Adversity is unavoidable, staying optimistic is optional.

It has not been a good day in the BacktoBodrum household.  In a home full of tennis and squash racquets where Nike reigned and we have the cups to prove it, (the latest only arriving on its shelf last September), the arrival of a wheel chair and walking frame is a humiliation and an insult to a life lived as healthily as possible. We held out against them but now welcome them with thanks as the only means of keeping going on our own for a bit longer. The day started badly for us, as I'm sure it did in 48% of UK homes, with the morning news.  This double whammy of bad karma had me searching through my picture gallery looking for something or anything to cheer myself up and I found it.

I took this picture on October 9th 2012 when bulldozers arrived beside our house and started digging up trees and opening up the forest.  We were newly arrived back from the UK and gossip was flying that we would be neighbours to a) blocks of flats b) a compound for a thousand stray dogs, c) an open prison and d) a helicopter landing pad.  Twenty years previously we had actively fought off an open-cast mine company but neither of us had the guts for another big campaign so we were resigned to take whatever came and decided we'd build a big wall and wear headphones,

And what happened.....

...this did. 

The Department of forestry built us a fire break and planted fire resistant fir trees,  which are almost a metre tall now,  interspersed with Oleander and a few fig and carob trees.  We are safer and have a better view.  I'm taking heart from this example; not giving in to negativity and holding on to hope. It might all come right in the end after all.  

Bricks and Mortar ...or not.

'A little happy house is the strongest castle in the whole universe' 

Mehmet Murat Ildan 1965-

Turkish playwright/novelist

I don't see many stone built houses in villages any more; those I do find are usually abandoned like the one above. For the past 40 years, the preferred method of construction has been a reinforced concrete frame, filled in with a single layer of breeze block wall, good at not falling down during an earthquake and also good at letting damp through in the winter and the heat through in the summer - add the traditional flat roof and the winter rain will find its way in too. 

There are 6 houses under construction around our village now, a mini building boom, as that many homes haven't been built in the past 10 years but only 2 are using bricks and mortar, the other four are prefabricated.  

I remember visiting my great aunt in the early 1960s who lived in a 'prefab', and how the word was always whispered in a disparaging way even though as a child I found the strange shaped bungalow rather endearing, but 'prefab' seems to have now shaken off its shameful image and 'pre-built' houses are going up left, right and centre. 

Like my aunt's bungalow, these new prefabs have something of the children's toy house about them, but I'm reliably informed that they are well insulated, don't leak, and take less than a couple of months to complete. (My source was under the impression that I was a prospective buyer, so I welcome comments from anyone actually living in one.)

On my 6 km drive to the nearest town I counted 10 prefabs including the first 2 storey one to go up, each one in sufficient land to grow vegetables and fruit trees.  Not so pretty but a welcome sign that folk are coming to live on and work the soil,  especially as I have to sell our plot of land. Any takers? 

Canine Cushions

Some of us match our cushions to our curtains and some of us have other ideas. 

Choice Words

Turkish neighbours are usually very friendly, at least until they fall out with each other and swear vengeance, but even then they usually communicate by insult. Silence rarely reigns. When we started building our house in 1991, our nearest neighbour lived on the corner of the lane, a good 400 metres away and well out of sight from where we had chosen to build our house.  She was an old woman, wrinkled and weather beaten and long widowed, who would sit on her step and watch the world go by. I would greet her every time I passed on foot  and occasionally wave from the car and she would totally ignore me every single time.  I have continued to wish her good morning and good evening in the intervening two and a half decades but she has never once replied. I realIse that I may have looked strange to her,  a tallish blond  with funny foreign ways and a pampered pooch in the days when dogs had to work for their supper, and we had decided to build a house on what she obviously considered her side of the village, (her house being the only one on the left side of the road until we came along) but my neighbour, who is now next door but three, never let on to anyone why we had been sent to Coventry before we even moved in.  This evening, I walked past with the dog lead in one hand and a black bin bag in the other - the municipality has given us a rubbish collection service now and the bin is next to her house. My neighbour was on her step again, looking exactly the same as she did the first time I passed,  I smiled as usual and wished her good evening and shock, I got a good evening back!  I almost did a comical double take but she was still talking. "Is your husband dead?" she asked, "when did he die?"  No, he's at home, I replied. He's watching the football .   "I heard he died" she insisted. "No, no" I countered, lost for anything to add to this exchange and carried on to the bin.  As I passed her on the return, she wished me a good evening and I threw back "Are these the words I've waited 25 f***ing years for?  Of course that was only what was on my mind, my  lips just mouthed "Same to you". 

