In the bleak midwinter

... frosty winds made moan? Not exactly! It's been partly sunny and in the mid-to-upper teens for some time now, and not too windy for a change. Sometimes the winds on our top-floor terrace are strong enough to whip laundry off the drying rack if we don't pin it down securely. I discovered that in early September when I heard some women discussing something below our open window. "Büyük adam!" said one. "Çok büyük adam!" said another (Big man! Very big man!). Shortly afterwards our doorbell rang, and the helpful gentleman from the second floor handed me one of Ron's shirts. It had flown off the rack and down into the courtyard, causing great consternation among the neighbours.

Anyway... the wind isn't doing that just now. It's behaving itself very nicely. And the weather is quite fine much of the time, as you can see from some of our recent pictures; this one from the ferry boat travelling across the bay, for instance.

I caused a flap last Saturday - Dec. 3! - by going to the church's Christmas bazaar with bare feet in sandals. It was warm enough, and all my socks were in the laundry. People stared at me on the bus and on the street; they were wearing winter parkas because it was supposed to be cool.

But there is a little bleakness in my mood just now, caused perhaps by the shortness of the days and the long, dark, smoky nights. People here burn a lot of coal in their living-room sobalar or heater-stoves. And a soba is not a high-efficiency combustion device; it emits a lot of smoke. When you live on the top floor you're the recipient of that smoke, and my lungs don't like it. I'm very tired, probably from struggling to breathe at night.

The bleak mood seems to be affecting more than just me. I keep hearing people - Turks and foreigners alike - complaining about the idiocies of this country. I'm finding the ethnic charm of the crowded rattletrap buses, the insane drivers, and the people dumping garbage onto the street (shitting on their grandchildren, someone called it) beginning to wear a little thin. And today the gods of electricity decided to send a team of workers to cut all the overhead power lines leading into homes on our street in preparation for activating the new underground power lines. Fine, but we spent the day without power. It's hooked up again tonight, but you can bet they'll do it again tomorrow. Our neighbour across the street, who supports his family with his electric sewing machine, was not amused and spent a considerable amount of time in the street sharing his opinion with the world in general and the workers in particular. Not that the workers stayed around long enough to hear it - they evidently had a pressing and lengthy luncheon engagement. And I'm quite sure that once the underground power is connected the old wires will be left dangling until someone figures out how to harvest them for the copper.

Never mind. I must focus on the wonders of this place and not let the stupidities get me down. And one of the wonders is that the fresh produce continues to come. It's different every month but always good. There are orange trees everywhere, it turns out - they show up nicely now that their fruit has ripened. I always thought that orange colour was artificial. And there are lemon and grapefruit trees, too.

There's an interesting fruit ripe now called ayva - quince, I think. Our dear landlady Semiha came over the other day with a jar of marmalade she made from it. Delicious, of course. It looks and tastes a bit like a pear; marmalade is definitely the best way to enjoy it. There's also a lot of new salad greens, including our favourite, rocket - a plant in the cabbage and mustard family that has a sharp tang to it and just shrieks out "vitamins, vitamins!". It grows wild all over Canada but I've never eaten it there.

I guess this place isn't all that bad after all. And in a week Evan will be here for Christmas, and not long after that Rachel arrives, and I can't wait to share the good things around here with them both.