayed there is a box let into the wall at about elbow height Every time I walked past it a green light was glowing on the front panel and next to it there is a panel with instructions on it.

It is a box for women who have had a baby that they can’t take care to leave the baby and be sure that it will be taken care of.

As I said, the very idea of this horrified me at first, I had never heard of these things and didn’t know that it wasn’t a new idea but very quickly I thought about how desperate a new mother would have to be to leave her baby in one of these and the agonising thought processes she would have to go through. But how much better it is to have this kind of service than to have to try to leave a new born baby on a doorstep or something similar.

While writing this I looked up baby boxes on Google and was shocked to find how ignorant I have been about the prevalence of abandoned babies and how many boxes like these there are around the world. I think it’s a wonderful way to ensure babies are taken care of and must bring a lot of comfort to the women who are is such a dire situation that their only way out is to use them.

Happy New Year everybody, may you get everything you wish for this year.

A few days after Christmas I went with my mate Bob who lives in the same village for a ride up into the mountains. My idea had been to get some good photographs of the snow covered mountains but when we got up there we found that we needed to go higher to be in amongst it and we didn’t have the time or equipment. We had a nice day out though and ended up doing a circular route from the village up to the reservoir at Gömbe, along to the main Elmalı-Finike road, down past Arykanda to Finike and then along the coast road stopping for something to eat outside Finike and a walk on the beach at Andriake then back to the village.

Climbing up to Gömbe through the villages and trees on a lovely day like that was very pleasant.

The reservoir at Gömbe was low but will fill up when the snow melts in spring to supply water to the villages.

A new road was built straight across Avlan Gölü and the ice was melting and steaming in the warm sun.

Down near Finike there are millions of orange trees. The juxtaposition of the snow covered mountain and an orange laden tree has been an idea for a photograph for a long time and finally I’ve managed it. It could be better though.

While I was taking the photograph a couple of local guys turned up because they were worried about people stealing the oranges. Turan and Hasan were very friendly when they realised that the only thing I was taking were images. I have to go back and give them copies of this photograph so I will try to improve on the other photo while I’m there.

On the coast road not far out of Finike we stopped for lunch at a roadside gözleme cafe that sold lots of oranges too. We spent a very pleasant half hour or so and had a gözleme and a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice each. A gözleme is like a big pancake folded in half with a filling of various things, we had potato, cheese and parsley.

Directly across the road from the cafe was was a tiny pebble beach, the water looked very inviting but neither of us had brought swimming kit. The water would probably have been warm enough though.

A friend of mine calls winter days like this “bonus days” and that’s exactly how Bob and I felt about it.