Cukurbagli's Blog   My life in Turkey

There’ve been rum goings on in the village for the last couple of months, dastardly plans have been published for building an international airport in our little corner of paradise.

The grapevine has been incandescent with rumours about its size, the size of the aircraft and every possible permutation of the information currently available. The short truth of the matter is that very little concrete information has been released by the people behind the plan and neither the location nor the construction have been approved by official government bodies, yet.

A topographical map with black areas marking the runway, terminal and apron areas has been circulating. It shows that some village areas of habitation could be badly affected by the construction process and houses occupied by some of the villagers may have to be bulldozed.

As you may imagine a groundswell of public feeling has been stirring to voice opposition and point out alternative locations. In the opinion of the opposition, Kaş, the villages above Kaş and the immediately surrounding areas would be blighted forever if the airport were to be built. Certainly the peace and quiet of the villages would be gone forever from the moment the first excavator bucket load of what passes for soil on the planned site is scooped up.

Oh, by the way, the red spot near the end of the runway on the map picture above is the location of my house. It is 300 metres or so from where the pilots might be retracting their undercarriage as they and their cargoes of sunburnt self loading freight scythe through the peace on their climb into the wide blue yonder leaving in their wake a cloud of Jet A-1* fumes and the faint but unmistakeable “ker-ching” of capitalism run rife.

I hope it won’t happen but I doubt my opinion will count for much in the decision process, there are too many other factors to be taken into consideration. I am put in mind of recently watching the TV series House Of Cards, both the U.K. Palace of Westminster version and the American White House version. Is there any similarity in the behind-the-scenes machinations of the decision? You might think that, I couldn’t possibly comment.

And another thing… I attended a hospital in Fethiye a few weeks ago to have a complete medical health check-up, very thorough it was too. I was pronounced fit for my age, a backhanded compliment but I don’t get many so I’ll accept it. The only fly in the ointment, if you’ll pardon the pseudo-medical pun, was a “nodule” on my thyroid. Currently I am awaiting the results of a biopsy to determine whether further action will be required, the consensus is it will not be, but to be 100% sure we wait.

EDIT: I almost forgot, Hanife’s horse did a wonderful job of eating my grass and most of the weeds too. Such a good job in fact that I prevailed upon her to bring her back because we had some rain and everything started growing again, pesky stuff.

*The fuel used in the turbine engines of modern jet airliners.

2016 started off with a very enjoyable meal at a friend’s house including good conversation around the table, thank you very much Juliet and David. I would have liked to have stayed longer but had to get back to feed my animals.

I pruned my grape vines at the back of the house with the intention of creating a good crop this year so that I can make some wine again. I also bought two more sapling vines, a nice red grape this time, I prefer red wine but enjoy white too, we’ll see what the quality of the wine will be in a couple of years time.

Talking of wine I saw in the British press that “Dry January” seemed to be high on the agenda for quite a few people and there was a lot of advertising about it. The idea of giving up alcohol piqued my interest so I joined in and went alcohol free for the month. I suppose it did me no harm, I thought I might lose some weight but I didn’t. I didn’t notice that I ate any more but I suppose I might have, I certainly slept better. That reminds me, I bought a new bed last week and it’s really comfortable, I love sleeping in it.

I have also done a bit more to the supporting structure for my wood fired oven outside the kitchen. I’ll have to get another bag of cement and see if I can find some firebricks too. I ought to get on with it since the weather is so nice for this time of year.

By far the most of my time has been spent learning to play my piano. I really get a lot of enjoyment out of learning to play it and I do seem to be learning. I suppose playing it as much as I do something must be going into the little grey cells.

Yesterday my neighbour, Hanife brought her goats into my garden to eat from the new leaves on the bushes, it’s horrible old scrub oak (makilik in Turkish) that grows all over the place here. I wish I could get someone to bring sheep because they concentrate on eating weeds and grass which would be much better for making the garden tidy. Today Hasan, Hanife’s son, has brought their horse to feed on the weeds, it’s not a very big one but my dogs are not happy with it and keep barking, it will save me some work with the strimmer though.

