Does city living dehumanise?

The last two Sundays have seen heavy rain in Bodrum and by heavy, I mean torrential.  Imagine a bath  upturned on your head.  On days like this I'd rather stay on the sofa with a good book, but our newest family member  has to venture out a few times a day.  I try and live by the line "there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing" and have the full wet weather gear; rain hat, long mac and high boots and thanks to a great buy from Amazon, Jake has a waxed jacket to keep some of him dry. Because we spend the winter in the centre of Bodrum, to get to any pedestrian or green area we have to negotiate the town's original narrow roads.  In the past, these roads would turn into rivers as the water from the surrounding hills funnelled down to the sea. Floods are rare now, but the new drains struggle to cope and when it's really pouring, six inches of water sits on the road surface.   We have no choice but to use these narrow lanes and as I walked along last week I conducted my own anthropological  survey.  32 cars drove by us as we walked along  Turgut Reis Caddesi,  29 slowed down before reaching us and passed without a big splash.  3 cars made no attempt to slow down and sent an impressive wave up  and under my mac, and over Jake's head.  The considerate drivers were all 48 plates, i.e. from the local area. The other 3 were from Izmir and Istanbul.  Not a scientific study I know, but one that unfortunately confirms the stereotype of city drivers that we all believe anyway.

Winter Warmth in Bodrum

Why do I like living in Bodrum? Because on the 15th January in what by any calendar is the middle of winter,  Spring is in the air.  For the past 3 days we have had glorious sunshine and temperatures around 16 degrees C.  Heavy coats have been abandoned for sleeveless jackets and every roof has flapping laundry.  The puddles left by the heavy rain on Friday night have almost dried up and the bedding plants that looked almost certainly  frozen then drowned along the harbour front, might just survive.  This is what I missed in my 12 winters in England - these little mini respites from the relentless winter weather.  We've just taken an late walk around the town and the south wind is blowing a pleasantly warm breeze landwards.  This southerly lodos is the harbinger of rain so we will probably say goodbye to the sun for a few days, but after the cold spell last week, it was lovely to have a mini summer for a few days.
Spring flowers are starting to appear. I brought a bunch of narcissus home from the market on Friday and they are still filling the room with their heady scent.  One sniff of these delicate flowers takes me back to Bitez 30 odd years ago.  In what is now an urban mass of hotels, houses, roads and shops, there were water logged fields that would fill with nergis, narcissus in the winter.  I wonder if any still appear in the gardens of the new houses and hotels. I'd like to think that a few bulbs survived the bulldozers.