I don’t know what it is about holidays but I was upp like a shot at 6:45. I hung around a bit but was soon eager to venture out. I was at my desired breakfast restaurant at 7:15, actually fifteen minutes before it officially opened. However, without a muttering of speech, my black coffee was being poured. Two minutes later after the chef was kicked into life I got, “Two boiled eggs, 5 minutes?”. A quick nod was all that was needed. I appreciate that service, its the kind of thing that at the end of the week when I’m handing out my collection of Euro I remember. I made it to the ‘restaurant reservation machine’ at 8:15. Now these are magical machines. As I’ve paid an absolute fucking fortune for my room I do get one privilage (actually I get several, but this is a good one), at 8:31 I can book a restaurant two days in advance. Now this hotel has eight restaurants, some are closed on certain days. Normal plebs can only book one day in advance. At 8:31 I got my booking in. And I tell you the restaurants here are fab. On our first night we ate at the buffet restaurant, which was okay but nothing special. Last night we ate at ‘Sofa’, which was a really ‘high end’ fine dining restaurant, the sort of place that served ‘Turkish Ravioli’, but you only got four chunks of it. The maitre-d there was top end. Everyone when they walked out gave the ‘shake tip’. This is the hand gesture of shaking the hand while passing the cash. Now being in a fucking expensive all-inclusive hotel of course I had no cash on me. So made a bit of a ‘I’m going for a fag’ excuse and quickly buggered off to the room. There I found I only had twenty Euro notes (look I never change the money back, I always have a stack of Euro). So had to divert to the reception to get some change. Then eventually made it back. The tip ‘hand-shake’ took place and everyone was happy. He made an effort, I like that. So anyway, today after eggs I had my usual little wonder for a couple of hours. The beach here is simply sublime, you have to do a bit of a battle with security to say that ‘yes, I am going to walk two miles that way and then two miles back’, but once they work out that a) your English, and b) you’re therefore probably mad, you can get away with it. I went back to the room and picked up bum-boy. Once again we settled by the ‘residence pool’. Actually looking at the room we had last time, I sure it was bigger when we had it before. Oddly the room we have now is double the size it used to be, markedly by the fact you can see where the other doorway was. But these rooms looked smaller. To be honest I think the room we have now is probably only one of four in the entire hotel that has a completely full on flat sea view. There are some outrageously expensive penthouse suites you can get in the main building, but what we have is pretty much the top end. Put it this way, when I do my run in the evening, the ‘return leg’ goes via the ‘unpopular end of the galaxy’ and there are some really shit rooms there above the air conditioning plant and the sewage works. Anyway, enough oppulants. We laid our towels down and whiled away the hours reading books and listening to music. We had lunch at the restaurant right next to us. I couldn’t resist the sea bass yet again. Come on. This is lunch, they served an entire, beautifully cooked sea bass. For fucking lunch. And it didn’t cost a bean. I’d have to pay serious money for that at home. This is fucking lunch. we retired to the sunbeds. I read more Kindle. At about 6PM we packed up and went for a little wander. We visted both the ‘Cat house’, which is great. They have a massive shelter for stray cats. They neuter them all and feed them. It’s all very charitable, it’s nice. They also have a ‘dog house’ which has couple of lovely Lab’s in. We went back to the room. Jamie mounted hinself on the bed. I changed into a vest and running shorts. I then knocked out a 10Km run. Look. You’ve just spent the best part of 12 hours lieing on your ass, doing fuck all. What’s going to happen now? You could spend the next hour drinking and eating commplete crap. But what’s the point? I can quite happily go out and bang out a 10K. Come back, have a shower (for info, I put the vest and the shorts in the shower with me, the heat here means it’s dry by tomorrow). Came back, after a pretty appalling time to be honest. Had shower and then dressed for dinner. This holiday I said we would make a serious effort to look good. We had the baggage allowence with the airline, so I packed an absolute shit load of clothes. Tonight we were eating at the ‘Asian’, so noyt exactly ‘high class’. So I went for coloured jeans (green) and short sleeved shirt, with dress shoes. We looked golden. Food actually was very nice. This hotel has the best restuarants of any all-inclusive we have ever been in. Service, was, abrupt. Nothing wrong with it, but I didn’t feel the need to grab that five Euro in my pocket. I had the spicy fish, which to be honest wasn’t that spicy. We had a lot of Rose wine, which Jamie seemed to get rapidly pissed on. Made it back to the room, where we changed again. I went for a vest and sorts. Sorry, but fuck you all. I’ve worked fucking hard, running hundreds of miles, lifting shit loads of weights. And I’m quite happy to say, that with a bit of a tan, I’m fucking happy with what I’ve got. I actually look ‘okay’. I’m proud of my body at forty-three. I’ve worked fucking hard. So yes I’m going to take some photos. Fuck it. We went to the cocktail bar which is in the middle of a field. The WiFi there was fucking terrible. Eventually we made it back to the lobby bar. I’m back on ‘Long Island Ice Tea’. It’s very quiet here. So tomorrow we have booked a private ‘Pavilion’, right on the beach, so that will be fun. We have the Italian booked for the evening. This place is a bit strange, but if I were to rate all the Turkey hotels, this one would easily be No. 1.

