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.
The Hills are Alive
Spring in Turkey is always a magical time of the year, nature-wise. The hills seem to blossom overnight with all manner of flamboyant and exotic flora blanketing the usually arid scrub. It is a brief respite before the unforgiving sun burns the landscape back to its usual two-tone hue of dull green and ochre. To take advantage of the display we took a pleasing stroll into the old köy of Sandima set in the foothills above Yalıkavak. The village is derelict save for a pretty house renovated by a local artist and a couple of centenarians. Sandima was abandoned when the villagers exchanged subsistence farming for the more lucrative trade of sponge diving. Thus Yalıkavak was born and Sandima left to decay into peaceful, overgrown oblivion. Nowadays most sponge gathering has stopped and the local economy is dependent on tourism (and the steady supply of gullible girls for the local gigolos).
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.
Get the Madam
We suspect a couple of waiters at a local Yalıkavak hostelry are just a little bit gay. Jamal is in his forties and unconventionally unmarried. It is the custom for Turkish men to greet each other with a firm handshake and a gentle touching of cheeks, left and right. Jamal on the other hand, proffers a limp hand and purses his lips to land a big sloppy kiss on his male victims. Young Rasheed is a hirsute, handsome chap with bad teeth. He is a local boy who lives with his mum, wears high-waisted trousers and smokes a cigarette like Bette Davis. He is adamant that he will never get married. Get the madam.
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.
Desperate Housewives
We popped down to the village for jar or two in the warm spring sunshine. We were more or less forced to spend the afternoon with a couple of desperate ex-housewives. Wizened Mariette is a French woman now living in London with a holiday home in Turkey. She was interesting for all of five minutes. We asked her where in France she was from. ‘Geneva,’ she replied. Liam helpfully pointed out that last time he looked on a map Geneva was in Switzerland. Our suspicion that she was one sandwich short of a picnic was confirmed when she responded ‘Yes, that’s right, in France.’ Her plump friend Suzy was a busty barmaid from Leatherhead with the ruddy complexion of a farmer’s wife. Suzy had a permanently startled look, an unfortunate expression for a barmaid from Leatherhead. It was as if she’d sat on something rather unpleasant.
Sweet Swedes and Wretched Russians
My faith in our distant Nordic cousins has been mercifully restored by the arrival of Joel and Mikaela, a sweet couple from the northern pinelands of Mother Svea. They own a Tepe house on the level beneath us. Joel is a tall, slim, handsome older man with silver hair and a laid-back charm. His wife Mikaela is the archetypal Aryan beauty, a blue-eyed blond bombshell. Their warm and kindly disposition is a welcome respite from the grumpy old Danes next to us. They invited us in for tea. Their grand villa is a picture of understated Scandinavian chic. We chatted away for hours, a delicious smörgåsbord of wit and wisdom.
I recalled my first visit to Stockholm when I was a hormonal adolescent. The little local grammar school I attended laid on the most incredible journeys designed to broaden horizons and expand the mind. One early morning in 1975 twenty or so sweaty boys boarded a train at Victoria Station and headed for the coast. We sailed on the morning tide to Flanders where we began our grand passage across the great North European Plain.
First stop Berlin. It was the height of the Cold War and we spent two days exploring the cruelly divided city, escorted through the wall at Checkpoint Charlie. Onwards east, our carriages were pulled by an ancient steam locomotive that choo choo’d through a flat, monotonous landscape. As we neared Poland our party was raided by a detachment of East German border guards brandishing Kalashnikovs. The mean-looking, chisel-chinned troopers in tight beige uniforms rifled through our belongings and ransacked the couchettes. Perhaps they were looking for Levi jeans. Calm was quickly restored and we continued our incredible journey. A brief stop in Warsaw precluded an excursion to the city. We continued on across the Soviet border to Smolensk where the entire train was silently raised from its bogies and placed onto a new set of wheels to fit the wider Russian railway gauge.
