Reasons to be Cheerful

Bodrum is a great place to live. Who can fail to be cheerful when living in a town that boasts this wonderful view.  The strains of "We are the Champions" are just fading as I write - Bodrumspor have played their last match of the season and will be going up into the 2nd division. For a town with a shade of blue named after it, Bodrum is very green today - flags and t-shirts sporting Bodrumspor's green and white logo are everywhere. The celebrations will carry on this evening with a free concert in the town centre.  Tomorrow morning, the main streets will be closed for the 15km Global Run and in Çamarası near Mumcular,  Enduro motorbikes will race at the brand new cross country track. Adding to the positive vibes  today was the feeling that Bodrum is still on the main site-seeing and travel route.  Over a thousand European visitors were wandering the streets,  having docked at the liner port. Don't believe what you read in the papers - people are still visiting and enjoying the Turkish Aegean Coast and it is still one of the best places to be.

Bodrum Global Run

Happiness = a tennis racquet and three tennis balls.

My master was an ardent atheist, if he had died in England he would have been laid to rest in a woodland burial site.  This wasn't an option in Bodrum so the graveyard nearest to our village house was his chosen spot. A shady corner plot under a pine tree.  When it came to choosing the gravestone, my companion remembered that he used to say he would always be content if he had a tennis racquet and three balls.  He had no expectation of an afterlife, but if he could see his gravestone, I think he would have approved.

The Dog's Dinner

Hüseyin Karasu and me, outside Mozaik Bahçe

A misleading title; it was lunch and I didn't get any. 

Last week my permanent house guest and walker was invited to lunch. Usually in these circumstances, she takes me for a long walk from 11 to 12 and then leaves me with some tasteful music, a full water bowl, a few bone-shaped meat-flavoured treats, full access to the sofa and then she heads off for a couple of hours. I don't mind being on my own, it gives me time to think about my writing commitments.  This lunch date was different. It was in Fethiye. Three hours drive away and obviously 3 hours back.  Add the 3 hours or so she would spend gossiping and eating, there was no way I could be left at home for 9 hours.  So the lunch acceptance email was phrased thus: "I can come but lunch has to be at a dog friendly restaurant." Trip advisor was consulted, the top 10 restaurants in Fethiye chosen and emails sent asking if cute pooches were acceptable dining companions.  Only one restaurant replied. Stand up and take a bow MOZAİK BAHÇE.  I hear the food was great, the prices very reasonable, the staff friendly and for lone diners with canines, there is someone who will hold your four legged friend while you go to the loo. (An unimagined problem for couples with dogs).  My mistress wants you to know that if she had been researching places to eat, she would have forsworn Trip Adviser and only been advised by Turkey's for Life  because Julia and Barry really know where to eat and drink in Fethiye. 

Did I like Fethiye?  Yes until 4pm, when a brown labrador in the marina made some very rude comments as I passed and then took a chunk out of my thigh. He mostly ended up with a mouthful of white fur but my rear end and dignity is still stinging. 

https://www.facebook.com/mozaikbahce/

As you were...

As you may have noticed, when times are troubled, my two legged companion struggles to find a suitable subject for her blog; not wanting to get immersed in politics, but feeling that a frivolous topic would appear crass. So she has again handed the pink pencil over to me. Since the last time I was in charge, viewing figures have dropped by 20% so I'm hoping my loyal canine literary followers will get back on board to woof up the numbers. 
We set off for our walk at about 9 am yesterday morning. Clouds hung heavy over Bodrum castle and the streets were empty. Hardly a car passed and we met no one along the way. It seemed that the 79% of Bodrum voters who didn't get the result they wished for had decided to stay in bed - who could blame them.  We had a solitary ramble and went home to pore over the news reports.  By three o'clock I was ready for another amble. Out we trotted into bright sunshine and busy streets. The seafront was full of families, (I assume the schools were closed for the day to make up for them doubling as polling stations the day before), strolling couples and fellow dogs and their walkers and there was a general holiday feeling in the air.  And that just about sums up this country.  Whatever you throw at us, those of us still at liberty will take it and carry on.

(ps I hope you notice my use of pathetic fallacy - this dog is on a mission to make BacktoBodrum more erudite - I'm busy chewing my way through a Thesaurus)

Eat up your greens

Did you mother tell you to do this, mine certainly did and I wasn't too keen on them. These days nobody has to tell me to eat up my greens, especially at this time of year. The markets are bursting with greenery in all different forms. And you don't have to buy them.  On any drive into the countryside you will see families field-walking, heads down - a bunch of leaves in one hand, the other poised to grasp a mallow leaf, wild asparagus shoots,  green fennel fronds or even uproot a thistle.  These plants have lovely names that don't exactly roll off the tongue but sound great when you've mastered the pronunciation ebegümeci,  tilkişen, arapsacı and şevket-i-bostan.  Just roll those words around your mouth,  they feel almost as good as they taste.