So this morning started disgustingly early. I mean 7AM. Far, far too early. So the quest started for coffee. I started at the restaurant we ate lunch at yesterday, coffee was from a grotty machine. However the waiter did ask how I wanted my eggs. I went for boiled, specified the time, and they were pefect. I had nothing else for breakfast. I continued my quest for the finest coffee. In the end I ended up at the lobby bar, they had a gleaming coffee machine. I pointed. The man said, ‘Finest coffee in hotel’. He poured. I was satisified. I was hanging around the restaurant booking mahines until 8:30, in fact it was 8:31 before I could book the next days restaurant. We are doing okay on that front. We eventually descended down to the residence pool at about 11AM. No problem getting some sun beds. Pretty much as soon as we were settled the spa salesman came around. I had already planned to get a treatment before the man had arrived, so this was well timed. Jamie was not keen in the slightist. I booked us both in for a Turkish bath and bronze massage, as this is the best way to start a tanning holiday. We sat for a couple of hours before the spa session. I was in a pair of speedos, I had the woman, Jamie had the fairly fit bloke. I was endanger of getting a hard-on but managed to keep it down after thinking of my mother naked. The Turkish bath was great, the massage was great. Jamie actually enjoyed it so much he said we should get another one at the end of the week. Cunt. Retired to lunch. And fuck me, what a lunch. I ordered the sea bass. Now, remember this is lunch, at an all inclusive. The fish arrrived, and by fish, I mean the fish arrived complete, with a single potato and something that resembled a thimble of salad. It was sublime. That would have cost me about twenty quid at home. This was fucking lunch. We retired back to the sun beds. I’ve finally fallen in love with an iPhone again. It plays music, it has face book, it’s the size of a phone, rather than the size of a large book. Anyway, I read Jeremy Clarkson and listened to Chasing Status. At 6PM I had a meeting with a rep who wanted to sell me something I wasn’t interested in. Thankfully, whoever didn’t turn up, not that I made great effort to find them. I had another nice coffee instead. Went back to the room. Changed into my running shorts. Okay, I’m on holiday. But I don’t want to be a lazy shit. There is a nice 1600M running track around the outskirts of the hotel. I did a rather slow 10K. There was little wind and the temperature was great. It took under an hour. It was nice actually. Allowed me to build up a bit of an appitite. We ate at ‘Sofa’ which was one of the new resturants here. Quite a small place. Fine dining. We dressed up to the nines for the occasion, which I must admit was quite fun. The meal was extremely high quality, even if a little lacking in substance. Now. This is a the point I had a bit of a dilemma. The matrie D here was very good (apologise for the SP there, the spell checker on this iPad with this keypad is bloody useless). Everyone who left was shaking hands with the guy and slipping him some Euro. I dived off to the room and grabbed some cash. Now I’m pretty poor so I went to reception and got some change. Made it back to the restaurant and had coffee. On leaving I shook hands and passed five Euro. Okay, not a great amount, but it seemed to be the correct thing to do. He made sure our glasses were full and our meal was served correctly. Lets put this in perspective. If I had been to a top end restaurant and eaton what we had, I would have had bugger all change from a ton. Afterwards we went back to the room and changed into something less formal. I went for a T-shirt and shorts. We then went to the cocktail bar in the middle of a field in the ass end of nowhere, where after a couple of rounds, the third round appeared by magic. Afterwards we retired to the lobby bar to yet more cocktails. I feel some food coming on. Afterall, the dinner was nice, but to be honest I could have got the contents in a sandwich with room to spare.

