Woke up this morning and I heard something drop on the floor as I got out of bed. Then my necklace started hanging down my cheats. Finally after about twenty-two years the very fragile clasp had broke at the join. I’ve worn it every day since I had it, it was bought in Jersey when I was there with Mark. I will take it to a jewellers hopefully tomorrow. Needs to be fixed, cost isn’t important, I feel naked without it.

Work went surprisingly well, fairly quiet, I got on with a load of stuff to do with thread management. Game is still demoing in London, and getting good feedback.

Went for a quick run at lunchtime, only about ten minutes. Saw a woman and a girl walking a tiny dog at the end of the road. It was taking a shit on the grass. They just walked off. I stood there and stared, the girl looked round then got, I take it her mother to look round. I glared. She said, “Sorry I don’t have a bag, I would have cleared it up if I had one.” I thought to myself, “Sorry, I will punch you in the face, I wouldn’t if I had more self control”. I glared a stare that Lionel Blair would be proud of. Bitch. Next time I’ll just kill her.

Went to Pump. Put weights near enough back to normal, then did a session with Laverne afterwards. Came back and did a load more work while Jamie was creating a racket on the treadmill.

Flying tomorrow.

I’m sure that wine last night was slightly corked. Worked was hanging around a hell of a lot for a data build. So I took the advantage and answered two hundred and forty odd questions on air-law. I passed. Then went through all the ones I didn’t get right. Oddly there were quite a few that I couldn’t find the answers to in the book at all. So I text James and asked to have a bash at the exam, he said to contact Candia. I then managed to send an email to the wrong address so god knows. Walked Sasha, it’s actually about one and a half miles around the block.

Finished off the stuff I was working on to do with render thread management. Incidentally I don’t ever mention what I’m working on, but it’s currently demoing at EGX and getting good feedback, so I’m pretty happy with that. Went for a run, felt rather energetic for some reason (back to the dodgy wine I expect) managed to knock two minutes off my personal best. Had a shower.

It’s now torture porn night, hadn’t had one of them for a while, and it’s a horror film. Roll on the cheese, and the wine.

Had a terrible nights sleep, mainly as Jamie was coughing and wheezing. I kept going between main bedroom and guest room. Then I was up at 6:30 to take Dillon to day care. Went back to bed, managed a couple of hours. Work was fine today, back to some coding, which is always nice. It worked as well, which is a plus. Lots more to do this week, steer clear of bug hunting for the time being.

Picked up Dillon. Went to Pump. Went fairly light tonight as I didn’t want to break anything after a week off. Will get back to normal on Friday. Did more work. Then wrote my TripAdvisor review of the Xanadu. Hmmm, how comes you only remember the bad bits? There’s a whole paragraph about how the safe broke and how bloody awful some of the food and service was. Still, they may take note, then again they may not. Will still probably go back there next year. Will keep an eye on EasyJet though, see when they start taking bookings for the flight, will be a lot cheaper then I hope.

Booked flying for Saturday. Air law….yes, I know.

Work was dull as fuck. Going through a bug list and then spent the best part of five hours staring at a gear stick. After that I was no closer to fixing it anyway. Two days back on the job and what to give up again already.

Went for a run. Ate too many chocolate biscuits. It’s not even ten thirty, I’m going to bed.

So was at the kennels at 9.20, dogs picked up fine. Started work just before 10. All was fairly quiet to be honest, the world didn’t end while I was away, which is slightly annoying. Things progressed, builds were done and there was no major panics. I spent the bulk of the day catching up on forum activity, various emails from console manufacturers and looking into a new technique that’s just been launched in the SDK. Lots of data building as well. Tomorrow the coding work proper starts again.

Walked Sasha. Went to the gym and did Combat. Came home and Jamie and his bloody treadmill have arrived. He finally got round to putting it together. It’s now packed vertically in the dining room, this is probably the position it will stay until I end up e-baying the bloody thing.

I looked into Blackpool, but due to the closeness it’s just not going to be practical this year.

I’m now upstairs waiting for him to get off the couch and go to bed so I don’t have to listen to his continual bloody sniffing.