On Sunday,  Bodrum's H3A organised a herb festival at their Gürece headquarters,  with three types of mixed greens dishes and a herby börek on offer, all made by the local village ladies. Business was brisk and diners spilled out into the garden to eat their greens on the grass.  (In Turkish that could also be eating your grass on the green). In total 86 paying visitors turned up before the food ran out and 50 latecomers were disappointed and had to get their 5-a-day somewhere else.  They also missed the scones, cream and jam made by Camille as a UK contribution to a typical Bodrum lunch.

If you want to try your hand at Bodrum greens, have a look some of these past blog posts on herbivorous themes.

A passion for Prickles
A Prickly Eat
Wild Asparagus
Eggs in Samphire Nests

Ottostop Design

A slightly unnerving Sunday today as Bodrum is hosting a "Hayır" rally, (supporting a No vote in the upcoming referendum) and the area around the castle is full of police, riot police and a TOMA, an armoured vehicle. I have never seen anything like this before in Bodrum and I don't like it. However, if I hadn't walked to this part of town, I would have been blissfully unaware as the rest of Bodrum is unaffected.  

Last Sunday was completely different.  I had a fantastic time on board Karen V, one of Bodrum's most long established day-trip boats, learning how to screen print. 

The course was organised by Leyla Temiz, a bubbly Mancunian, with an infectious laugh and an enthusiasm for screen printing which has seen her abandon a career as an English teacher in Istanbul to set up Ottostop Design, a screen printing business in Fethiye on Turkey's Mediterranean coast.

After a brief introduction and demonstration we were allowed to get stuck in with stencils, inks and squeegees and although we couldn't produce anything as beautiful as Leyla's pomegranates and watermelons, we all made something worth taking home.

Several times I questioned Suat and Karen's judgement in allowing a group of amateurs with ink covered fingers to slop colour so close to their cabin cushions, but I think they escaped unscathed and to stage a workshop on a boat was an inspired choice, not only for the light but a crew member serving wine was very welcome (plus a delicious fruit cake made by Leyla's mother Pat, which deserves a blog post of its own).

You can catch Leyla's lessons in several Turkish towns and cities - details and photographs are on her Facebook page Ottostop Design Facebook  and you can buy her prints and follow her blog on her website Ottostopdesign.com

Photo from Ottostop Design Facebook page 

Enriching Stitching

It looks like I'm a material girl after all; there is nothing better than an afternoon spent planning, drawing, choosing fabric, cutting and sewing.  Daughter Esi, friend Melanie and I spent Friday afternoon in the Mine Art Gallery in Palmarina, Yalıkavak in the company of textile artist Bettina Franckenberg, learning how to create a patchwork worthy of a frame.  If you are quick, you can catch Bettina's  'Light in the Darkness' exhibition before it ends on 8th April and see her fascinating hand-stitched patchworks and machine-stitched collages.

All the patchwork I'd done in the past was with repeated motifs and shapes so it was fun to learn how to create different patterns and be a bit more artistic and we were all proud of the work we took home. 

From the manner in which a woman draws her thread at every stitch of her needlework, any other woman can surmise her thoughts.  ~Honore de Balzac

I'm not sure I agree with Balzac as I'm pretty short sighted and have my eyes so close to the stitches I can't see anything around me, but Mel and I decided that we should start a Bodrum 'stitchin and bitchin' group which would negate any need for mind reading  - Any takers?

Photograph from The Mine Sanat Galerisi Facebook Page

Read more about Bettina and her exhibition on this Facebook Link - Scroll down for English.

Ever hopeful

Let's start April on a positive note to try and allay the general feeling of unease that pervades the country.

In the mid 1990s Teo and I visited the village of Ekinanbar to photograph storks. The village was famous for having a stork nest around every corner. Some villagers couldn't light their fires in the winter because they had a nest on top of the chimney.  The atmosphere in the village was doom ridden. The new Bodrum Milas airport was being built on their door step. As we drove out of the village, we doubted the storks or the village would survive.

I went back to the village on Thursday and the airport is indeed as close as possible without having cows as baggage handlers but there is no sense of gloom. In fact the village is one of the most cheerful places I've been to in a long time.  Nearly every house is surrounded by a profuse mixture of flowers and vegetables. Barns full of cows abound and the two central coffee houses are full of chattering men while the women are in the gardens making börek or sweet fritters. We lost count of the number of times we were asked in for tea. 

We did finally accept an offer of tea at village school, which has 40 pupils in Years 1 to 4, and gave this young lad a chance to try binoculars for the first time.  When he got them the right way round, he was impressed. 

And the storks are still there, not in the great numbers of the past, but there. 

However big the obstacles look, whether they are the size of wind turbines or as small as a cross on a ballot paper we should always choose to look on the bright side.  Our worst fears may never happen and it's a terrible waste of precious time to worry about them.