Category: Weather

Bedlam in Bodrum Revisited

Book Tour Intermission

While Bodrum collectively nursed its New Year hangover, the mechanical diggers moved in and started excavating the half of the promenade that wasn’t ripped apart last winter. These CATs don’t purr. Thankfully, we live far enough away from the main drag and didn’t have to endure the deafening rat-a-tat-tat competing with the deafening rat-a-tat-tat in our heads. Others were not so fortunate. Lessons have been learned from last year’s scramble to complete the makeover in time for the Spring rush. Not a minute has been wasted. Entire shop and restaurant frontages have been torn down leaving doorways hanging in the air. It’s not a case of mind the step, more grab the rope. Following the torrential rain of the last few days, the wide strip where the pavement used to be now resembles a bog which can only be crossed by impromptu paths of broken slabs set down by proprietors desperate to keep their doors open. Wheelchairs not welcome. Take a look at the before, during and after snaps.

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Crash, Bang, Wallop

Book Tour Intermission

I’ve interrupt the book tour for a heavy weather warning. After a gloriously long Autumn, winter violently thundered ashore – all crash, bang and wallop. We rushed to get old towels strategicaly placed around the house like thin sandbags to stem the impending flood. We’ve learned our lesson the hard way. Once again the street light next to the house blew up like a Roman candle with sparks flying hither and thither. Thankfully, the house lights stayed on but it was touch and go for a while. Light bulbs flickered like a slow strobe until the storm blew over. We lit candles and unplugged the fancy electricals as a precaution. This was on the same day that the water pressure dropped to a trickle. No bracing showers for us. Just a whore’s wipe.

Where Have All the Women Gone?

Liam’s back from Blighty, exhausted and in need of a little TLC. Naughty Nancy picked him up from Bodrum Airport while I warmed the house with candles, decanted the red and prepared a homecoming meal. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my culinary skills leave a great deal to be desired, but there is one simple dish I can cook without causing an international incident. It’s a one pot number of chicken thighs, tomatoes, peppers, red onions, and spices brewed in red wine. I just bung it all in and hope for the best – a winter warmer on a chilly night.

A winter warmer was needed. Liam brought the dodgy weather back with him – cold, wind and rain. As we sat down to chomp on my juicy thighs, we reminisced about our first winter in Yalıkavak. When we first rambled into the little town on one of those sunny midwinter days, things felt foreign, in more ways than one. ‘Jesus, where are all the women?’ I remember Liam asking. He was right. The scarcity of women in public was a complete shock to the system and a standard feature of Turkish life that we would never fully come to terms with. Okay, during high season, the female population was augmented by foreign bikini babes with their jugs out for the boys, and by the occasional painted lady of the night looking to make a quick rouble. Out of season though, things were a different affair entirely. Yalıkavak became a man’s world. It took us a while to acclimatise. Eventually, we uncovered the fairer sex hidden away in the fields, ringing the tills at supermarkets, dishing out the dosh in Turkish banks or playing happy families on a Sunday stroll. It was a real culture shift for the boys from the Smoke.

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Perking the Pansies – Jack and Liam move to Turkey

Strobe Lightning

Last night, the heavens opened and we were entertained by a real snap, crackle and pop of a storm. What is it about Turkish raindrops? They seem so much heavier than the Blighty variety as they fall to the ground like cluster bombs. As we watched the spectacle from our balcony, our courtyard became littered with adolescent olives and the road outside was overcome by a river of brown sludge that sloshed against our garden wall. We unplugged our fancy electricals as a precaution against the strobe lightning, positioned towels at vulnerable points around the house and hoped for the best.

At least the town’s first autumnal wash did douse the semi-parched garden. At the beginning of the summer, our neighbour took sole charge of our joint plot and made a valiant effort to keep it well watered. His initial enthusiasm eventually waned to half-hearted resentment; he seemed very pleased with the biblical downpour. We were less enthusiastic. Midway through the tempest, our roof sprang a leak and our fuse box, which is illogically located on an external wall, tripped. Compared to some, we got off lightly. We’re planning a joint birthday shindig this month; our birthdays are two weeks apart. At this rate it will be illuminated by candles and guests will be entertained by transistor radio while they sup warm white wine and dance around strategically placed buckets.
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Bodrum, Nice and Slow

The tyranny of summer is behind us and a blesséd autumn waits impatiently out to sea. The mugging muggy days have given way to bright warmth and cooler, cuddly nights. Having outlived the big heat, we reoccupied the upper floor of the house for the first time in two months. I was glad to become re-acquainted with our superior sprung marital mattress.

