Late September

On Monday 17^th our friends Eric and Diane were going to Kusadası. They had never been there before, so we invited ourselves along as unofficial guides. Our bus journey there takes us through the cotton fields on what you might call the Söke plain .. a broad flat area with a large river meandering through it. The cotton fields require a lot of water especially when it is planted, very similar to rice. This time of the year it is ready to be harvested, but this year we observed that the itinerant workers who usually nomadically follow the seasonal agricultural work were largely absent, and in their place were large combine harvesters moving up and down the fields. A sad sign of the times. These workers have been employed on subsistence wages for many years, living in shelters made from sheets of polythene and canvas, all along the edges of the fields, parents, children dogs and all, and now, almost overnight, the tradition has changed. Last year it was a novelty to see one of these combines, but this year it has become the norm.

Our day out in Kusadası commenced with a visit to Bird Island, where we unexpectedly met two friends of E & D who live in Kusadası. We had a coffee with them and a long chat, followed by a walk around the island and it's castle battlements. Then it was a bit of retail therapy as Diane was looking for a sparkly top for a “do” she would be attending in the near future in the UK. This was followed by an excellent late lunch of çöp şiş, a wander along the sea-front, more liquid refreshment before returning to the dolmuş station for our journey home.

On Tuesday we had a frustrating morning. We had gone down to sail. It was still very windy, but we thought we might manage it. However, fate took a hand because the electric motor decided not to work. Without it, we won't venture out onto the sea. Our friends Ed and Peter do, they rely on paddles should they get a problem, but that seems like hard work, especially if you happen to be 3 Km away from Gaye 2 when the mast breaks or a stay fails and you have to row all the way back, with the wind against you ... no, not for us. We gave up and returned home to investigate the problem. It wasn't a big problem fortunately. The salt water had eaten into one of the cable clips that attach to the battery, and although it seemed fine just to the eye, it had in fact corroded to the point of not allowing a current to pass. A quick repair later and the motor was fixed, but by this time we had lost the urge so to speak. Anyway, at that point Melih, our Turkish architect friend came round with the plans of his new project which he wanted us to peruse. He's going to build a block of 4 houses in Altinkum, each one having 3 en-suite double bedrooms and it's own swimming pool. He came round earlier in the year, and was measuring our lounge and kitchen, and has incorporated many features of our house into his own. He has taken on board many of the comments of people around, to correct failings of other houses and improve on features incorporated into his previous projects. He is aiming to sell these 4 for around £75,000 each, which is very competitive in the current market. We don't think they'll be hanging around for long.(USD 8.11)

Wednesday we had to collect our post, and was spent socialising and serving our fellow Brits as an information bureau. We seem to do a lot of this ... we ought to have a sign outside with office hours. The sign would read “Information Bureau, estate agents, insurance agents, flight booking office, travel agent, money exchange, banking information, internet café, legal advisers, home services. Opening hours 5pm to 7 pm” (so as not to interfere with sailing or sleeping). Three times this week information seekers have got us out of bed. However the day ended on a very pleasant note at the police academy for a really peaceful meal with Ken and Betty, overlooking the sea as the sun went down. Not many souls there, so even better service than usual, with the waiter giving us a lift down the road at the end of a lovely evening.

Thursday we sailed for most of the day. Amanda and Lawrence's new boat had arrived, but they weren't out in it as they were waiting for the company who built it to come and fix a few teething problems. By the time we finished, the man had turned up and I spent the next couple of hours with them, assisting where I could. It is a very good looking boat and the quality of the fixtures and fittings is second to none. We were a bit concerned about an apparent crack in the hull, but Feridun, the boat-builder said it was just in the gel-coat caused by the journey down and easily repairable. It was almost dusk before they could take it out for a test run, and all seemed to be well. When we got home we had a message from Phil and Lynn. They needed to come round to book their tickets home. They had to be back before Lynn's birthday as the family are organising a party. That done and the rest of the evening was our own ... just time to go to bed!!!

Friday got off to a good start as we got an email from Christie, our daughter. She has passed another module in her HND course in Horticulture. As she fits this in between work and bringing up 3 children, she is doing remarkably well, especially as this particular module, large scale commercial horticulture didn't really interest her. The next module will be plant genetics and should provide more challenge. She has also booked flights for her whole family to visit us next year ... a wonderful piece of news. We can't wait. The rest of the day was spent socialising as it was too windy to sail.

Saturday we were woken early by Phil and Lorraine who were after information on who could build them some kitchen cupboards. We gave them the name of our carpenter and they went off to the industrial estate to find him. It being windy, we lay in the sun on the top terrace and read for the rest of the day. In the evening we borrowed a wheel barrow and collected up several loads of waste wood from a building site we had spied on a walk, in readiness for cool winter nights. We've become scavengers and recyclers since living here.

