Our first century

This is our 100^th blog post here on Pul Biber.

We have had a busy day after getting up late.  We have been preparing for summer, painting furniture on the roof terrace and sorting bits of garden.  Ashley has various wounds from moving plants, cuts from sharp leaves and thorns.  This evening our new gate was fitted this involved a fair amount of banging, welding and cutting of metal by moonlight.  None of which is really very exciting.

Thinking back over the 100 posts on Pul Biber, they have been our story of our move here.

We don’t have a specific theme or direction for the blog.  We’re not experts on Turkey, or, in fact, on any of the things we’ve posted about.  We started the blog as a way to keep in touch with friends and family and, hopefully, as a way of meeting new people.  As such, we think it’s been reasonably successful and, whilst we don’t get huge numbers of hits, we’re not playing this as a numbers  game.

It is also our story, and as much as some of our not particularly interesting to anyone else entries may not be particularly interesting…..  It serves as a reference for us.

In a sense, as we settle in, our day to day experiences have started to feel less like a whole new adventure.  This sometimes leaves us struggling for subject matter.  As time passes, as we settle in (and we’ve only been out here just over six months, we know we have a great deal to learn), the blog may well take a different direction – once we work out what that is.

At times there will be entries about new and exciting things, but life is not always about the new and exciting.  A friend of ours is posting photographs of everyday things, we think some of our day to day is worth recording here.

Getting stoned

Not what some may think!

For the last couple of days we have been having the stepped passageway and space between the houses paved with stone.  This includes taking out the steps and creating a sloped driveway, essential for when we get a bike.  We also happen to think it is a vast improvement on the old concrete which was starting to crumble badly in places.

The men are working really hard on this.  Concrete and stone are heavy.  They arrive promptly at 08:00, work through till lunch, disappear then return and work hard till 17:00.  We take them tea from time to time and yesterday they ate some of Hilary’s homemade chocolate and orange cake.

The work is done – bar the grouting of a small section towards the road.  Soon we will get a new gate and some other minor changes to the ironwork.

This is the final task we set ourselves when we moved here back in August.  Significant because we had said to ourselves that we should get the planned stuff done before splashing out on a decent bike.

Spring is in the air, this is all excellent timing.

Flamingos

Not for the first time we took advantage of a bright and sunny but cold day to go walking on Pamucak Beach.  We were rewarded with this flock of flamingos taking a feeding break on their spring journey north from central Africa.  It really was a wonderful sight.    Sadly the pictures do not captiure the full glory of the colour, let alone the movement as the flock flew, in formation, around the bay.

Not from Sweden

A couple of weeks ago we met with a carpenter and commissioned some furniture to be made as we wanted something to fit an exact space.  We had made some drawings to show him, and had some ideas about colour and style.  The meeting went very well, he seemed to get what we were after, a bookcase, and a storage box that doubled as a seat (it has a back and arms which were the carpenter’s idea and look good), and we added in a couple of shelves above a worktop in the kitchen.

We had initially been given earlier this week as delivery and fitting date but apparently there was an issue with sorting delivery.  We were telephoned and advised of this.

Today the furniture was delivered, mostly pre-assembled.  The shelves were fitted and the final bit of assembly completed.  Whilst the carpenter was here he attended to a couple of doors in the kitchen units which needed adjusting.

We offered tea, which was accepted, he gave us his business card, and we settled up the bill which was very reasonable.

We are still trying to come to terms with how much this furniture has improved the living space.  It makes the sitting area feel much bigger and we have places to put things away.  Both the bookcase and the sitting box have been decorated with wooden studs – difficult to describe but clearly necessary.

Better than green boxes

Today we were privileged to see recycling in action.