Second stop Moscow. Tsar Brezhnev was on the Soviet throne and we were tightly chaperoned by an over-painted woman in cheap scent. She was tailed by the KGB. Shops were empty save for Russian dolls, and strangers approached us in Gorky Park wanting the clothes off our backs. Moscow was drab but the metro was palatial. The Kremlin was magnificent and Red Square was vast and windswept. Lenin in his marble tomb looked like a Madam Tussauds’ dummy. The comrades around us looked fed up and miserable as they shuffled dutifully past the macabre exhibit.
Third stop Leningrad that was. The Venice of the North was a more visually pleasing spectacle with imposing baroque architecture painted in multi-coloured delicate pastels. The majestic enormity of the Winter Palace containing the Hermitage Museum was too vast to comprehend. As if Peter the Great’s grand imperial capital wasn’t grand enough we embarked on our fourth stop, a day trip to Novgorod, one of the most celebrated cities of medieval Rus. This ravishing city is twinned with Watford of all places.
Fifth stop Helsinki across the Gulf of Finland. This picturesque and verdant city reminded me of a mini-St Petersburg. Our whistle-stop excursion was all too brief.
Sixth stop stunning Stockholm where we expected to see a sex shop on every corner. It was the sexual repressed seventies when buttoned-up Brits were convinced that emancipated Swedes were at it morning noon and night. We were disappointed.
We steamed back to Blighty across the cold northern seas in a Ruskie rust bucket that saw service in World War Two. We shared the wreck with a party from an all-girl’s school in Scarborough. I watched the boys chase the girls and wondered what all the fuss was about. Our teachers allowed us to take a drink at the bar. Perhaps this is where my gradual but certain descent into alcohol dependency all began.
Final stop Tilbury Docks and back to earth with a bump. Three weeks for 150 quid which my parents saved for months to pay. All in all a fantastic adventure that was a little lost on a bunch of post-pubescent fourteen year olds whose main preoccupation was masturbation.
PS Perking the Pansies has few followers in modern Russia but I spied a lone flasher in Novgorod the other day.
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.
Emigrey Soap Opera
The unsavoury meal with Chrissy and Bernard was a momentous milestone in our Turkish escapade. We have resolved to disengage from the emigrey soap opera by rejecting the gang mentality and dumping the monstrous middle England miseries. We will decamp to bustling Bodrum where we hope the ambience will be less corrosive. Co-incidentally (or perhaps not), the ‘Come Dine with Me’ club has also fractured into acrimony, finally collapsing under the weight of its own pretensions.
Pot and Kettle
Chrissy phoned and invited us to meet Mandy, a long-time friend visiting from Blighty. Chrissy does not take no for an answer and with heavy hearts we reluctantly agreed. We met at a village inn for an aperitif. The restaurant is run by Giray the Kurd who has a much deserved reputation as a local Casanova and the regular ride for visiting VOMITs.
Bernard tackled me about our London landlady Karen who had just returned to Blighty. He didn’t think much of her and thought her rude. Pot and kettle sprang immediately to mind. I moved the conversation on to where to eat. Given Chrissy’s long history of food fussiness I asked her to decide. She chose to stay put and we took our table. Right on cue, they were exceptionally rude to the waiters, all tut-tutting and clicking of fingers. As expected, Chrissy hated the food. To be fair our chicken kiev, though delicious, did resemble a deep fried turd. However, this doesn’t excuse their hideous small town Raj demeanour
I went to take a leak as much to take a short break from their irritating fastidiousness as to empty my bladder. As I got back Chrissy was tackling Liam about Karen. She didn’t think much of her and thought her rude. I went up like a rocket. Chrissy spluttered into her chicken. A sharp and nasty exchange ensued with Liam targeting Bernard while I rounded on Chrissy. Liam eventually stormed off and sought sanctuary on the beach. I demanded the bill, paid and left. I hope that’s the last we see of the Vipers in Paradise, an epitaph coined by Karen, ironically.
Perking the Pansies 