We passed by the new house to have a hot water boiler installed. The house has solar heated water but this isn’t much cop during the cooler months when hot water is most needed to keep our important little places well sponged and in tip-top condition. Canny Hanife, our new matriarchal landlady, popped round with the front door keys and a tray of tea with fancies on the side. She was followed by dusky lad in cheap tight jeans with more than ample tools. The boiler was up in no time. The one drawback to this dual fuel solution is that one of us will have to use an old rickety ladder to climb onto the roof to turn the solar system on and off.
Category: Property
Blooming Bodrum
We’ve found a gem of a dwelling right in the heart of Old Bodrum Town where charming white washed buildings huddle together cheek by jowl. Our new gaff is a newly constructed stone cottage built in fake traditional style with fine wooden floors and beamed ceilings. The thick caramel coloured stone walls shimmer in the evening sunshine. The well-stocked walled garden is putting in a flourishing spring performance that wouldn’t disgrace the Chelsea Flower Show. Our new lodgings are smaller, thicker set and less exposed than the old. We expect our winter bills to plummet.
Our new landlady is a tough broad from old Bodrum stock and bartered hard. After some robust bargaining we sealed the deal. She is delighted to have yabancılar as tenants. Apparently she doesn’t trust her compatriots to pay the rent.
Bohemian Bodrum
I’m afraid overwintering in a minor Aegean resort can be a salutary lesson in benign boredom. My partner Liam and I have tired of the nosey over-familiarity of village life. We dodge past expat dives to avoid the sycophantic waiters and predictable punters who sulk if we don’t indulge them. We’ve drawn the conclusion that we crave anonymity and a little more buzz. We are London boys with our London ways after all. Prompted by our perfidious landlord we’ve decided to abandon our oversized house half way up a mini mountain with its matchless views and winter desolation. We shall seek solace and pleasure in bustling Bohemian Bodrum where alternative Turks go to escape from the crushing conformity of everyday life. The beauty of renting is we can up sticks when the mood takes us so we’re sodding off to Sodom. It’s güle güle to silence broken only by the call of crickets and spectacular sunsets and merhaba to 24 hour traffic, exorbitant lattes, barking dogs in surround sound and people, lots of them. I’ve purchased a pair of ear plugs.
Three Dollies and a Donkey
After our false start with a near death experience, we finally managed to inspect Clement’s new mountain village gaff. It took us three dollies and a donkey ride to get there. Further visits by public transport are off the agenda. Lunch was nice and the house is lovely, elegantly proportioned and stylish. Clement has painted a simple white canvass superbly accented by flashes of subtle colour. It’s a pity his terrace overlooks an untidy scrub containing a couple of disused brick shit houses.
The Perfidious Turk
Our fat perfidious landlord has unveiled his dastardly intention to evict us should he find a buyer for the house. This is in spite of our two year tenancy agreement and faultless payment history. We will jump before we are pushed. Our minds are now set on change and this is the opportunity to cast our net wider than sleepy Yalıkavak. We now know there is more to the Bodrum Peninsula than living in an igloo with a view on the edge of a ghost town populated by street dogs and feral felines. Besides, the vile Vikings are back for the spring and I don’t relish the prospect of enduring the whinging drivel from miserable Cnut or the sight of vapid Ragnild’s gravity ravaged baps. Despite the temporary bedlam, a Bodrum in shiny new livery looks promising.
Premature eJackulation
It looks like we’ll soon be following our ex-neighbour Clement. Our smiley landlord called by unannounced dragging a Turkish family of three generations behind him. Liam was taking his morning ablutions and I was taking tea. The family were prospective buyers, and smiley Landlord wanted me to show them around the house. I refused. It was embarrassing and rather unpleasant. If he wants to sell the house from under us that is his prerogative. He will have to give us fair notice and we have no intention of acting as his unofficial, unpaid agents. That wiped the silly smile of his face.
There are plenty of little white boxes around to rent and we shall move. There’s an excellent chance that our landlord won’t be able to sell the house and it’ll remain empty indefinitely like most of the others. Myopic old goat.