Our across-the-road neighbour has, for some time, been keeping rubbish on his roof.  The rubbish included an old, broken umbrella, plastic bags full of empty beer cans and other stuff which was harder to identify.  Many of these items had been put there by the bin men, clearly they have an eye for recycling.  Today we saw our neighbour sell it to one of the men who comes round with a cart, looking for saleable stuff in the street and the bins.  One of the unidentifiable items on the roof turned out to be a largish lump of lead.  Our neighbour made some money and his roof now looks considerably more attractive (though we think he is still saving rubbish for another purpose).

This afternoon we de-cluttered some outside storage space in preparation for some re-surfacing we hope will begin soon.  Various items went out to the bin – and swiftly disappeared.  Two broken hammocks rode down the street on the heads of young lads on scooters (the sort you push with your foot, not the motor kind).  They were kicking an empty paint can.

We now have our own bag of bits of scrap metal and plastic waiting for when someone comes around wanting it.  Someone comes around most days so it should be gone pretty soon.    

This evening we ate tuna bake – this was made with tinned tuna.  The oil in which the fish was preserved was carefully poured back into the can and the can was balanced right side up in the bin.  Before Hilary got back to the gate two cats had their heads in the can.  She’s hoping they got the scraps she took out later.

As Hilary just said, “It’s brilliant – much better than green boxes”.

The nature of noise

We are very different when it comes to noise.  Ashley filters out what ‘doesn’t apply’ to him.  Hilary hears everything.  She is frequently irritated by noises Ashley has not noticed but sometimes she hears something really interesting that he misses completely.

It is commonly said that living in Turkey is noisy.  Some things are painfully familiar such as the car with an over-loud sound system and the windows open, but there seem to be less of those here.  There have been more large social events nearby than we had over the same period of time back in London, but the street weddings end at midnight, we were lucky if the parties in London ended before dawn.

Here there are flocks of sparrows squabbling in trees, dogs barking, cats loudly disputing cat business, and the commotion when the vast number of jackdaws in the centre of town take to the air is reminiscent of a casting call for a Hitchcock movie.  There is some traffic noise, cars, motorcycles, tractors, a train passing through town, light aircraft from the strip nearby, and the occasional jet 50 miles out from Izmir airport.  There is a cockerel who crows at all hours of day and night (though he does seem to be learning about ‘dawn’ now and crows less at midnight).   There is noise of human activity, chopping wood for fires, building work, people talking on the street, a chainsaw, people calling out for scrap metal and other unwanted items.  There is the call to prayer and during Ramazan the drummer before dawn.

There are all these noises, but they are different from London noise.

In London the noise of jets was continuous, as was the rumble of traffic and the trains.  The same can be said of human activity.  The city hums with a constant drone of noise.

Here each noise is like a single unit, it happens and then passes.  Then there is another noise, and this too passes.  Planes, trains, road vehicles come in single units and pass in single units.  The same is so with human activity, it occurs and ends.

Start of Spring Cleaning

Following on from springlike intimations…  Yesterday it was sunny so, as part of our preparations for spring, we went up onto the roof to complete the painting of the roof terrace.  This involved completely emptying out the hut-on-the-roof so we could get to the walls.  We were able to inspect the full extent of the damage the cats have done to the beds up there.  Fortunately we found no dead cats.  They fight – there was a lot of blood – we were seriously psyched up for an encounter with a dead cat.  But it didn’t happen.

We got rid of a lot more stuff.  Old wood, mostly.  None of it stayed anywhere near the bins for long.  Rather worryingly nothing happens when we turn on the tap on the roof.  Hopefully this will not lead to a major plumbing job.  It will, however, be difficult to hose down the roof terrace if it continues to be non-functional.

We finished the painting, the roof terrace looks a lot better.  Soon we should be able to make more use of it.

Signs of Spring

We took advantage of a cold and sunny day to spend some time walking near Ephesus.  It may be cold but the sun is rising earlier, today there were some flowers and a few trees with blossom.  It still feels like winter but these are signs of spring, there were other signs as well, birdsong, a Robin perched on a post.  The small birds are bolder – the start of mating season seems to make them so.

