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.

A very Merry Christmas to everyone who reads this and I hope you have a happy and healthy 2012. Christmas in Turkey is a very muted affair and only really celebrated by the Christians living here of course. The shops have a lot of decorations though, Turks generally use the same sort of decorations to celebrate New Year (Yıl Başı). Nearly every Christmas Day I have been here has been a beautiful day with warm sunshine and clear blue skies and this year is no exception. Here’s a picture of Minnie in the sun this morning.

I had a very enjoyable week in Prague recently. The weather wasn’t much to shout about most of the time but walking around the city looking at the famous buildings in the evening was very pleasant. Here are some photographs:

Charles Bridge is a famous piece of old architecture.

It has an arch at both ends and plenty of other interesting architecture around it.

In the square there is a famous astronomical clock with automata figures that stand at the openings in turn when the hour comes.

Also in the square was a Christmas Market with stalls selling souvenirs, various foods and hot wine which we had a go at.

Also had a lovely tree with cascading lights that a still photo doesn’t do justice to.

This lamp caught my eye

And these decorated eggs in a shop window looked photogenic.

Shindler’s lift caused a smile as it took us up in the world.

No relation to the hero played by Liam Neeson in the film Shindler’s List apparently.

I renewed my health insurance the week before last and the agent asked me if I’d like to go to the hospital in Antalya to see a specialist about my finger (previous post explains) to see if some reconstruction surgery would be possible. It seemed like a good idea so I went, he also booked me in for a complete medical check-up which had very good results apart from slightly raised blood pressure. Anyway the upshot was that I will go in January for an operation on my hand to fix the problem. I’ll let you know how it goes, hopefully with pictures if I’m allowed to take them.

Here’s another Christmas Day photograph to end with.

Last weekend I went to the wedding of my friend Suleyman’s daughter. She had asked me to take some photographs so in an effort to make it easy for her to share them I made a website so that she could send the address to all her friends. Here is a LINK to the site if you’re interested in having a look.

About three years ago the remote control handset for my satellite decoder started acting up. I fitted new batteries and pressed the buttons harder but it didn’t make any difference so naturally, being me, I took it to bits. After a few minutes examining everything it seemed to me that the rubber buttons that you push have a carbonised rubber tip which touches two contacts on a printed circuit board and makes a connection. The carbonised rubber was worn and cracked on some of the buttons causing the connection not to be made. Ok I thought, I can glue some tinfoil on the business end of these buttons and it will work again. So I did and it did and everything was sweetness and light in my house…..until last week.

The remote control stopped controlling, anywhere from remote to very very close. I went to town to see about getting a new one. It was seven years old and an unusual model (of course it bloody was!!) so I could not get a new one.  Universal remotes don’t work with my “unusual model” decoder. I had to buy a new decoder complete with remote control. So I did. Yesterday.

So in the evening I sat down with a glass of wine and the user handbook (in Turkish) and the new remote controller to see about setting it up. It’s only a new piece of electronics and my Turkish is ok, not fluent but I have a dictionary. How hard can it be?

This afternoon the man from the shop came and put the decoder card in the right way up!!!!!!!!

Oh the shame!!!

We had a forecast of heavy rain a few days ago. Now that can sometimes mean we don’t actually get any but more often than not we get at least one day of it. When rain comes here it is usually pretty heavy and as I had been trying to leave harvesting my grapes till the last minute I decided that I’d better get on with it otherwise there would be none left. I collected two wheelbarrows full, it was quite an effort standing on a plastic chair and reaching up using muscles not used in a while. I only fell off the chair once but that was enough.

Treading grapes is not the most efficient way of extracting the juice by a long chalk. The grapes keep squidging up between your toes and around your feet. What you could do with is a couple of things like big potato mashers strapped to your feet, but then you’d also need a bigger container to do it in. I only had a blue plastic barrel that swimming pool chemicals had come in so I just had to make do with bare (but washed) feet.

I’ve used two large water bottles to do the first fermenting in, 38 litres altogether. The fermentation was a bit slow to start but it is now well on the way. The white things on the top are balloons with the bit you blow through cut off and a couple of pinpricks made in them to let the gas out when the pressure makes them expand enough but stop the ingress of contamination when the fermentation slows down.

I’ll let you know when I bottle the wine but I have to collect a few more bottles first. I’m using 1 litre screw top bottles like I did last time. It took three years for the last lot to become drinkable and very nice it was too. I’m looking forward to this batch being ready and in the meantime I’ll be planting some more vines at the front of the house, red grapes this time.