More wind on Sunday, and still too much for sailing, so we went to Altinkum. If it's windy in Yeşilkent, it's usually not so on the other side of the peninsular in Altinkum, so a walk along the seafront there was very pleasant, and we met several of our neighbours doing the same thing. We returned to Didim in the evening to have a meal at the Sabila restaurant with Diane and Eric. As we weren't sure of dolmuş times, it being the end of the season, Sabila were very good and fetched us in their vehicle and once we had finished our meal, brought us all home again. Not many restaurants in the UK would be so accommodating .... something maybe they should look into?

Another early morning awakening, when Ali, our carpenter woke us. He was looking for Phil and Lorraine to measure up for their kitchen. We pointed him in the right direction and then we packed up our things and went to Tuntaş beach for the day. This is a tourist beach that we normally avoid, but as we are at the end of the season we thought it wouldn't be too busy. Wrong!! However it was interesting to people watch. Most of them should follow the example of the Turkish Muslim women and cover up, as what was on display would have been best hidden. Yewk! Once again with the high winds on the Yeşilkent side, Tuntaş beach was sheltered. It's also a gently shelving sandy beach, so the water round there is still very warm.

Tuesday we went down to Gaye 2 to check the winds. (USD 8.11) It's not always easy to know about the strength of the wind up at our house, as when the wind is from the north, we are quite sheltered. It was much too windy for sailing so imagine our surprise to see Mandy and Lawrence's boat missing. We asked Turkoz (Peter's wife) and she said the boat was gone. We were surprised they would go sailing in such a high wind, but Turkoz said no not sailing, back to Izmir for repairs. Apparently it had sunk the previous day, (the “crack in the gel-coat”) and had to be returned to the factory. It needs a complete new hull. Poor Mandy and Lol's bad luck that has dogged them all year has struck yet again. The only good thing is that the guy is very apologetic and will put it all right with absolutely no extra cost to them. Later, in the afternoon, the wind subsided enough, to around a force 4 or 5, and we were able to get 3 hours of enjoyable sailing in. When we got back Phil and Lynn were on the jetty watching us. Lynn said she had spent the day baking, so I invited us round to theirs for apple pie and cream. Yummy!!

Wednesday, we read, swam and sailed the day away. Gaye 2 seems to have got busier again. More houses are open again and more people are around. Marbuleh (that may be how you spell her name), our 93 year old Turkish neighbour, seems to have a new lease of life since the heat of the summer has subsided. She can often be seen chatting to her friends and walking up and down from her house. She swims from the jetty every day, sometimes more than once, climbing down and up the steps at the end. She's very remarkable. At the moment she is reading Dan Browne's Da Vinci Code ...... the ENGLISH version. She has a dictionary at hand to translate the words she doesn't understand, and if really stuck, asks us. She is VERY remarkable, we know we have repeated ourselves but she IS.

Believe it or not there was no wind at all on Thursday, so we collected more wood, swept the chimney and washed the living room curtains in readiness for the winter. Not something to look forward to. Then visiting, swimming and finished the day off with a meal at Café More.

Peace Festival

It's strange, September 1st came and it was if someone said "right that's enough summer for you lot" flicked a switch and the temperatures dropped like a stone. Last week we were coping with highs in the upper 30s and lows in the upper 20s and this week those temperatures have dropped by ten degrees. This does allow us to get out and about more now though.

Didim holds a Peace Festival every year on the first 3 days of September. There were many events including a mayorial visit to the Greek island of Samos. The original idea was to promote a peaceful exchange between Greece and Turkey. It is now pushing out the boundaries to a wider theme, a more international theme.

We attended some of the events. We supported the fun run on Saturday in which some of our local Brits were running. This is our friend Gary doing his bit as an ostrich.

We also went to some of the concerts held on the beach in the evenings. The star of Saturday's concert was the Turkish Eurovision Song Contest Winner. She was excellent and drew a crowd of thousands, the biggest crowd we've seen since the Lowestoft Airshow. (just a reminder ... click on any picture to see a larger version)

We also went to another beach concert on Monday. This time the performer was the Turkish equivalent of Neil Diamond, with open shirt, long straggly hair and a gold medallion.

The sound system was one of the best we have heard at a concert, and you could hear the music clearly all along the one and half kilometre beach. After the concert they had a firework display ...not up to the standard of the Oulton Broad Regatta, but nice all the same.

Many of our friends have been coming and going during the last couple of weeks. The ones that are coming have been very generous and brought us many luxuries that we still can't get out here or are just too expensive, such as gammon, sausages, Bird's custard powder; and those that are leaving give us the remaining contents of their larders and fridges. We have been given so much we had to divide it amongst friends and it also meant that a trip to the market was unnecessary. We are so lucky to know such generous people. Thank you all.

