It doesn’t feel like February. My British DNA, tuned to generations of a temperate climate, insists that it is late spring and points at the bright sunshine in the courtyard, clear blue skies and sharp etched shadows as proof that it is not the depths of winter.

Today has been yet another gloriously warm day, my freckles are appearing like crop circles and my friends in Kusadasi are reaching for the sunscreen whilst they play scrabble on their roof terraces.

On such a glorious day you can’t stay inside and so we took the dogs down to the wide smooth swathe of Pamucak Beach to watch the sunset. As they dived around the dunes and splashed through the softly rolling waves I took some photos in the amazing molten light.

Sunset was spectacular and as the few other people on the beach lit the ubiquitous fires to keep the chill at bay we wandered back to the car and then drove back home through Selcuk where a half moon glowed above Ephesus and in the north Jupiter was rising. In Selcuk the crusader castle was lit up like a beacon on the hill above the town and flocks of finches were making lightening passes over the rooftops before settling into their palm tree roosts for the night.

A truly spectacular February day – and it really doesn’t feel like winter.

• Isabey mosque,
• Kusadasi in February,
• Pamucak beach,
• Selcuk,
• sunset Kusadasi,
• Turkey in Winter