Fethiye

November 10th. It’s my birthday (and I’ll cry if I want to). The Wheel has turned 69 times. To celebrate the Special Day to Fethiye I went. With Special K.

By the way, did you ever wonder why I call her Special K? She is special to me. Obviously. But she has some very unusual gifts: an amazing visual memory for a start. Turn me around three times and I cannot find my own front door. Whereas Kim can take a route she has only been on once, four years ago and she will say things like

“Just around the next bend there is an oak tree, then a small shop opposite an old well on a corner. You need to turn left there.”

She is also a great storyteller. Very funny too. Apart from the ones (too many) that feature me. But her most unusual gift is a rare ability to mix up her words and formulate immortal phrases. It is unintentional but definitely a gift. The words convey the meaning but not quite as intended.

Legendary examples include calling her niece’s handsome husband to be, her “Shite in whining armour”. Another time, as a young secretary, she had spent a long afternoon copying and collating documents. Obviously tired, she explained to a lecturer that his typing was not ready because she had “spent all afternoon copulating”.

I also recently heard her encouraging her daughter, à propos a work opportunity, to “bite the bullet while it is hot.”

Special K! So along with her and four of our friends, we headed off in a three Duster convoy to our nearest sizeable town. Fethiye is still 90 km away but distance is no object here as the roads are clear and views often spectacular. The mountains will soon get their capping of snow.

The day started fabulously with a flat tyre on Jay’s Duster. Were we deflated? Not so. We were soon back on the road. The tyre repair at a roadside lastikçi (you are never far from a little tyre repair shop) cost the equivalent of £3. We were in and out within half an hour. In Turkey you can get better than Kwik Fit fitter.

The convoy was back on the road.

First stop was lunch at Hilmi seafood on the seafront walkway (kordon). Fethiye is flatter than a punctured Duster’s front tyre, so here you can actually stroll. This is a form of perambulation absolutely unknown in Islamlar, where pitons and rope are required just to nip down to the local shop.

The lunch was amazing (squid stuffed with goat’s cheese since you ask) and accompanied by a fine Sevilen Isabey Sauvignon. May have been two.

The kordon is bursting with good restaurants now, evidencing the huge investment that incomers from Istanbul and Ankara (no doubt hated by locals as rich city folk are everywhere) have brought. The Belediye has matched that with considerable municipal investment, including a huge amusement and leisure park further down towards Çalış. Çalış is the kiss-me-quick area of Fethiye. Although investment is rolling in here too.

K and I had brought our bikes and cycled all the way along the cycle path and subsequent lane following the coast. Magic.

Our hotel was the classy Yacht Boheme on the Marina. The evening meal was at the Mori restaurant next door. We had a waterfront table with low lighting which illuminated the fish as they flashed through the water. Food and wine were equal to the setting. As was the company.

The next day started with that Necessary Evil, Shopping. L’horreur! There are people that love it (all women for a start) but I am not amongst them. Unless it is Decathlon. Decathlon is the place where dreams are made. Here you realise that your life is lacking a shiny canoe, or a pair of skis, or a tautly strung tennis racket. All that lovely kit!

Fortunately there is not a Decathlon store in Fethiye. Yet.

A late afternoon drive out to walk around the spectacular ruins of the ancient Lycian mountain top city of Cadyanda before the birthday meal at Yengeç. It’s a seafood restaurant. Yengeç means crab. Funnily enough crab was not on the menu but octopus was. Well grilled octopus, scorched on the outside and succulent inside, dressed with caramelised lemon. This is what I will dine on every night when I pass to heaven (of course I will). But…

Yes there is a big But (no jokes please). The But concerns a little documentary made for Netflix called My Octopus Teacher. Apparently the film shows that octopuses (or octopi?) are amazing and intelligent creatures. The filmmaker spent months tracking one curious little creature that captured his attention. A remarkable and moving film

If you watch this film you can never eat octopus again. I have not watched it but I am starting to have difficulty. I overcame it. But for how much longer?

It was another beautiful evening. Time for a Haiku

Fethiye! We used to call it Sweathi-ye
But now it’s
Bethi-ye

The 10th November also commemorates the death at 9.05 in the Dolmabahçe palace in 1938 of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, legendary founder of the Turkish Republic.

To him and the warriors who have lost their lives in wars everywhere.

Unutma! Lest we forget