The Hills Have Eyes
Clement has fled to the hills to his village bungalow. I must confess to a slight sense of ambiguity by his exodus. In many ways he’s been a gracious and kindly neighbour but his quaintly old-fashioned views are way out of kilter with the modern world, a bit like an eccentric maiden aunt. I shall not to miss his angry evening discourses – how dear old England has lost its moral compass and is going to Hell in a handcart. He is emotionally and spiritually drawn to the warmth of traditional Turkish family values. It reminds him of the Blighty of his youth where everyone knew their place and were happy with their lot. Those were the halcyon days of consumption, grinding poverty and backstreet abortions where the love that dares not speak its name would result in persecution and a stiff prison sentence. I wish him the best but fear for the worst.
Ring of Fire
We awoke to the news that Mother Nature has viciously smacked Japan with the most powerful earthquake in recent history unleashing a titanic tsunami that is powering across the entire Asia-Pacific region at the speed of a passenger jet. My grumble about a bit of chilly weather in our corner of the world now seems pathetic. I have it to hand to the ingenious Japanese who have minimised damage and casualties with clever application of technology. Other nations in the region may not be so fortunate.
The entire Pacific Ocean is framed by faults and volcanoes that geologists call the ‘ring of fire’. Since we foolishly live on top of the extremely active Anatolian Tectonic Plate it’s only a matter of time before we experience the earth moving beneath our feet and our jerry built dwelling may well collapse like a house of cards. Liam served up a spicy curry last evening with egg fried rice and home made onion bhajis. It was delicious but I’m now dealing with a ring of fire of my own.
Tree Huggers Unite
We honeymooned in Kaş on the Turkuaz Coast. I was by then a seasoned Turkey traveller but Liam was an excitable novice. Kaş is a beguiling Bohemian jewel, surrounded by a pristine hinterland that has been mercifully spared the worst excesses of mass tourism. No expense was spared and we took a suite at the Deniz Feneri Lighthouse Hotel through Exclusive Escapes, an altogether superior hotel by an altogether superior travel company. No one star Gümbet with no star Thomas Cook for me on my first and final honeymoon. We bathed in the sparkling blue waters, strolled along the relaxed hassle-free promenade, feasted by candle-light and danced the night away with the locals in Bar Red Point, the best watering hole in town. I promised Liam the genuine Turkish shave experience and we got a lot more than just something for the weekend from the predatory married barbers on the pull. It put Liam off for life.
We hired a car and explored some of surrounding must sees in old Lycia. The area is stuffed with them. We lunched in pretty but twee Kalkan, meandered through the grand ruins of Patara, relaxing awhile on the adjacent beach – a stunning 18km protected stretch of soft white sand – and bathed in its shallow waters. We stumbled across the intimate ruins of the cult sanctuary of Letoon and watched turtles play in the warm pools. Letoon seduced us with its intimacy while nearby Xanthos, one-time capital of Lycia, awed us with its monumental scale and picture postcard aspect.
My first visit to Kaş was ten years earlier and it had hardly changed a bit. It was then that I met a middle-aged Scottish emigrey couple. They were ex-publicans with money to burn. The lazy town had worked its magic and they instantly decided to buy a house – no research, no cooling off, no going back. Prices were cheap and they visited a cashpoint machine each day to gather the deposit. I wonder if the dream lived up to the reality.
It was in Kaş that the seeds of our own change were sown though germination took another year. As we sipped chilled wine by the glorious infinity pool, we idly speculated about dropping out of the rat race and finding our place in the sun. We dreamed of Kaş and the Turkuaz Coast as if our lives could be one long honeymoon. Common sense prevailed as it must. Kaş is what it is because of its glorious isolation, protected by a wilting three hour drive from the nearest international airport. I hear talk of a new gateway to open up the coast. I would gladly chain myself to a tree like Swampy or pitch a tent like a Greenham Common lesbian to prevent it.
Old Scrubber
I am bored rattling around our big house on my own. I know I’m an old scrubber but there’s only so much scrubbing even I can do. Anyway, I can’t get down on knees like I used to. Well, getting down is a doddle but getting back up requires the assistance of two strong lads. I am considering getting a little Turk in to dust down my knick-knacks and clean out my drawers.
Neighbourly Clement invited me to a spot of lunch to relieve me of my solitary confinement. He’s all angst and ringing of hands at the moment because his dream retirement bungalow in the hills is delayed by a plague of minor technical hitches (no windows or roof).
Perking the Pansies 