Turkey, a Land for All Seasons

The parade of storms that recently rolled into town was a reminder (if one was needed) that Turkey is a land that enjoys proper, melodramatic seasons. Here on the Aegean coast we spend six months too hot or too cold and six months just about right. My partner, Liam, and I first arrived in Turkey to find our new foster home bathed in a glorious Indian summer and we were lulled us into a false sense of meteorological security. Within a month, the pitiless winter was upon us and we were woefully unprepared. Liam and I were mugged by a posse of violent electric storms that rolled across the horizon, a savage spectacle that crashed ashore and trapped us inside for days at a time.

Turkish winters mean business. Prodigious pulses of horizontal rain cluster-bomb every crack and cranny. Water sneaks through every window frame and beneath every threshold. Towels are requisitioned and old cushions commandeered to ebb the relentless biblical flow. Staying warm is a challenge. Think pre-central heating childhood days when the bed was too cold to get into at night and too warm to get out of in the morning. We sprint to the loo for a morning pee, wear sexless layers and revert to copulating under cover. They don’t mention that in the guide books.

We survive the onslaught and the short sharp winter gradually gives way to a wonderful warm renaissance. Spring in Turkey is a magical time of the year, nature-wise. The hills seem to blossom overnight with a riot of flamboyant and exotic flora blanketing the usually arid scrub. We awake from our enforced hibernation, dust down our flip flops and freshen our speedos. Smiles get broader as trousers get shorter. It’s a brief respite before the unforgiving sun burns the landscape back to its usual two-tone hue of dull green and ochre. As the mercury marches inevitably upwards, summer slaps us about the face like a merciless sweaty flannel. By August, varnish peels off the window sills, the upper floor of our house becomes a fan assisted oven and sofas radiate heat like embers from a dying grate. We move slowly, a pair of camp vampires only venturing out between the hours of sunset and dawn. This too passes and falling temperatures herald our favourite time of the year. At last, the wilting wilts and we retake possession of our town to watch the hordes of tourists jump aboard the last flight home. In autumn, Bodrum is in an easy, relaxed mood. Hassle from the press gangs reduces to bearable levels and itinerant workers join the long caravans travelling to their winter pastures back east. Beware, though. Nothing lasts. Winter waits menacingly just out to sea and the cycle begins again.

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