I've lived here long enough to know that tact is not a common Turkish characteristic. Did she finally decide that we had had something in common after all this time and communication could begin? As conversations go, I don't think it was worth waiting 25 years for. 

Appreciating Pines

It's quite hard to appreciate pine trees if you live with them.  Pines are pushy. They never let you forget they are there.  For a start they drop needles; which other tree's leaves are so pointed and intrusive that they push through socks, slippers, flipflops and hardened soles to dig into flesh. When I say 'drop' I mean chuck down kilos at a time.  I have just raked our terrace and filled and wheeled away 12 barrow loads of pine needles and there is still about the same amount left, hiding cunningly amongst the stones so I can't get them without taking all the pebbles off the surface.  Pines are also amazingly fecund. I come back to our village house after a few winter months and the terrace is filled with baby pine trees which have to be pulled up one by one if we are not to be engulfed triffid-style in a few years. In April, pines also blow out yellow pollen which turns to an oleaginous sludge when mixed with water and makes the garden look as if a phantom yellow paint splasher has been at work. I now know that this pollen is a miracle panacea should you be a gentleman a little short of testosterone, but I'm not, so I just get annoyed at the mess.  And as a final coup, if your garden is shaded by pines, you can forget growing anything else. A couple of years of pine needles will stunt the hardiest rose. 

 

There is only one way to appreciate a stately pine - lie directly underneath, preferably on a well cushioned lounger, not on the pine needle studded gravel and look up at the morning sun filtering through the highest branches and listen. As the sun warms the tree, each pine cone opens at its own pace with a muted crack - it's the sound of the tree waking up. And being the Aegean, as the day warms, the breeze rouses itself and swooshes through the branches reminding the cicadas that it's time to accompany the pine cone orchestra.
I forgive pine trees all their bad manners as long as I have my hearing but the moment I'm as deaf as a post, those pines will be off to the garden post factory.

Giant caterpillar

This meaty fellow fell into the pool today. We watched him slither in and pulled him out immediately but he had time to pose for a photo before he was sent back to the garden.  He is a quite beautiful, more like a moving cactus.  Does anyone know what he is? 

Ancient Harbours

L

On Friday I went to a talk by Dr. Oktay Dumankaya, an archaeologist concentrating on ancient harbours, a branch of the study that doesn't get much attention.  Underwater archaeology tends to publicise sensational finds of wrecks and their contents without telling us where these ships moored and how they were watered and provisioned.  Dr Dumankaysa's research focuses mostly on breakwaters, the remains of which tell us how land and sea levels have changed over the centuries, which harbours had chained entrances and whether the harbours were busy in Classical, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine or all four periods.  It is accepted that an ancient 'wave breaker' as breakwaters are called in Turkish, was at least 2 meters high as they acted as a continuation of the city walls to protect harbours from intruders; remains of the Gümüşlük breakwater are still visible (above). Imagine a 2 meter wall rising from the sea between the plant and the island in the picture below and as dusk fell a chain would be raised at the harbour entrance to the right, making the port of Gümüşlük (Myndos) completely secure.

The breakwater on Çavuş Island, opposite Gümüşlük, is now 12 meters below sea level which suggests a sea level change of 14 meters over the centuries.  Historical sources tell us that there were 500 earthquakes between 500BC and 500AD which explains why some harbours have sunk and some haven't.  Many ancient breakwaters have been lost for mundane reasons.  Skippers using a sustantial stone to tie up their yachts may have not realised that they were gradually tugging a 2000 year old relic into the sea.  Dr Dumankaya has witnessed ancient submerged quaysides being dug up by hotel staff to save their customers toes or to embellish a garden wall and until all these harbours are given protected status, there is nothing to stop this happening.  