Bodrum’s hysterical nightlife has slowed to a thin trickle. The hordes are back in Istanbul and the whores are back in Kiev, replaced by Teutonic types in fishing hats and sandals with socks. The hassle boys along bar street are out in force to squeeze one last pushy sale and itinerant workers are heading home to their winter pastures to marry their cousins. Fink, the exemplar rich bitch bar has gone into hibernation and its huge swaying red chandelier, the most photographed light fitting this side of Versailles, will soon be dismantled and packed away. This is Bodrum at its best. Snap it up while you can.

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Tricks of the Trade

The Displaced Nation Trilogy – Part 3

During the height of the summer we were like camp vampires and only ventured out after dark. Earlier in the season, we found ourselves sweltering in 40 plus heat with no air conditioning. Because our little cottage has 18 inch thick stone and concrete walls, it took us weeks to find a technical solution. In the meantime, I received a host of suggestions to help us through the sleepless, sweaty nights. I’d like to share a few:

  • Wrap a gel-type freezer pack in a wet tea-towel and apply it to your hot bits (and watch them shrink)
  • Buy a floor-standing industrial fan (but nail everything down)
  • Bathe your feet in an ice bucket (and develop frostbite)
  • Take a cold shower before bedtime (except the cold water is hot at this time of year)
  • Sleep on a wet towel (and rot the mattress)
  • Decamp to the roof (and get eaten alive my mozzies)
  • Emigrate to Sweden

Thank you Pansy Fans for the suggestions. Any more? You can read the full Displaced Nation article here.

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Tick Tock

Liam has become increasingly alarmed at the pendulosity of my neatly pruned testiculaire.  It’s a long hot summer and without the provision of a support hose, gravity has taken its toll. I could run a grandfather clock with ’em.

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Back, Sack and Crack

Because I’m Worth It

A Gleeful Homecoming

Ancient Caria

Socially sated from our trip to Blighty and La Belle France, we have returned to our sticky Carian idyll to revive our sauna diet. We pitched the fans stereofanically and, despite the tyrannical heat, have spent a couple of evenings watching the second series of Glee. Fortunately, our randomly malfunctioning DVD player didn’t play up (more of this later).

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The Windy City

Wild and windy weather suddenly blew into Bodrum battering gulets and propelling chips off dinner plates. However, the concrete tresses of the fawning waiters stayed resolutely in place. Hurricane Katrina wouldn’t disturb their gelled masterpieces. The cooling gusts were a welcome respite from the sopping humidity of the last few weeks but now every surface of the house is draped in a fine film of dust and sand. It’s too hot to mop. We awoke yesterday morning to find our courtyard covered in leaf litter and dislodged adolescent olives still attached to broken twigs. We also found our landlord supervising a burly man with shovel hands and bad teeth. The florid stranger decimated the shrubs, hacked back the bougainvillea and shaved the ground cover. By midday our garden had been well and truly scalped, pruned to within an inch of its life. Beril and Vadim, our Turkish neighbours, are due back from their Ramazan pilgrimage to Ankara tomorrow. Vadim has been lavishing attention on our shared plot all summer. What will he make of the drastic Ground Force makeover?

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Baby, It’s Hot Inside

What is the greatest invention of all time, I wonder? Might it be the steam engine that drove the industrial revolution and the age of mass transportation or the printing press that spread the word to the people? Perhaps it’s the pill that liberated woman from the servitude of incessant child-bearing or the chance discovery of antibiotics that began the age of health and longevity (in the West, that is)? Lee Kuan Yew, the man who ruled Singapore for three decades, is reported to have claimed it was air-conditioning. Without it, he said, body-sapping Singapore could never have developed into the modern, dynamic, thriving city state it is today. Given our recent exposure to a life in sweat pants, I tend to agree.