Socially phobic

I'm going home at the weekend. Well, my second home.

I'm quite proud of myself, I've managed just two trips this year, and that for me is quite the record. Actually, scrap that, I went to Istanbul didn't I? Maybe not so good then, I've been Turkey-bound three times again. Can't keep away from the place, I tell you.

Now if you believe the general consensus at the moment, the reason I can't keep away is nothing to do with me quite liking the place and going to see my friends, no it's clearly because I'm addicted to the male population of the country. I say this with my voice, and words, dripping with sarcasm. But hey, let's not get into that - it's a can of worms I really can't be arsed to open again.

This is partly the reason why I haven't been blogging lately, because I figured that once I started down that road, I'd rant and rave for weeks on end and nobody wants to read that.

So other than fretting about my suitcase weight, causing me to buy a new one - one of those ultra-light ones, just so I can fit an extra pair of shoes in, I've been mostly avoiding dates I quite fancied going on.

Yes, I am date-phobic.

I don't quite understand my problem; I can talk, I can jabber away for hours on end quite happily, so why do I clam up and find it utterly terrifying when faced with a male I don't know that well, and am forced to make small talk for an indefinable length of time?

It's because you can only talk about the weather for so long. I'm English, this is what we do, we bitch about the weather. This is all well and good, but how do you spin out precipitation and broken clouds for a couple of hours? I find it hard enough filling five minutes.

So I'll 'fess up. I've been asked out a few times lately, I don't know why this has happened, maybe it's because I gave up looking, but anyway, I've bailed on two dates, with two different dudes, and I'm considering bailing on another because the thought just brings me out in a cold sweat. I'd actually rather sit in my PJs, watching Eastenders, than go through the gut-wrenching terror of small talk. I don't like going to the hairdressers for this exact reason.

I think I need help.

My friend suggested alcohol, but from past experience this does not help matters, in fact it hinders it considerably, as me falling over and getting high pitched doesn't really help paint a positive picture.

This is why I'm eternally single, and will remain so if this little problem continues.

I'd be quite happy to fast forward the first few weeks and head straight to the more comfortable time where everyone knows where they stand and text/conversation analysis has gone out of the window. See, I'm not cut out for this, I'm far too paranoid to be questioning things at the best of times, without hearts and emotions getting in the way. I'm not the best at going with the flow either.

I might join a convent, what do you reckon?

Or failing that, emigrate to Turkey - you don't have any of this getting to know each other business out there, if you believe everything you hear.

Anyway, I'm hoping that my jaunt over the length of Europe re-ignites my love for blogging, because if I'm honest, I've been finding it rather difficult. I've had a crisis of confidence as far as my writing's concerned, to the point where I've asked several different people to read what I've done on my book so far, to give me a honest opinion on whether to carry on, or scrap it. I love writing, I just wonder whether anyone likes reading it, because as much as it's fun to do, it's always nice that someone enjoys the fruits of your labour.

Oh woe is me.

So the next time I write something, I will be sipping, sorry, gulping an Efes, scoffing a chicken kebab, looking out to sea from (hopefully) my sea-view hotel room and chilling the hell out. I wonder what drama will unfold this time, let's face it, it always does, and it's a full moon during the first few days .....

I can guarantee however that whatever goes down will remain in Marmaris.

Watch this space!

In sickness and in health

I'm writing this from my sick bed, purely because I'm bored out of my tree, and can feel the sudden onset of cabin fever looming. I feel I need to communciate with the outside world before I start knawing my own arm or something, whatever crazy people locked in rooms do.

Not that I'm locked in a room specifically.

I do not cope well with being ill, and as much as I love my sleep, the sudden need to drop off every five seconds has become, well, a bit tiring as it happens. I know this is how the body heals, but my god, how boring?!

So I'm incapacitated, with little else to do but stare at Facebook, fall asleep, read, fall asleep, try and write, decide it's crap, sleep, shiver, sleep, have veeeerrry random webcam conversations, sleep, and oh yeah, sleep some more, with a further bit of shivering thrown in for good measure.

All in all, it's been a pretty uneventful few days.

I've also decided that I definitely couldn't work from home all the time, I'd be far too easily distracted, what with crap daytime TV, the lure of Dairy Milk in the fridge (even though right now, I seriously couldn't stomach it - I must be ill), and the temptation of online shopping. That's pretty much what I've been doing, but instead of actually shopping, I've found I get the same hit from browsing, adding stuff to my cart, and then clicking off it and deciding I don't need it. Cheaper and hits the same spot.

Win-win all round.

I tried to write a bit of my book, but I think I've lost my way a bit, in fact to be honest, I think my way with that book's got up and done a runner, because can I hell as like start writing it again in the same way. I tried, I wrote a whole paragraph, read it back and thought 'nah', deleted it and went back to browsing Top Shop's website.

I've been watching the Olympics though, so at least I've done something constructive - been patriotic. I got quite excited when Jess Ennis won gold. She's a local girl and all that, it's the contract to get marginally excited. Well, I tried, then my headache won over and I fell asleep again.