One of our friends UK side, asked us to check out her apartment for her as she was due to visit soon. When we arrived there was a sheaf of bills hanging out of the electricity meter and two of them were red, so needless to say, she'd been cut off. She pays a company to deal with this but of course they hadn't been near the place since she left in the spring. If her email to the company doesn't have the desired effect then she'll have that to deal with when she arrives.

Wednesday, Peter arrived back from Ankara and we went down to say hello. While we were there we were able to assist him to get his sailing boat back in the water. With Ed arriving back this weekend our sailing flotilla is now once again complete and Sue and I will have company while we are sailing. Until now, through the summer it has just been us, the power boats and the trip boats.

To get to our boat we have been having to take a roundabout route down to the “harbour” which means using an unmadeup road. However a German family have arrived and have been building a road block. She's complaining about the dust, but as we told her, it's a fact of life here and she has to live with it, a road is a road and she can't just block it off. However, it did make us look for another route and we've actually found a better one, so I suppose we have her and her Germanic attitude to thank for that.

Our friends Pat and Stuart had been on a trip down to Alanya for the last couple of weeks to visit their son who was holidaying there, and also to check out their other property that they have down there. They arrived back over the weekend of the 9^th and came over on Friday to tell us of their adventures. They drove 800Km down the coast road to get there and on the way found some really pretty little bays and coves. One they came across was called Olympus. They followed a track down towards the sea. When they reached the end of the track they had to park up the car and walk the rest of the way. When they arrived there was a fresh water lake fed by a waterfall, and the lake, in turn, overflowed into the sea. They were able to swim in the warm sea and then plunge into the cold lake. They said it was magical, and of course, as they had to walk to get to it, not many others were there. We will have to try to get down there some time. They are now planning their next adventure, Greek Island hopping. They want to go from Bodrum via Datcia to Simi, and then maybe to Rhodes, Tilos, a couple of others and then back to Bodrum. Sounds like fun and they have invited us to join them. We will have to see how the funds are holding up and then get back to them.

This weekend of the 9^th has seen a lot of action. Yo and Nigs have gone off to UK for 3 weeks. Yolande's brother is getting married, and her other brother from New Zealand will be there, so she's quite excited about that. They also have a christening to attend as well as many friends to catch up with.

The road opposite has finally been completed, with a layer of tar and asphalt being rolled into the hardcore, so Paul, Tania, Noel and co will be able to reach the main road without tramping through mud or dust.

As the number of unsold properties here builds, and the need for money for the next project grows, so do the scams. We have had agents who have “sold” apartments and villas with fake Tapus (like the deeds in England), and those that have sold buildings and then, before the tapu has been transferred, taken out loans on them. The Tapu office then refuse the transfer until the loan is paid off. Yo and Nig's sister hadn't had their Tapu and discovered that the seller had passed it over to a friend, who had used it to get himself a loan for a new project. Now they have to go to court to get their money back. It can be a minefield buying property here. Mandy and Lawrence were promised their Tapu, but got a letter just last week saying it has been refused by the military. Apparently it has been built too close to military land and can only be sold to Turkish people. Now they are in turmoil, not knowing where they stand, and are awaiting an appeal, but Turkish friends have told us there's not much hope against a military ruling.

Amanda and Lawrence decided they needed cheering up, after all the bad luck that's befallen them this year, so they've ordered themselves a boat. Not a Rotaboat like ours, but a Sasal boat. It's more of a connoiseurs boat, better rigging, fixtures and fittings. They have done a lot of sailing before, and a basic dinghy like ours just wouldn't do it for them. It arrives this weekend. So that'll make 4 sailing craft in our fleet.

There have been so many arrivals and departures this last couple of weeks, it's been quite a job to keep up with it all. So many people to catch up with, or wave goodbye to. It's been a bit hectic. Our Irish neighbours, the ones adjoining, Nicky and Mary, arrived at the beginning of the month, and just last night they returned to Ireland. While they were here they took us to Sabila, where we were met by Pat and Stuart. Sue and I were celebrating our second year of living here (we emigrated from England 12/09/2005). We all had a great meal and a lovely evening there. We think that Sabila joins Café More as our two favourite restaurants in Didim.

We have roller shutters on our windows, and one of the tapes that you pull to raise and lower them broke this week. We went to all the hardware shops looking for a replacement, but no joy, so we tried the industrial estates. We eventually found one, but in the process we also found the man who last serviced our motorbike. Businesses here come and go, or move on to other places, and so we were pleased to have located him, as he'd done a good job for us last time. Even better, he'd moved from near Akbuk to Didim, much closer for us. Our bike is about due for a service, so, as soon as we have a spare afternoon, we'll go and see him.