9 June 2019 (Sunday) - Sarigerme

We woke to find that our room’s air conditioning was rather keen. I turned it down a tad, then stood on our balcony admiring the view, Spectacular!!

Using my WhatsApp app I messaged that I was rather hungry, and several of us went down for brekkie. I do like the all-inclusive holidays. All you can eat… I ate three brekkies. Mind you I was rather dismayed to see that I’d used up a lot of my data package. Last week when I spoke to the people at the mobile phone company they’d told me that Turkey wasn’t included in my data roaming package, but I could buy five hundred megabytes of data for six quid.

They’d got it wrong.

I could buy *fifty* megabytes of data for six quid… and in last night’s trip from the airport to the hotel I’d used forty of those megabytes.

Glen and Matt had planned to go to the market in Sarigerme this morning. We joined them. The taxi from the hotel to the village cost two quid. We had a rather interesting shopping experience. To be honest the local shopkeepers and stallholders spoil it for themselves. Everything is “cheap as chip” and “cheap like Asda price” whilst still being “not cheap shit”. There were stalls blatantly selling under the “New Look” and “Asda” brands when clearly they were nothing to do with those chains. Every stall was selling fake designer stuff. But what really boiled my piss was that nothing was priced. If you wanted to buy something you had to name a price yourself and then spend ten minutes haggling about it. I would probably have bought far more had I not had to mess about like that. I ended up buying a pair of shoes and a hat for the wedding (which I needed) and a wallet (which will go in the bin later).

And the shopkeepers haven’t really worked on their signage. What is a “boutique pension”?

Finding ourselves shopped out we stopped at one of the street-side bars. The shops were hard work; the bars were all rather good. We sat and had gin cocktails before going back to the hotel.

Once back at base we met up with more of our gang and had a little explore around the hotel complex. I topped up the gin with some vodka cocktails, and then sat by the pool for the afternoon doing crosswords with a suitably numbed head.

I went for a shower to find the maid had tidied our room, and then (after three dinners) several of us went back to the village for a little more shopping and some cocktails. Jager bombs, pina coladas, strawberry daiquiris, black Russians…it all got rather messy.

Being father of the groom I insisted on paying for the evening. Seven of us (I think it was seven?) got rather silly on only fifty quid.

Today’s photos are a tad out of order. The ones at the beach were taken on my new camera. They haven’t turned out too bad really…

8 June 2019 (Saturday) - Flying to Turkey

The dogs slept last night. And so did I. I woke to a dismal wet morning and over brekkie peered into the Internet. It was much the same as ever. I did chuckle when I read some of the fishing-related Facebook pages - I say “read”; “struggled to understand” might be a better description. Many of the posts to these pages are long-winded and written with no capitalisations, punctuation or spell-checking. If people are going to post stuff up on the Internet, you’d think they might want other people to be able to understand what they are writing, wouldn’t you?

With the Rear Admiral on his way to take over at home for the week, we settled the dogs and lugged our suitcases out to my car where (by a stroke of luck) Kirsty had just arrived. The three of us got all our gear into the car and drove round to the cashpoint in Brookfield Road where (by another stroke of luck) we bumped into Craig and Chris who were getting petrol. There were some very excited cheers from their families in their cars, and I think we rather upset the normal people as we all shouted excitedly at each other.

We drove up the motorway with the weather going from glorious sunshine to torrential rain (and back again) every few minutes, and we were soon at the car park that I’d booked. For “only” seventy quid we could park here all week. We got all of our gear out of the car and hurried to the coach that would transfer us to the airport.

And then I hurried back to the car – I’d left my phone behind.

There was a near-episode at the airport. As we were going to the check-in we were talking about how we would have liked to have had seats next to each other. Some chap in a uniform appeared from nowhere and said he would get us new seats and asked for our passports and boarding passes…

He might have been genuine. But I didn’t think so.

We checked in and made our way to the airport’s Wetherspoons for a spot of lunch. The queue was enormous; to expedite matters we downloaded the Wetherspoons app, ordered lunch, and as soon as we had a table number, food was with us right away.

Suitably fed we went on to the departure lounge where we (finally) got all of our contingent together. There were eleven of us travelling today, and we were together for about an hour or so until we were all split up when we boarded the plane.

I slept until take-off.