Next door the gardener for my neighbours Celina and Dirk has brought a guy who is ploughing the garden with a horse drawn plough. Very quaint and I’m not sure whether the strange noises and words that he uses  to urge it along and change direction would be appropriate in a posh pony club in UK but the horse understands well enough.

As usual when some work is going on there is one person doing it and two or three watching.

The village is swathed in almond blossom at the moment, it has blossomed very early this year, wonder what we can infer about the weather for the coming year from that?? We haven’t had much rain this winter and it’s quite a bit warmer too.

At last the almond trees I planted behind my house a few years ago are giving a good show of blossom too.

Yes it is late to be wishing Happy Christmas now but the title isn’t a wish of a Happy Christmas to you, dear reader, rather it is a statement of how my Christmas was and I enjoyed it very much.

However I do hope you had a happy Christmas. You’ll note that I don’t say Seasons Greetings or Happy Holidays, I’m not very PC and although I’m not devout I am a Christian and I don’t subscribe to the opinion that I should modify my religious greeting for fear of upsetting someone who is not. If your allegiance lies with another deity then whatever your winter celebration is I hope you have, or will, enjoy it very much. Peace on Earth and goodwill towards mankind is a mainstay of most religions so I suppose  for a non-denominational salutation at this time of year it is as good as anything.

Funny thing, throughout my life I have always found myself to be extremely short of funds at this time of year, I don’t really know why but this year is no exception however I have spent wisely I think. My first purchase was as a birthday present to myself, an electronic piano. I’m having a lot of fun learning and true to my hope at the time of the purchase I can now play a few tunes, not well and some not completely but I am learning. I have learned more about music in a few months of piano ownership than I did in  forty three years of guitar ownership.

My other big purchase was a car,  not extravagant and not new but I’m enjoying it anyway.

The dogs enjoyed it too, yesterday, because I took them down to Andriake beach for a run. There were some other dogs around too, a friend of mine, Rob, brought his dog Max and we met another who accompanied us right to the far end of the beach where we were joined by an enormous goat herders dog, the dog was enormous not the goat herder. Here are a couple of photos of the dogs and Rob.

I also bought myself a new computer so I’m learning about Windows 10. They say that learning slows down the aging of the brain so with Windows 10, music and Turkish I should have the mind of a child before long. Some would say I already have but that’s another story…

Bye for now.

A couple of years ago I bought a couple of what were called “citrus” saplings in a local plant nursery in Kaş, I did try to elicit more information from the seller but none was forthcoming. I planted them in large tubs and waited to see what would develop. Well the first thing that happened was that all the leaves fell off! Not to be outdone by the weather I brought them into my porch area to keep them out of the cold winter wind . Leaves grew back and I put them out and watered them in the summer, they seemed to be doing well. Last winter I brought them inside again and put them out again last April. They had flowers in the summer and I looked forward to finding out if they would fruit and what they would produce. Well one turned out to be a nice lemon tree, the other I had to wait longer for because the fruits stayed green, they are still green and are Limes. I am delighted because limes are very expensive here even if you can find them

This afternoon I picked some of the lemons, I think they might be the variety called “Meyer”.

I will leave the limes on the tree for a little longer just to see if they develop further, if they don’t then they might be the Thai lime called “Makrut”.

Once again I am in “catch-up” mode because I have neglected the blog for a while. Well not really neglected, it’s just been too warm to write (the computer overheats quite often) and it seems easier (although not half as satisfying) to make a quick post on Facebook.

I posted about the frame over the patio that I put up last September. This year the shading was draped over it and secured in place, I added some lighting and furniture and it has been in use as an outside lounge this year. I set up the TV on a small bench and have been able to watch films stored on a portable hard drive, very enjoyable. Funny thing was that Aslan the dog didn’t like the TV at all, barked at it and sat behind the chairs out of sight of it. Here’s a shot of it after sunset one evening.

My neighbour’s son Hasan turned up at the house three months ago with a tiny black kitten that has now taken over the place and has the other two and all the dogs scared of her. She has been named Katie and is not scared of the dogs at all, she rubs up against them or jumps onto them quite fearlessly and bats away their noses with a paw if they take too much interest. Here’s a picture of her with Aslan who seems to have become her best friend.