So this morning started with an alarm, the first one we set this week. Put it on snooze a couple of times then finally got up. Headed to the Rosebud bar, no need for towels this time, had my black coffee then picked up a banana on the way back to the room. Did the final packing, carried the case to reception, paid for my extras and we were picked up a bit early. It took almost two hours to wind our way back to the airport, we were the first pick up. Listening to people moan as they boarded. One couple’s hotel was closed down for hygiene reasons after two days, another’s had nothing to eat but cold chip butties, I think we got off quite lightly with are magazines being thrown away and the octopus being slightly over cooked. These people were paying about twenty quid for their hotels, it felt quite embarrassing to say we were staying on a private island on its own peninsula. Bag drop took forever, immigration was non-existent. The flight back was actually painless, we were sat next to a lovely woman, ex-landlord, she had some great stories.

And that was it, soon we were back home. The washing machine was on and I went out for a run. Considering it’s been only a week, it seems like a long one. That isn’t a bad thing, I think this time we’ve both actually really enjoyed it and can’t wait to go back again next year.

Normality now resumes, I’m kind of looking forward to going back to work tomorrow, I’m sure all my enthusiasm will be quelled after about ten minutes. I do get to pick the dogs up first thing though, even though it’s been nice to have a dog hair free week, it will be lovely to have them back.

So this morning started off with unusually not the best nights sleep in the world, I think I overdid the air conditioning and it was fucking freezing. I put the towels down then went for a banana, they didn’t have any. Balls, had a black coffee at the Rosebud. Went back to bed, had a hell of a hard on, Jamie kept moaning when I went to blow on his tits so ended up tossing off into a towel in the bathroom, I then made the bad mistake of using it to dry my face with later.

We went to the pool. I actually made a bloody good effort with the ‘air-law’ book. I got through a good bulk of it and it is starting to sink in, but it’s still bloody hard going. We had lunch, my seventh pizza of the week. Back to the sunbed. We stayed there until about six.

Went back to the room, Jamie watched the telly, I read a magazine for a bit then did some packing. It’s all just about over for another year. We went down to dinner, we ended up siiting close to the moaning woman from last night, she spent the whole time moaning at her husband. Apparently he took far too long going to the toilet. Then he got her a fish, she didn’t approve. The service tonight was fairly shit, I had one glass of wine and one glass of water and that was going to be it.

We then went to ‘The Show’ which was the first one we went to this week, had no idea what it was going be as normal for this place, nothing is ever sign posted. It turned out to be ‘Momma Mia’ which complimented ‘Greece’ that we saw last year. Okay, yes, it was a bit of a lip-synced jolly, but it had some very scantilly clad men in lycra. Hell, it was quite enjoyable.

We then ventured to the upstairs bar, where once again we bring this holiday to an end. A few drinks and a few laughs later we were done.

I’ll miss Turkey..again. It’s been fun, it’s the seventh time we’ve been here. I’ve especially enjoyed this one, it was well timed.

I was going to finish off with something very deep and meaningful, but I don’t think it’s appropriate today. I’ll just leave the week with some great memories and great relaxation. Tomorrow I start heading back to the normality of Monday. I’ll go back to staring death in the face, but this time it will be with the attitude of ‘Come on you fucker, I’m waiting for you.’

This morning started off bang on about 9AM again, I didn’t get up until closer to ten though. Had a black coffee at the Rosebud and then picked up a banana and took it back to the room. Jamie was still in his pit. I got changed and then headed out with the GPS. The cache was 3.8Km away. I walked 4. Then due to the fun nature of the coastline I still had another 4 to go. I then hit a highway, the traffic was awful enough up to this point I wasn’t going to chance walking along a mountain road next to a load of traffic being driven by people clamped to mobile phones. I headed back, it was still a pleasant walk. Got changed and went to the pool just in time for lunch. Then spent the afternoon finishing off the last Jeremy Clarkson, it wasn’t one of his best, I think perhaps he’s become somewhat repetitive. Lots more people have turned up today, lots of horrible kids, spoiling our nice quiet spot around the children’s pool. A German man and his wife turned up, deposited themselves on sun loungers then she appeared to release a torrent of abuse at him. He then vanished, and shortly came back with two glasses of champagne. He then kissed his wife, he had the face of a man who had spent a lifetime chiselling the paint off the back of a urinal while someone was still pissing in it.

We actually stayed by the pool until about six, then went back to the room and changed ready for dinner. Tonight was at the ‘Aegean’ restaurant. The food was fine, the service was appalling. There was just no way I was going to get my glass re-filled and when we were served dessert it was obvious we would have to eat it with our hands. Still, the young waiter was as camp as tits and completely clueless. There was a Northern woman in there who did nothing about moan about cheese on her fish. We retired to the room for ‘tiffin’ where I banged Jamie hard over the end of the bed all the time wondering if anyone could see us through the open curtains. There are many tourists on a cruise-ship that may well now be very much enlightened.

