Skiing at Seventy (years not mph)

Our warm, sunny corner of the world is a great place to live in comfortable retirement. It offers a bracing active outdoor lifestyle for those wishing to lengthen their mortal span. For the incautious it offers a few ways to shorten it.

Like venturing onto the roads for example. To a certain type of Turk, anything that is on the road in front of him (it will not be a woman) is a kind of challenge. Things like an approaching bend or brow of a hill impeding the view ahead tend to add stimulus rather than impose restraint. Given too that using indicators is perceived as a weakness, means that arriving at your destination is a cause for relief and celebration.

Wheelchair access ramps are also ready to take out the unwary. These have sprung up around Kalkan over the last decade. You will not see anybody in wheelchairs using them because they would be highly unlikely to survive the encounter. They are so steep that they are mainly used by the ultra-agile as a form of extreme sport.

If you survive all the above there is always skiing, which is on offer in many regions of Turkey. Sliding down an icy mountain with a pair of slippery slats strapped to your feet is certainly an alarming idea. It is probably fine if you master the technique in childhood’s fear-free zone. But it takes a special sort of idiot to take to the sport of skiing in their sixties. That is the only explanation I can offer as to why I went skiing at Davraz Tepi for a few days for the eighth time since starting ten years ago. It was three days on a mountain with my heart in my mouth for the most part. Even sitting in the chairlift offers only limited relief as you have to get off it.

Anyway I came back! Yes, I cheated the Grim Reaper both on the mountains and on both the 350 km legs of the 2-way journey. I did not come across any disabled access or it could have been a triple victory.

Joking aside the Grim Reaper is too busy to bother with the likes of me. Far easier pickings in Ukraine. The monstrous invasion of which or Special Military Operation, if you are Russian, goes on. It still appears to me as it did on Day One, as a confrontation between a country aspiring to be a liberal democracy and an authoritarian regime determined to crush such ideas by military force. There are only two sides to this conflict. If Ukraine does not emerge as a free country, it will be a huge blow for those who believe in a peaceful world, in which all countries ultimately should have the right to choose and dismiss their government.

It has made me reflect on the principles at stake. I have been reading in some depth about the history of central Europe over the last 100 years. As Philippe Sands the author, academic and international lawyer wrote in a recent article in the Mail Online “If we do not act today to safeguard them (our values and principles), we will in due course pay an even greater price.” His best-selling book “East West Street” is a fantastic read.

But what can we do to help in sun-soaked Antalya? Here is one idea. In Kalkan we provide holidays. So why not provide some holidays for the mothers and children of those refugees who are currently settled in Istanbul and other cities. During the last two weeks of October at the end of what I hope will be a fantastic season for business owners, we can offer a fortnight in the sun to worn down refugees. That is nearly seven months away. Hopefully the war will long be over but many residents will be unable to return to Mariupol for at least a year. As they hunker down in temporary accommodation, the solace of a warm welcome and the comfort of nature can help repair the hurt of those trying to rebuild their shattered lives. Perhaps we can “bring a smile to those who have been traumatized by war” as my British Ukrainian friend John Fedorowycz put it.

And it would bring benefits to we residents too. To reach out and help directly those who have lost so much in this conflict, a conflict that is our conflict too can bring another dimension into our comfortable lives.

To make this happen I need to know that the idea addresses a real need. For that reason I am contacting Ukrainian individuals and organisations. So far the response is very positive. We will need to put in place a sound but simple process for identifying appropriate beneficiaries (those who are temporarily settled here). Raising the money and providing the accommodation and services would be a lesser challenge. People want to help and if they can see that this is valuable, I am sure we can make it work. I have never failed to tap into a rich seam of generosity from those who live and holiday in Kalkan. Last year our swimmers raised over 23,000 pounds to help fire victims.

So please comment on Facebook or directly on my blog and let me know what you think. You can share this post directly by using the buttons at the bottom. It would be nice to do something that goes beyond providing money or material assistance and do something that builds real bridges between people.

Who knows what may come from that?