Dance in Bodrum

The first International Dance Festival in Bodrum was in the year 2000. I was a fortnight away from our move to the UK and busy with the logistics of leaving our home of 18 years and finding accommodation and a job in England, so missed the celebrations. Our proposed three years stay in GB stretched to 12 years and although we made a kesin dönüs  (definite return) in January 2012, each late May from then on saw me in the Scottish Highlands on a shooting estate, so I still missed the Dance Festival each year. But 2016 is turning into the year of unexpected change and unwelcome though these changes are, I have for the first time witnessed the parade of young dancers through Bodrum and the enthusiasm of these youngsters was very uplifting.

Jake enjoyed the attention and if we are in Bodrum for the 18th annual festival, I think he might have to dress up too.

Ch..cha..changes.

At the beginning of May there was this ...

...a local council cafe on the harbour

Then there was this...

...the wrecking crew move in

Now there is this...

...instant landscaping.

It comes to something when a local cafe run by the municipality gets knocked down because of a complaint over its legality. Today 3 similar cafes around the peninsula are closed as a result of complaints by one of the opposition parties (no, not the one you expect it to be).  Conspiracy theories abound and complaints fly as locals lose their access to reasonably priced, attractively positioned cafes. 

One local who doesn't drink tea is unfazed by the changes....

...he sat here last month and he'll sit here this month.

Not a good argument Mr Gove

First Ukip puts out a party political broadcast telling all that watched  (hopefully very few) how horrible we Turks are and now Michael Gove is using the highly unlikely possibility that Turkey will join the EU and thus flood the NHS as a reason to support Brexit.
As one mired in all things medical I can only say to Mr Gove that no sound minded Turk would exchange the Turkish health system for the NHS. His argument would have held water before the present government, when only the well off could afford good medical care in Turkey and the seriously wealthy and prime ministers would head off to the USA for their treatments and those without funds would sell all they had to pay for care. But now we have our own state supported health system which is available to any one who pays national insurance contributions or registers as too poor to be able to pay.  (This system falls down when unscrupulous employers don't pay up, but everyone can check their status on line so at least be aware of their employers' misconduct)
We have always chosen to use and pay for private health care in Turkey and did so for my husband's first operation, but once the extent of his cancer became apparent we realised that we wouldn't be able to afford to carry on with private care and would have to continue with state funded care. At 2pm on Tuesday we were told that the tumour on my husband's lung was cancerous and we needed a pet scan to see if the cancer had spread, This was arranged for 9am the next morning in the private hospital in Istanbul and, as his cancer had been confirmed, the SGK state system would pick up the 3000 TL + bill.  The next day after lunch, the consultant reviewed the scan and told us that chemo was the only option. I rang the Acıbadem Oncology Centre in Bodrum there and then, and was given an appointment for 11:30 the next day.  We flew back to Bodrum and from then on have been patients in the SGK system but see no difference from privately paid care.   This would have been unimaginable 12 years ago. The hospital building resembles a 5 star hotel. We have the mobile phone numbers of the head consultant, the assistant doctor and the head of nursing who encourage us to ring any time we have a qualm or questions.  I suggest to Mr Gove that the NHS would not be able to match this speed in arranging treatment or the comfort of personal contact from caring professionals who do not hide in the system but are happy to communicate with their patients.   We have not had to pay for any drugs, blood transfusions, consultant fees, tests, scans, prescriptions or even the vitamin drinks and food supplements and the peace of mind in knowing that everything is covered can not be overstressed.
Looking from the outside, commentators struggle to understand why the majority of voters support the present government, but I understand it completely.  Only those with deep pockets would risk going back to the days when only the wealthy had access to good health care.



Guardian article