So that almost brings us to an end. We have one full day left here. It’s been mixed really, on the one had the hotel was not as good as last time, the safe jammed, we had stuff stolen, the food was mediocre and the entertainment was non-existent. But there is still probably a lot more ‘good’ than ‘average’, so in balance we will probably come back again as we know what to expect. It’s come at a good time, Jamie was in need of a holiday and some inspiration for not becoming a blimp, I was in need of a break basically before I just died. How long I will last when I get back I question, I’ll give it until Christmas before I have some major organ failure or part of brain decides that it’s better off pickled in Pinot. I’m now looking back on these holidays thinking ‘oh they were fun while they lasted’, and looking ahead thinking ‘well if I can get another one in before I die it will be a plus’.

I’m 42 going on 90 going on dead.

So woke up pretty much bang on 9AM yet again. Got up put the towels out like a good German. I then found out the Rosebud bar has a real coffee machine. Beans go in and black myrrh comes out. I had two cups, the woman gave me strange looks, then a man came up and ordered four glasses of champagne, he was alone, it was 9:30 in the morning, she now had bigger issues to contend with. I went to the Spa thing, which has a name I can’t even pronounce yet alone spell, it was something Thai, but didn’t contain sticky rice. I booked an eighty minute massage in ‘happy hour’ so I got a 25% discount. Went to the pool, we settled in a nice secluded spot that was subject to a force nine gale.

It was soon time for my massage. The little Thai woman ushered me into a changing room, I removed everything apart from a very revealing pair of trunks. I then faced down on a couch and got duly pummelled by a small Thai woman over the next eighty minutes. She worked on every body part (apart from that one, well it was happy hour, so you never know) including spending a rather large amount of time on my face, that probably needed the most work. She had a bit of a cold going so it was difficult to know if I was being massaged with fine oils or nose mucus. She did a good job and I waved goodbye to about a quid a minute, it’s something that makes helicopter lessons seem all the more reasonable.

Had lunch, it was only the fifth pizza this week. We retired back to the pool but it got bloody cold with no sun and the wind. So we relocated to the main pool area where we found a patch of sun and two homosexuals, you could spot them a mile off as they hadn’t eaton since they were twelve and the ‘top’ was wearing a pair trunks so tiny that if there would have been a sudden change of wind direction a ball may have escaped. They sat their connected to iPods ignoring each other, a more good looking version of Jamie and I.

We escaped back to the hotel room. Where we lied on the bed for a couple of hours, watched multiple episodes of ‘Family Guy’, something that I’ve never watched before, but now think it’s the most hilarious thing ever invented. Jamie inadvertently tossed me off during a gag about a lazy Susan being built for a bat mobile. I then tousled his hair while ‘used’ spunk was solidifying on my leg, that had to be chipped off later. Had a shower, ate a very modest dinner, actually I think I’m actually eating less here during an evening than I do at home, which is something considering all I eat is bloody salad.

Picked up alternate media devices and retired to the Rosebud bar. There is the worlds worst ‘party’ DJ in the pool bar below, he thinks he’s gods gift to music, he’s now playing Abba, you name a crap hit from the past twenty years and it’s been in his ‘mix’.

So tomorrow I fancy popping out in the morning. I had no success with that other Geocache as it was halfway down a cliff, but there are a few more to try just about two miles away. So I reckon a morning coffee and then a bit of walk. I did have to do a bit of a roadmap Google and see if it was walkable, the other alternatives were getting a Dulmus which is full of poor people and chickens, very similar to using ‘CityLink’ in Bristol, getting a taxi, which is taking your life in your hands as all the taxi drivers have a mobile phone clamped to their ears, or hiring a car, which you don’t want to do as you may come across some of these taxi drivers. Or I could hire a camel, which is probably the most sensible, they are bigger than cars, only need to be refuelled once a month and you can park a camel anywhere (would you argue with one?). Alas, they are walkable, so I’ll give that a blast I think. Mind you the last time I ventured out into the wilds of Turkey I came across a rather confused tortoise and a rather pissed off scorpion, so hopefully this time I will come out unscathed.

Last couple of days. It’s been nice without access to the work forum. I just wonder what chaos awaits me when I’m back.