And human signs, people preparing for when there are more tourists.  Behind Ephesus is the Grotto of the Seven Sleepers, a church, in ruins now.   There are a few small eateries and cafes close by, closed now, but occupied, being cleaned.  In summer tour buses will stop, probably mostly briefly between longer stops at the Basilica of St John, and the Meryem Ana (Mary House and church).

Today, other than the locals planning for summer, and some people working on farms, mostly tending fruit trees, the whole area of the hill behind Ephesus was quiet.  In several fields mandolin trees were being pruned and the burning trimmings smelt fantastic.  The biggest disturbance was when a whole flock of Jackdaws suddenly took flight with great commotion.  Amongst the flock was a larger bird moving fast, likely a Goshawk or a falcon of some sort, it happened very fast so clear identification was not possible.

Back in the UK, former journal entries for early February do note signs of spring.  Some blossom.  Birds singing.  Light on the way to work.  But this is our first year here so everything feels new.

Talking about the weather

Well, the snow went, then we had two, glorious days that felt like spring.  Yesterday was greyish but not especially cold then, latish in the evening, there was a tremendous clap of thunder.  The lights went off for an instant, the internet went down for about ten seconds, then everything was restored.  And it poured with rain.  It rained heavily (with occasional thunder) on and off all last night.  Neither of us slept well.

This morning we decided that it would not be a good idea to do the laundry and that we would have to go into town in the rain as we needed to do a bit of supermarket shopping.  We set off with umbrellas but we didn’t need them.  The weather stayed dry.  By the time we got home again it was almost sunny.  We went up onto the roof to set right some things that had been knocked about by wind, rain and cats.  Then we decided to do the washing after all.  It doesn’t take long.  The weather stayed fine whilst the machine ran and the washing was duly hung on the line on the roof.  Then we came in, made a couple of phonecalls on Skype and noticed that the sky was darkening.  We bought the washing in with seconds to spare before the downpour.  We started to iron the pillowcases to dry them (they were almost dry).  Then the power went.  It stayed off for about thirty minutes.  It’s just gone again, though it wasn’t raining or thundering, but that time was only about ten minutes.  We have sheets and pillow cases hanging over the shower rail.  I guess they will dry out eventually.

It seems the sudden or unpredictable changes in weather and power supply matches many other aspects of living in Turkey such as regulations around visas, health insurance, importing goods, and so much more.  It keeps life interesting……

Electricity

Our last electricity bill came as a bit of a shock.  In view of that we have been reviewing our electricity use over the months we have been here.  We are on what seems to be a common mixed tariff, a standard rate during the day, a peak rate during the evening and a cheap rate at night.  We get monthly bills which provide details; the figures are interesting and revealing.

The night usage is mostly ambient, fridges, devices on standby, maybe some lights (we tend to retire after midnight), and we have more devices now than we had when we arrived.  We have also over the last month used the air conditioning briefly to help warm the bedroom.

Daytime and peak rates reveal when we stopped using the solar for water and turned to electric, in mid-November.  It also reveals more use of electric heating during the day from December and more so through January which has been very cold.  We use the wood soba more in the evening.  It highlights where we might be able to cut the cost a little, not heating water after 5pm (our boiler is well insulated so switching off at 5 should leave enough for the rest of the evening and ensure that we don’t have to wash in freezing water in the mornings), that sort of thing.

No doubt in another month or so, as things warm up, the usage will start to fall.  We have tried switching back to solar heated water after showers and on sunny days like today there is hot water.

Costs per unit are similar to costs per unit anywhere in the world.  Electricity pricing is fairly standardised.  It’s not really possible to compare to what we were spending in Northolt.  There we heated on natural gas, which has yet to come to Selcuk.  We have cylinders for the hobs and for the gas soba.  In winter we will use quite a lot of electricity, in summer considerably less.

Today and yesterday have been sunny and springlike, so we used very little electric heating.  The cold weather, according to the forecasts, will be back with us for next weekend.