Holiday Blues...

[cleworthallray]

How does everyone start?.........just got back from sunny Kalkan!   ......Well its 6 days since I've been back home and its hardly stopped raining. I live on a farm just outside of manchester and the comparison is crazy. Kalkan 34 degrees today, everyone smiling and happy to be alive, swimming in the pool, looking forward to a meal on a rooftop somewhere, drinking Eves, nice wine and eating a juicy steak or sea bream.
 
Well here is rain, rain, rain. My log burner was churning out 12 kilowatt last night. I've just rescued a horse that had jumped over a fence to where people were fishing in one of my ponds, scaring them to death. The fields are flooded and there is mud everwhere. I've just had hot pot.......yes.......hot pot for my lunch and i'm soakin wet through.
 
I'm going for a shower, put my swim shorts on and lie on the bed with a bottle of ice cold stella (got no Efes) and think of all the lucky buggers that are still there or about to go. The good news is I've already booked our villa for next year. Had to do this so I can cheer myself up or else I might have thrown myself into the bloody pond. You lucky people. Ray

Linkback: https://www.enjoykalkan.com/forum/index.php?topic=6427.0

[itstime]

  you have certainly cheered my dull Sunday up. Poor thing not laughing at you but love your description of the holiday blues. Gets us all at some point and more so that we're facing probably months of awful weather
Stay i touch on here to get your regular fix, it really does help

[GARDENIA PAT]

Oh dear Ray,rain rain rain   isn't that what it always does in Manchester! We too have our heating on full belt and the o/h isnt too happy about that    but only ten days to go and were back in Kalkan heaven...was gonna do the garden today in readiness but its waterlogged so having a nice glass of sarup and then maybe another and hopefully i will be so warm by then i can turn the heating off.

[Eljhem]

Been back two days . Just got used to 20 degree temp change. Cracked open DF Raki to refresh memory.  Ah well, only 49 weeks to next visit.

[MartynE]

Aaarggghh... is it really that cold back in the UK?... we're still here but only just... had last dip in the pool today; one more meal at the Olive Garden tonight and then it's back to dreary old England... what a depressing thought... oh well it's only another seven months till we get out here again... it will seem like a lifetime...

[GARDENIA PAT]

 
Can anyone actually describe what it is that makes us want to keep going back and back to this place? we have been to many places but nowhere has captivated us so much as Kalkan has,yes its beautiful and the people are lovely, but ive also been there when the sun don't shine and its stormy and its rained for days but i still love it and feel very protective about it.....Why!!!

[Blue Lizard]

Hey Ray!!!   mmmmmmmmmm...i like Hot Pot!!

[lorilou]

Hi Ray -  Well, despite the cold, damp, frightened horse / fisher people, you've managed to maintain your sense of humour.

l all I can say is youre in the (second to) right place for a fix on Kalkan. Of course the right place is Kalkan itself.

Hope the hot pot thawed your soul a little, and the lying-on-the-bed-with-Effes-like-beverage experiment has turned out well.

And you have your villa booked for next year already! Good on you. Sweet dreams!

[GARDENIA PAT]

 Yes Martyn its brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr cold,it was 2dgrs at our caravan on the east coast on friday night we were so cold throughout the night, brace yourself

[HolmfirthNicky]

Yes it's cold!! And wet!! We have the heating on, still only a couple of weeks and we're back in Fethiye for a week then only 7 months till we're back in Kalkan!!

[cleworthallray]

Cheers everyone.......yes Martyn its very wet and cold at night. When we flew back on Monday afternoon we didn't see any land after we passed over Brussels till 150 feet over manchester airport. I've never seen so much cloud. And its rained everyday since. The lady who owns our villa has just contacted me to say its reserved for us....brilliant. Its been a crazy year for weather in blighty...first a drought and nothing growing, then total rain. 1 week before we came to kalkan it was sunny and I got everything done but I was beginning to worry we may have lost £10000 worth of winter horse grub (Hay and haylage) think I'll move to kalkan and open a green oasis and breed horses there. Could even dig some ponds and lakes cos its very hard to find anywhere to fish near kalkan. tried the river saklikent this year but caught nothing....was going to buy a trout on way home but the wife would have twigged it. Have a great last evening martyn......i'll be thinking of you. Regards everyone. Ray

[antler]

Hi Ray,
That was so funny and so blummin honest. We all go there and it does get better, doesn't it?! Give it another week and hopefully it wont be QUITE so bad. We found over the years that 2 weeks in May / June and then 2 weeks away in September seemed to work well. Providing 4 weeks away was OK, the next one was never that far away.

I've spent the last two days watching salmon jump out of crystal clear water in the rivers of SW Scotland and tomorrow I will be on the M180 to Grimsby.  The mud on your farm sounds idyllic, mate, I'll swop you.

Thanks for making me laugh so much and I really do appreciate your honesty,

Antler

[cleworthallray]

Cheers Antler........did you catch any of those salmon? In my previous life before I retired to farming and horses I used to work in a college and go up to Grimsby for meetings at the college. I used to stay for a couple of days so we would go and sample the local fish haunts. One night we went to a pub out about 25 minutes outside Grimsby that specialised in the biggest fish and chips I had ever seen. Perhaps you know it? It was fantastic but so big a fish I couldn't finish it. Also went round "Youngs" big employer in town. I always enjoyed going up there. I think Blue lizard would have loved that fish and chips. Regards Ray

[antler]

 
Hi Ray,
I didn’t catch one of those salmon but we arrived there just after my chum had landed one over 6 kilos in weight, which he sent for hot-smoking.

The guys here in the office think the pub you mention may have been the Brackenbury Arms, which I think is close to Louth?  That is about 25 minutes from here. They do massive Fish & Chips, apparently.

“Youngs” is still going strong and is part of the organisation (Findus Group) I work for, here on the Docks in Grimsby. Quite a contrast to Kalkan – despite both being so close to water (I daren’t say “sea” here!!)

I still like the sound of your “mud” and hotpot, though?!

Cheers

Antler
 

[kalkan4eva]

...what a small world! (well I know its actually huge, but sometimes it feels small )
Antler, around 50 staff from your fantastic company are cycling over the Pennines to Liverpool this weekend to raise a serious amount of money for the charity I manage.
I'll be in Grimsby this Friday at 8am to wave them off, then watch a sponsored "Space Hop" across the 2 mile stretch of the Humber Bridge
If you're around that day, do say hello. It would be lovely to meet you.

[antler]

Kalkan4ever!
 
Small world indeed.  I would have done the ride myself, but I couldn't get my shorts on. And I don't have a bike. But the sponsorship form is pinned next to my desk!!
 
Sent you a PM so i dont get reprimanded for being way off topic, with such tenuous links between Grimsby & Kalkan!!
 
cheers
 
Antler

[cleworthallray]

Wow Antler thats a smashing fish and will be lovely hot smoked. Shame that Turkish people don't do much in the way of fishing. You don't need a licence and tourist can take home what they catch........brill. Perhaps its cos there is nowhere to catch em. Fancy you working for Findus I didn't know that Youngs was part of them. Youngs used to sponcer Grimsby College in a national fish competition through an old colleague of mine (Mick Cooper) about 8 years ago. You never know who your going to bump into. I bump into x students all over Europe that remember me but they have changed so they have to give me a bit of a story to help me remember. As eva said its a small world. Regards Ray

[kalkan4eva]

...I think there are still places on the Space Hopper trek
Thanks for the PM

[Blue Lizard]

My Space hopper burst years ago......guess it was too much fish and chips and Efes

[kalkan4eva]

..you can always buy a new one from Toys R Us
You know you want to...