By the way, Aslan has been on a new course of medicine that I got from Spain and now seems to be cured of his leishmaniasis, it was expensive at €140 but well worth it if he remains healthy and fit. Here’s another photo of the other two cats who have sought sanctuary from Katie up on the shading above the vine frame at the front of the house, they’re wondering what she is going to do next.

New  toy!

I bought myself an electronic piano a few weeks ago and have been studying hard in an effort to learn to play it. It’s a super thing and after years of wanting one I finally did it, my mother and father could both play quite well and it’s been a lifelong regret of mine that they didn’t make me have lessons. My goal at the moment is to be able to play one or two tunes by Christmas but I want to learn the technicalities of music and playing from sheet music so I’m not going to run before I can walk. The little I have learnt so far just serves to whet my appetite and show me how much more there is to learn, wish me luck.

John, a friend of mine, asked me if I’d have a look at his Kindle because the screen had frozen and he couldn’t read anything. He had a search on the internet and had taken remedial action as recommended in a number of websites but all to no avail. John said that if I couldn’t fix it I might as well chuck it in the bin because he had bought another one. I spent a couple of days digging around in Google for information and came up with something he hadn’t found but that didn’t work either so I took the Kindle apart to see if there was anything physically wrong with it.

Specifically I wanted to have a look at the screen because I had found that a number of people who posted on the internet said that a cracked screen turned out to be the problem in a lot of cases. The screens on these things are a lot more fragile than computer or tablet screens, they are only 1.1mm thick and very easily broken, in fact the company that I bought the new screen from offers a service to replace them and they admit that they sometimes break a new one when fitting it.

In the picture below you can see what the old screen looked like, and whatever I did the screen showed the same picture.

Well after I had stripped it down and extracted the screen that was what I found too, a tiny crack hidden under the connector cable strip. I asked John if I replaced the screen and it worked could I have the Kindle? He said yes.

As I was shortly going to be in U.K. for a week I ordered a screen online to be delivered to my brother’s jewellery shop, I didn’t want to risk it being sent to Turkey because they are very fragile, I would pick it up from the shop to bring back to Turkey. When I got back here I fitted the new screen, a very fiddly job involving fine double sided tape and medical swabs, and ‘Lo and Behold’ it worked. John also gave me a nice leather case for it because it didn’t fit his new one so I have a nice Kindle to read my books on, and with this screen I can read it outside in the sun too!

Thank you very much John.

Feeling the need for a dose of history, as if just living amongst it here isn’t enough, I made another visit to the ancient city of Arykanda on Sunday. It’s quite a curious place, evidence suggests that it was initially built in the 5th Century B.C. by the Lycians then some parts had to be rebuilt by the Greeks and then again by the Romans and was used up to the 11th Century A.D. when the settlement moved down by what became the old main road.

We always seem to have marked periods of our history by wars and invasions, at least that’s how it seems to me and I always find it sad that we needed to protect ourselves from from attackers and invaders by building fortified places to live. It’s a great shame that we couldn’t live peaceably but an even greater shame that we usually obliterated the civilisation and history of a people that we attacked and defeated. If we had kept and preserved the knowledge and discoveries of conquered peoples how much more rich would our lives be now?

Imagine how tough life must have been, not only was it hard enough to farm and grow enough to sustain ourselves but there was the constant worry of whether a marauding band of ne’er do wells bent on death, destruction, rape and pillage was just over the horizon heading straight for your village. No surprise that folk chose to build places that could be better defended and of course to begin with they chose the most inaccessible place available, and that brings me to Arykanda. It is situated on a very steep slope right under a huge vertical cliff, just to wander around it’s different levels requires the agility and lungs of a mountain goat (of which there are plenty but you can’t get near them), indeed the slope is so steep that there wasn’t room for a complete stadium so they had to build a half stadium with seats only on one side, a steep drop fifty feet down to the theatre being on the other side. Still the gladiators could throw each other off the edge if the crowd gave the thumbs down, I don’t suppose they had many lions or other wild animals there though, what with one side of the stadium being completely open.