Just thought I’d let you know that the new marina in Kaş is now open for business and fully operational. Here’s a photograph, some boats on the pontoons already and I’ve seen a couple of big luxury motor yachts in there too.

This helicopter flew over my house a few days ago. I checked it out with Google and it seems to be a Russian made KA 32. Judging by the stretcher carrier bolted on the side I’d guess it is in search and rescue mode, but what do I know?

Last week I went with some friends to visit a winery in Elmalı up in the mountains about 100km from here. We had a stroll around Elmalı looking for a place to eat and came across a street with an interesting looking shop where they sold pots and pans for all purposes.

Likya Wines in Elmalı is quite a small operation at the moment but I’m sure it will grow as it’s fame spreads.

We had a tour of the production facilities and then tasted a few wines.

Even Jancis Robinson had some nice things to say about Likya Wines, I liked them too and spent far too much money buying some.

You can’t trust a tortoise! Just when you think you’ve made a little friend because you’ve fed him some water a few times and he doesn’t run away from you now, even rescued him from the jaws of death, well the jaws of my new dog anyway, and put him back on his feet, even given him some tomato and lettuce to munch, what does he do? He bites off your flowers at the bottom of the stem, that’s what he does, ungrateful little bugger! Well the next time the dog is harrassing him he can fight his own battle!

Sitting on my smaller patio at the end of the house late a few nights ago I spotted a dark shape moving around. It was a roundish thing about nine inches long (no I’m not metricated yet) and shuffled around sniffing and rootling in the grass. It was a hedgehog! It’s the first live one I’ve seen here in seven years, I’ve seen the odd dead one on the road but never a live one before, I’m absolutely delighted that he/she chooses to live here or at least visit for the time being. I can’t leave food out for him because of attracting mice and rats so I’ll sit out and wait to see it again and feed it then,  it didn!t want the carrot that I gave it,  maybe I’ll get some meaty dog food.

As I was coming out of town the other day I spotted a display of solar water equipment on the back of large pick-up truck. I stopped and

had a chat with the salesman, the upshot of that being a team of guys fitted it on a tower at my house last Tuesday afternoon. The whole set up including the tower cost me 1200 lira (about £430 at today’s exchange rate). I’m well pleased with it, the water is scalding hot and I’m looking forward to a big reduction in my electricity bills now that I’m not running the electric water heater 24/7/365. I’m also looking forward to some long hot baths during next winter. Click the picture to see the large version.

My friend Suleyman has had a truck as long as I’ve known him. For some years now he has wanted to give up the heavy job of loading and driving it and get a car that he do a bit of private hire driving with, a few airport transfers and the like. Yesterday he came up my drive tooting the horn on his new car pleased as punch with himself. It’s a 2002 Fiat Doblo with 151,000 kilometers on the clock and he got it for TL14,500. It’s very clean and tidy and looks like he got a bargain.

Here is follow-up to the Arycanda post. Following that adventure packed day we went to Patara, Xanthos and Letoon.

Patara was quite nice but a big renovation job is currently underway there.

It has the obligatory theatre,

and various other relics including a very good road with columns which would have had a roof over it to provide shade.

Lots more to see there but I just want to whet your appetites for now.

We also went to Xanthos which was a real disappointment because the famed mosaics were covered with a protective membrane and tons of sand! We searched high and low for anything else unique but came up with nothing, very disappointing.

Letoon was next on the list, after driving around in circles for an hour or so we eventually found it and the same thing had occurred there, more covered up mosaics. I did find a bit of one that wasn’t covered up though.

There was also a new/restored mosaic that was uncovered but it looked so new and the design so different that I think it is a modern design and not old at all. So I won’t include a photo.

When we left Letoon we stopped for lunch in a small restaurant and got stung with a big bill for not much refreshment, the same would have cost us half that in Kaş.

Kaş Festival.

The three day Kaş Festival for the opening of the tourist season was a very successful event. One of the happenings was the sinking of a boat to form a new reef and attraction for scuba diving. A few years ago they sank a replica of an old Phoenician trading vessel but this time it was an old coastguard boat, the one on the right below.

I went out on a friend’s little sailing boat and we seemed to meet lots of friends out there. The coastguard boat seemed to take an age to get anywhere near sinking and then went down in a rush.

Afterwards we went and had a beer over in Limanağzı in a small bay opposite the main part of the town. A very nice afternoon out on the sea.