Heading into August now and still in the “very warm” phase of the summer with a lot of days reaching 40C. Of course it’s not as hot as some places and any thoughts of moaning about the heat are far from my mind.
The heat does have an effect though, I’m very disappointed that my piano playing gets cut short because the sweat makes the keys very sticky. Also, bedclothes have to washed every couple of days because of the sweat as do clothes that I wear, particularly if I go down to Kaş. Walking the dogs has to be done before the sun gets over the ridge behind my house in the morning and after it has gone down over the Phellos ridge on the other side of the valley because the surface of the road that I walk up is too hot for the dogs paws. This means starting between five thirty and six in the morning and after seven thirty in the evening. I brought the TV into the bedroom and dogs, cats and I stay in the air conditioned cool and watch a couple of films on the hottest or most humid afternoons.
Talking of dogs one of Kaş’s most well known street dogs Wolfie (or Wolverine as some people called him) got himself banned from the Republic Square where he used to sleep in the shade cast by the statue of Ataturk. Nobody seems to know quite what he did to deserve the ban or who complained about him but after having lived in the square for many years he was unceremoniously shipped off the to the animal shelter. A petition to the mayor to return him failed so I decided he would come and live at my place. He’s been here about five weeks now and is well settled in, he barks quite a bit though. I was worried that he might upset my neighbours but luckily it’s only a soft kind of bark and when I’ve been down at the road by my gate I have barely heard him. There are plenty of other village dogs that bark nearly all night so I doubt anyone will single him out for complaint. He used to look quite old, slow and overweight but since he’s been getting decent food and excercise with me he has lost most of the excess weight and has become quite energetic. He’s still a big dog though, probably over thirty kilos and I’m looking forward to cooler temperatures when I can see how much he likes to run around down at Demre beach.
Had another trip over to Meis (Kastellorizo) in early July and walked over to the east bay again to see the progress of the renovations and show a friend around. Then we had a bite to eat and a nice cooling beer at the little restaurant next to the Church of St George. We had a very nice Moussaka with salad, very cheap too!
Just across the road from the restaurant is a statue to the Lady of Ro, Despina Achladioti who lived alone on the tiny island of Ro very close to Kaş. Here is a link to her story on Wikipedia.
Whilst walking around we came across this old BMW motorcycle with a sidecar attached. Looks ripe for restoration and I feel quite interested but the paperwork to get it to Kaş would probably be horrendous.
It doesn’t look as though it would need that much restoration work to get it to original condition, it seems pretty complete and it’s a shame that it has been allowed to deteriorate.
A friend of mine bought a “house” on Meis a little while ago and has been jumping through some of the hoops to get permission to rebuild it. There is quite a lot of work to do but I’m sure it will look nice when it’s finished.
Power to you elbow Stephanie, I think you’re gong to need it.
Ramazan (it has a “z” in Turkish) finished here followed by the Şeker Bayram in early July and I took a couple of photos of the new moon from my house, here’s one of them
And last but not least my little cat Katie caught a small snake last week and I managed to get a few shots of her with it.
It’s actually not a snake at all but a baby Slow Worm, the mother was in the garden a month or so ago and she was about a metre and a half long and much more impressive. They don’t bite and have no defences against their predators so tend to stay out of sight most of the time. Like I do with most things the cats catch I took the baby off Katie before she could do any damage and let it go in another part of the garden so hopefully it will survive and be a bit wiser about cats from now on. Unfortunately there are many little creatures that the cats catch that I don’t have chance to take off them.
Cukurbagli's Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.