Today was a long day. In fact I think it incorporated yesterday, or even maybe tomorrow. All I know is the last time I went to bed was Friday night. I think it’s now Sunday. But thanks to some quality coffee beans all is good with the world. So where are we, okay last entry was Saturday night, so haven’t lost as much as I thought. Basically finished packing at gone midnight. Had a snack. We hit the road at about 1:30AM. I’d done enough coffee to probably take me over some legal limit. The journey to be honest was a joy. M4, then M25, no traffic whatsoever. We did Bristol to Gatwick in a little over twoo hours. Thanks to satnav technology, getting to ‘Purple Parking’ was somewhat interesting. Still, it was right on the money and got us to the door. Check in there was a breeze and we were soon at Gatwick. Big queue to checkin, but they didn’t piss about, took about 10 minutes. Then we went throug security. Jamie headed for the Maccy D’s. I was somewhat pissed off to find out that they don’t do cheese burgers at 5AM. What the fuck is that all about? I went to Costa and got a rather yummy muffin. Soon the gate was called and boarding was a synch. I thought we would be all alone at the back of the plane but about thirty minutes later it filled up. We had one annoying small child and a baby. I had noise cancelling headphones and an iPhone filled with Pink Floyd, Vangellis and William Orbit. I also had a Kindle with a great book about plane crashes on it. Too wired to sleep, so went in and out of dozing and reading. I think we were the only people on the flight who’d paid for a ‘meal’. It was something in a box that came with yet another coffee. Flight to be honest was fine, it was cheap as chips. Never been on that airline before (Monarch), harmless, plus they didn’t try and sell me a scratchcard. Immigration was fine, I think I could have printed out my shopping list and the guy wouldn’t have given a shit. Luggage reclaim however was another story. You have the feeling that the whole thing was being handled by a Turk who’d rather have been somewhere else, who probably was somewhere else most of the time, and when he was there he had about 50 fag breaks. It took almost 45 minutes to get Jamie’s case. We then ventured out to find the bus. To say we walked around the entire car park was an understatement. I was getting very pissed off. I will write a nasty email and get a refund on that. We found the bus eventually. Driver was fine and we were the first drop off. It’s only about 10 minutes from the airport. Hotel as usual looks like a state prison from the outside. We went to checkin and were soon whisked away by guest relations. There’s a reason I pay a premium, and that’s to be treated like a god, and this very much went according to plan. No upgrade this time, although they did do their homework and eventhough the address had changed, they worked out we had been before. We have a lovely suite with a full sea view. I did a bit of unpacking and then we ventured out for a light lunch. I had the ravioli, which to be honest I didn’t like. Went back to the room and slept. Jamie sent me a text about ‘join me in the shower’, but I was far away. Woke up at about 7. Had some vaguely meaningful sex (well both of us were conscious). Then showered and changed fro dinner. It was Italian night, so had the sea bass. Tried to book all the restaurants for the week, told we could not do this. I will moan about this, it’s one thing we should be able to do. Anyway, we have two restuarants booked and a private pavillion booked for Wednesday. I also have a free facial, I may upgrade that with a few extras. So went back to the room and changed again. (I brought enough clothes to change three times a day). We are now sat in the main lobby bar, which is the only twenty-four hour one. Drinking cocktails. Tomorrow, I’m sure we will find a nice place to plonk our fat arses. Still, all-in-all, can’t be bad.