Unfortunately I found myself sitting next to a rather “normal” couple. When the trolley came round, the chap next to me wanted beer. He was told by his wife that he didn’t want beer; he wanted a nice cup of tea.

I had a small bottle of wine which clearly annoyed him.

Mind you I did have a minor result an hour later. I was first in the queue for the toilet. I was waiting for the one by the cockpit when the captain came out and asked if he could jump the queue. I told him that (quite frankly) the quicker he got back into the cockpit, the happier I would be.

We had a little laugh; I told him about the family wedding to which I was travelling. He had his tiddle and I had mine.

When I came out of the loo the stewardess was waiting for me to say that the captain had left orders with her that I should be given a complimentary bottle of champagne to celebrate the wedding. I was rather taken aback, but realised that I should share my good fortune and asked for a few glasses.

It was at this point that I realised that the normal person who had been sitting next to me was standing in the queue for the toilet and had heard of my good fortune. His eyes lit up a few minutes later when the stewardess came to my seat with the bottle of champagne and some glasses. Having ignored me for the entire flight he suddenly became very chatty; clearly thinking I was going to share it with him. I explained that there were eleven of us in our party, and I then wandered the length of the plane dishing out bubbly to our group.

What with that and the wine my head was spinning when we landed.

We were soon off of the plane and through passport control. Our suitcases didn’t take long to arrive, and after a fifteen-minute coach trip we were soon at the Holiday Village hotel in Sarigerme where "My Boy ^TM" and those of our party who’d flown out a couple of days ago were waiting for us. They’d got the drinks in. We had a minor celebration, and went to bed shortly after two o’clock.

 We’d done nothing but travel today; twelve hours travelling. I was worn out. But I still found time to take a few photos.

7 June 2019 (Friday) - Fish n Chips

The dogs had a rather restless night last night. And when they are restless, so is everyone else. I lay awake from three o'clock last night. Eventually I gave up trying to sleep, and got up.

Over a bowl of granola I started to watch an episode of "South Park" that the SkyPlus box had recorded for me, but I turned it off half-way through. South Park used to be fun. Nowadays it tries to be very satirical of current American affairs. Consequently if you aren't up on American current affairs most of the show goes over your head. Especially when watching two-year-old re-runs referring to political trivia which is long-since forgotten.

I avoided looking at the Internet this morning. instead I thought I might hunt out a geocache and then get petrol before the early shift. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about a project in Sunderland. The people who do all the amenities there (gas, leccie, water etc) have struck on an amazing idea. They want to create a comprehensive map showing where all the gas pipes, drains, water mains, electricity cable and the like are. Apparently when one lot of engineers is digging up their bit they inevitably damage someone else's stuff. Having a map showing where everything is would prevent over a billion pounds' worth of damage every year (nationwide). Hasn't this been done already? Possibly not. I remember my father telling me about a novel innovation on the 1970s when underground gas and water pipes were given different colours as people would turn on their new gas cookers and water would come out. (He assures me he wasn't joking!)

Three was also talk of the Peterborough by-election in which the Brexit party lost by a very narrow margin. The winning candidate was on the radio talking about how democracy only works when the electorate speak. Bearing in mind that only forty-eight per cent of the electorate turned out in Peterborough yesterday, she's probably got a point.

They then wheeled that odious Nigel Farage on and spoke with him. The interviewers tried to give him some stick about his Brexit party's not having a manifesto. But then (as he said) who reads the manifestos anyway? And which parties actually deliver what they promise? He's got a point. He's very convincing. Am I the only one who sees the historical parallels here?

I got to just outside Maidstone. I found the geocache I was after. Happy dance. Now I don't have to worry about a slump while I'm on holiday (it's a geo-thing). My plan was to then get some petrol in Aylesford and be in early for work.

I didn't get petrol.

It took me an hour to drive the five miles from the M20's junction eight to work. I don't know what the delay was, but I certainly hope it has cleared by tomorrow.

Work was work; but an early shift meant for an early finish. I got petrol on the way home. Once home I took the dogs out. We got as far as the co-op field before the heavens opened, so we came home again.

I then packed my suitcase for tomorrow’s holiday, and "er indoors ^TM" boiled up fish and chips. After all it is national fish and chips day today.

Regular readers of this drivel will have to contend with a little hiatus now… The Rear Admiral is looking after the house and the dogs for the next week whilst we are off on a little holiday.

I’ll be back in a week or so…