Turkey is for life, not just Christmas!
Client Testimonial
We bought our dream home in the sun 2 years ago, hence the title. In that time ,this exuberant, lively, strange country, has become as addictive as narcotics are for drug addicts. Why Turkey? We were serious about Spain, mulled over Malta, flirted with France, and waltzed very briefly in Walt Disney land. Not one ticked enough boxes for us to commit to a purchase.
Turkey ticked all the boxes – brilliant weather, very reasonably priced property, excellent food, well priced restaurants, and the warmest of welcomes by Turkish people. Who could resist a four bedroom, three bathroom villa, with several terraces, a huge roof terrace, a large garden, and our own pool for £90,000?
We arrive in the country, and immediately know we are in a completely different culture. It is buzzing. It is lively. It is bustling. It is enervating. It is exuberant. It is Turkey!
The waiters in a restaurant cluster round the couple who have just arrived with the baby in the pram. It isn’t the couple they are interested in, it’s the baby. Turkish people love children.
The young man bounds up to the elderly gentleman, kisses the back of the older man’s hand, then bowing down, presses the back of the hand to his forehead, as sign of respect.
The furniture is being delivered free of charge, with flat pack items being constructed for us, and the wrapping materials taken away for disposal.
The man in the home ware shop insists the lady waits in his shop when her husband has a shave in the barber’s next door, ordering her tea from the tea boy who walks up and down the street. She doesn’t buy anything. The man in the curtain shop comes to the house to measure the windows, makes all the curtains, returns and puts up the poles, and hangs them the next day.
The 50 metre garden hose is measured when the shop owner gives one end to the customer, and takes off along the street, to the 50m mark painted on the pavement.
The day is divided into compartments by the call to the faithful from the mosque. Dawn, late morning, 1pm, around 5pm, and dusk, with a last little crackle from loudspeakers on the minaret around 11pm.
The favourite chant in the market from the Turkish traders is ‘3 for a tenner, cheaper than Asda price.’ That’s 10 Turkish Lira, around £5 for 3 handbags, or towels, or whatever.
The heat in summer is fierce in the middle of the day. It gives way eventually to a lovely, soft warmth, perfect for sitting on the roof terrace, with a glass of wine in hand, watching the golden ball of the sun sink down into the western horizon, with the sky changing colour from intense blue through the spectrum to intense reds, oranges and deepening purples.
The sea sparkles bright blue in the sun, looking enticing, as the sand is almost white, as it shimmers in the fierce heat of the day. The Muslim ladies swim wearing all enveloping fine cotton tunics and trousers, with hoods covering their hair.
The snapshots of Turkish life are endless, each adding to the overall picture of this huge country, straddling Europe and Asia, bringing the past and the present, together. Travel a couple of miles inland, away from the coast, and you are back in the middle ages with the goatherd minding his flock as they graze under some trees. A large metal tube, filled with people, flies overhead, and the goatherd’s mobile phone starts to ring. Drive in your air conditioned car, along a road, and there on the other side of the fence, shimmering in the intense afternoon heat, are the ruins of Apollo’s Temple, dating back to well before Christ.
That’s Turkey! A land of contrasts, difficult to understand as it is so alien to all that is British, yet so addictive, increasing numbers of British nationals are choosing to retire there. A big selling point is that money goes a lot further than in Britain, and Turkish banks pay much higher rates of interest than UK ones, so the retired person’s capital lies untouched, with income coming from the interest alone.