So this morning actually started quite casually. I wanted to squirt over Jamie, but instead ended up playing Faithless very loud followed by two episodes of ‘Hancock’s half hour’. Fed everyone. Walked both dogs. Then started on packing. Soon it was time to take dogs to Kennels, thankfully this time when I arrived they were expecting me. Dogs were fine. Came back and had lunch. Then vanished up to Cribb’s to pick up a few small things. Came back and continued packing. Then got into a bit of a crises when I realised that my iPod touch was too old to run Ios 8, so couldn’t stream from Apple Music. Then tried to buy a new iPod but everywhere was closed. Dug around in a drawer and found an iPhone 5. So that’s now all synced up and working. Ate salad. Started turning things off. Continued packing. Found that over a period of three weeks I’d bought about a dozen different lots of orange biscuit bars. I won’t be taking all of them. This time I feel I’ve actually packed way too much. At least I can change close three times a day and still have plenty left over. Had another crises when I checked the travel insurance. I’m pretty sure when I bought it it covered Turkey, but too late to check. So bought an additional policy anyway. Better safe than sorry. Need to shower now, and then pack. No sleep tonight, drive straight to Gatwick. So next update should hopefully come from Lara Beach…

Actually woke up fairly early with Dillon barking at the back door. So let them out and went back to sleep. Still started fairly early. Had a lot of shader work to do. Weather was okay lunchtime, so took Sasha out for a long walk. Went past the Aztec hotel and a voice called out in a strong Irish accent, “Hello sir, how are you doing?”. I thought it was someone who wanted to tarmac my drive, but I looked round and it was the manager of the old Italian at Aztec West. We had a quick chat, we’ll be paying that hotel a visit in the future of he’s running the restaurant now. Dillon had a shorter walk as it was beginning to cloud over. Logged out of the work forum on my MacBook, iPad, phone and main PC. Changed the password to some random characters. Logged out of the chat program at 6:10PM, disabled the email. I have no intention of logging in again until Monday week. I actually have no physical way of doing it now. That’s it. I’m free for a week. Sent a text to Captain James, we are booked in for four flights on the weekend after I come back. Busy times. Just need to pack now.

Woke up to the alarm. Walked to Willowbrook Centre. Had my hair cut. All done by 9:20. Started work. Rudely interrupted by management, thought they were going to moan about something, I was pleasantly surprised. Anyway, work was hard and very stressful. Walked both dogs. Whitened teeth. Went for a run. Started looking at planning next years holiday. One more day of work, one day of packing and then we are off for the week. Will be nice to get away.

So started at 7:30AM, drove to the dentist just after ten. Appointment was at 11. He had a good look at my teeth and was pleased with the whitening progress. I did explain that it was over 30 2.5 hour sessions. So looking at the front, the resin filler wasn’t required. He instead used a diamond cut polish across the front so the bleach and cut in a bit more. It’s got the remaining brown off the top of those anyway. He’s also replaced another amalgam. Actually completely rebuilt the side of it using resin. I’ll end up with more resin in my gob than the whole of Disney. Came back and had lunch, then did another whitening session. Eventually walked the dogs. Sasha was fine. Took Dillon round and made the bad mistake of bumping into the old codger with the greyhound. The dog is fine. He’s a pain in the ass. Starts off with ‘those road works have been there two weeks now and they’ve done fuck all’. Followed by ‘now can I ask a question? We are paying for all this, and all they’ve done is put some cones out’. I failed to get the question. He then moved on to street lamps, I wish he’d strung himself up on one. ‘They are going to replace them all with these LED ones’. ‘Can I ask you a question? How much are they actually going to save?’. Well at least I got a question that time, if not a very interesting one. Apparently they aren’t very reliable. A shame his pacemaker isn’t suffering the same fate. After a briefing that the council ordered 6,000 head units for said lampposts from Canada and 6,000 failed within six months. He then moved on to Syrian refugees. Probably the less said about that the better, but one things for certain, he isn’t going to stand at Dover welcoming them all in with gifts. About three times I said I had to go. In the end I just said ‘Bye for now’, turned and walked away. He was rabbiting about the war. I felt sorry for the greyhound, he’s 13 and had to put up with this drivel everyday of his life. Did some more work. Went for a run. Had shower and ate salad. Now I’m going to drink wine then go to bed. Hair cut tomorrow.