Only a few rows of stone seats in the half stadium

Another thing that I wondered about while getting my breath back was the lack of ordinary peoples’ houses. The pamphlet that accompanies the receipt for your entry fee mentions an area that is thought to have been the original residential area of the city, there are a couple of other areas where there are a few houses but these were stone built and would not have housed everybody.

Decoration marking steps on the half stadium seats, the theatre steps have the same decoration, could they have been painted white to make the steps more obvious?

These cities always have the bath houses, temples and markets etc. and even the small theatres are usually built to seat an audience of at least six thousand, that seems to be the standard entry level theatre size, but where did all these people live? Nowhere have I seen any housing, or the remains of it, for the workers, the poor guys cutting all this rock and lugging it up vertiginous slopes to make a nice bath complex for the rich people to luxuriate in, for example. It seems to me to be very likely that the lower status housing would have been simply and cheaply constructed of wood and mud, materials that degraded and were absorbed back into the land due to the weather. Anyway it was a nice day out, we took the very pleasant back road from Çukurbağ through Kasaba, Dirgenler and Çamlıbel and had a pleasant lunch at the main road watering hole afterwards.

The theatre is below the open side of the half stadium.

At home the cats are now thoroughly acquainted with the garden and have been bringing various small furry creatures, some dead some not, in through their cat-flap. I caught Defne practising her climbing, the photograph does not how much she and the tree were wobbling and she did well not to fall off.

Wobbling like mad but Defne didn’t fall.

The usual knocking sounds of courting tortoises have been heard amongst the bushes, this pair didn’t seem in the least embarrassed.

There’ll be a few babies coming along later.

January dragged itself slowly along with all its rain, cold, electricity cuts and muddy cats and dogs then February flew past in the twinkle of an eye. March is here with its promises of warm days to come. The days are longer, the sun stronger and the sunset later. Suddenly you notice the birds have started singing, the garden weeds have become tall enough to cut, people down in Kaş are preparing their shops and restaurants for the tourists and up here in the village the almond blossom has opened fully. Nature’s preparations and promises are enjoyed and anticipated by every living creature.

Bahar geldi! Spring has come! Exclaim friends and neighbours enjoying the sunshine. Cleaning and lighting the stove to warm the house becomes less necessary every evening and sitting in the sun with a glass or two of wine for an afternoon conjuring thoughts of alfresco cooking with friends is a pleasure to revel in.

The weather this month has been a bit mixed, only to be expected for this time of year though. We suffered some heavy rain storms which did damage locally but we also had some beautiful sunshine which warmed up the place and brought back the smiles to faces around town.

A visit to the Greek island of Meis is a pleasure not to be missed at this time, primarily to get a couple of bottles of duty free booze for Christmas. I’m including this in the December heading although the visit was actually on November 29th. This was my first visit to the eastern bay and it certainly won’t be my last. I was surprised at how peaceful it is, as if the harbour in the western bay isn’t peaceful! This view of the east bay also shows the town of Kaş in the background and illustrates just how close the island is to the Turkish mainland. Quite why I have never ventured over to this side before I can’t explain, seeing it has increased the charm of the island many times for me.

Whilst having lunch in Meis I noticed the owner of the restaurant cleaning some fish that had been delivered to him. The local cats had noticed it too and were hovering around waiting for a lunch time tidbit. The bigger bits he threw in the harbour for the turtles, there were three cruising around in competition for the scraps.

Another visit of the month was to Kalkan. This town has grown a lot over the last fifteen years but the harbour area still retains a charm of it’s own. We had lunch and a wander around to look at the result of a fire that had completely gutted a few of the bars and restaurants by the harbour. They will probably have some temporary facilities ready for the opening of the 2015 season.

Elswhere around the harbour most of the gulets had been taken out of the water for winter repairs and upgrades.

The Coastguard were still operational too.

A walk with the dogs along the beach at Demre was on for Christmas Day morning. Another of the beautiful days in December. No-one else on the beach at all although work on the new marina was continuing just past the southern end near the hotel.

The gulets are out of the water on the sand of the beach front of Demre too.

Back at home afterwards mince pies, sausage rolls and brandy coffee were a welcome snack.

Hope you all had a nice time yourselves and a Happy New Year to you all.