Work was once again fairly uninteresting. Jamie apologised for his behaviour. He did have a bit of a headache and hasn’t left the house at all today. We were meant to be getting out hair cut today, but the woman ended up pissing us about, so I’ve booked myself in for first thing Thursday morning up the road. Walked Sasha, Jamie took Dillon out later, ah he did leave the house. I had an email notification in about a new cache 0.8 miles away, I got there in 18 minutes from being published, that’s my second ‘first to find’, so quite pleased with that one. Went out and ran for an hour and a half. Ate salad. Think I’m going to turn in with a large glass of wine, I’ve got an early start tomorrow as I’m off to the dentist again.

It was Monday, I really hate work on Mondays. It’s no real different to any other day really, but I can just never get into it. I had a bug on the old project that I needed to look at, so soon got stuck into it. As the weather was beautiful yet again I took a couple of hour breaks and took the dogs out. Walked to the gym, did Combat, walked home. That’ll be it for the gym now until I come back from holiday, as the first week with the kids back at school and it turns into a stomach and flu ward. There were three of us in Combat, fighting for space, it was fun though. Came back and had to work until very late to make up for my breaks. Jamie staggered in and announced he’d had four pints. and that he actually liked ‘Thatchers’. Five minutes later he was standing completely naked above the toilet throwing up violently. After ten minutes he was sat on it head in hand. Where he remained for the best part of two hours. He then made it on to the bed and fell asleep. That’s about the first time he’s ever gone to bed and not been connected to headphones. I took the mop upstairs and then spent the next half-hour cleaning the diced carrot collective off my Brabantia loo brush. And where the fuck did all that white rice come from? I have a feeling he may not be so keen on ‘Thatchers’ tomorrow. Four pints, tut, lightweight. He’s fine now, I can hear the snoring down here.

Woke up at 8:30, far too early. Had another try and woke up at 10:30, much better. Breakfast for three. Two coffees . Bleached teeth. Walked Sasha for an hour. It was a beautiful day. Came back and dug Jamie out of bed, we took the dogs to the field, so Sasha had an extra surprise hour of running around. Came back and then drove to Weston. MIL sewed the dodgy button on my trousers, top marks. I was amazed by the garden, how much love and attention can be paid to whats actually quite a small plot. Considering what a complete shit hole mine looks like. Food was much appreciated, a good selection of protein rich meats and poultry with sufficient carbs. She is a tad obsessed about our safety in Turkey though. I’m not entirely sure if she’s more concerned with us joining Islamic State, or being mugged by them. I’m sure what they are really after are a couple of fading homosexuals. As for being mugged, Antalya is almost exclusively Russian, you really don’t want to fuck with them. It’s well over a 1,000 kilometres from Antalya to Syria. To put that into context it’s 3,000 kilometres between Bristol and Moscow, and the Ruskies have nukes….It’s also 600 kilometres from Bristol to Edinburgh, I’d fear more being mugged by a pissed Scotsman. Yes, I will venture out of the hotel, I usually go running around these places and have a bit of an explore. You really can’t go around being in fear all the time or you wouldn’t do anything. To be honest I’m feeling a little bit sorry for the Turk’s. Apart from agriculture, their major income is from tourism. They have fantastic weather, great hospitality and beautiful hotels, even if they are all owned by the Russians. All this isis stuff is really hitting them hard. Still, I’m sure it will be very uneventful and we’ll have a great time. Jamie is already planning next years holiday. Maybe by then he would have done some washing.