I hope I haven't caught some rare tropical disease, I mean I've not been anywhere particularly tropical lately, other than Sheffield but I don't think you could really count that as a malaria hotspot .... well, unless you count Manor Top, but I seriously doubt it'd be classed as tropical either. Delayed Turkish reaction? Who knows, maybe this is a reaction to coming home and it should be prescribed for me to go back sharpish - for the good of my health of course. I might try that one out, see how far it gets me .... probably as far as the doctors and back again, and no further.

Being bed-ridden does have its advantages though, other than no need for make up or extreme hair styling - plenty of time for day-dreaming, one of my favourite pastimes. I have been indulging in past memories (not always so great for me), and future hopefuls, which pretty much consist of happy, happy days. It's a bit like cosmic ordering, and I'm hoping it works along the same lines, worth a try anyway.

So now I will go back to my sick bed, sniffle, sniffle, cough, cough, before I fall asleep again .....

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Consulting the oracle

I am feeling the need for a spooky intervention.

I get this sudden urge every so often, mainly because I'm impatient and can't just go with the flow. Patience is a quality I was born mostly without; I missed that queue, possibly taking too long in the queue for other more desirable qualities at the time, y'know the ability to eat one's body weight in chocolate and the like.

But this week, more than most, I've felt the need to consult the spooky oracle.The problem is, my spooky oracle is no longer in the spooky business, and a quick search on Google didn't really fill me with much confidence. There are some seriously questionable "psychics" parading as the real thing, it's quite insulting to the real ones.

As you'll probably guess, I've had a few readings over the last few years, some fantastic, some not so. One in particular was memorable for all the wrong reasons, when the lady in question told me I was going to see a spaceship and that I'd know it was it was, even if no-one else believed me.

Hmmm. Quite.

I did actually see something strange in the sky once ... but it was after copious amounts of vodka and we weren't that far from an airport at the time ...

I'm not sure why I feel this sudden compulsion to know what's going to happen, or what could happen if I take a certain path, or someone else decides to do something, or not, or ... oh God, my head hurts with the possibilities. I guess at the end of the day, what will be, will be, so maybe I should learn just to go with the flow. I like the excitement of a reading though, it fills me with possibilities and makes me feel positive. One area no psychic has ever managed to get right is my love life.

I've had spot on readings on career, home life, loads of other stuff, but my love life is only ever half-right - usually before the dude in question takes that other path we were talking about. Usually to someone other than me, much skinnier and usually with swishy blonde hair. Think Pantene advert and you're not far wrong. They're often Russian, or anything but northern-English too.

I'm starting to get a complex.

Anyway, you'll be pleased to know I've booked a flight back in an easterly direction, so I'm resuming doing what I tend to spend an overwhelming part of my life doing - counting down the days. It's worrying really, surely I should be living in the moment and enjoying life here as well as there, but noooo, time here is spent saving, planning and counting down, until it's all over, I get depressed, and then have to book again to semi-drag myself out of my stupor. Repeat process. When will it ever end?!

In the meantime I'm busying my mind with my writing, from which I have travel articles coming out of my ears and I'm actually running out of destinations to write about, and I've just enrolled on an online TEFL course. In case you're ignorant to such things, as I was until a few years ago, TEFL is Teaching English as a Foreign Language and it's basically the qualification you need, amongst other things, to teach English abroad. It's a start if nothing else, we'll see where that leads.

Back to the writing, and I started re-reading what I'd written on my book the other day. All 167 pages of it. I'm half way through. It's not bad y'know, it's not Harry Potter (thankfully), but it's not half bad. Hopefully by the time it's finished and tweaked to within an inch of it's life, it'll be even better than not bad. I've got a few other little plans on the horizon where my writing's concerned too ... it's all exciting stuff.

Maybe I don't need to be consulting Mystic Meg after all, maybe I should just go with that flow that seems to infuriatingly avoid me most of the time. Or maybe I should just do what normal people do ....

Read my daily horoscope and be done with it, or head to Yoga and realign my chakras.

All together now - ooohhhhmmmmmmm

For the love of Marmaris

It's taken me well over a week to write this, because had I done it before now, you'd all have got the violins out, been borderline suicidal and would never have read anything I wrote ever again.

That is not the way to keep readers, and the guilt of lost lives would have consumed me forever.

So I thought it wise to wait.

I've been back from Marmaris for a week now; the urge to jump on a plane and go straight back is not abating any, in fact if anything it's getting worse by the hour. If I wait until the end of September, as per plan, it will be a miracle on the scale of Phil Mitchell staying off vodka. I've got to try though, thanks to the cost of flying being horrendous at the moment. There's a good argument for befriending a pilot here, but unfortunately I don't have any pilots on my Facebook list.

I love Marmaris.

I'll shout it out from the rooftops if I have to. I thought I'd fallen out of love with it, I wasn't even that fussed about going in the end - but a day or so into the holiday and I remembered it all, in glorious technicolour. And now I'm stuck with the memory and I'm not there anymore.

Sniffle, sniffle.

Cue violin time.

I will be there for longer soon, give it a while to get myself sorted and I'm there. At least this trip has taught me what I want all over again, and reminded me of the perils of settling - which is exactly what I was starting to do. Heaven forbid. I had visions of a rocking chair, golf-course and cats. Shudder at the thought.

Marmaris is the best and worst of humanity all rolled into one, yet for some reason I forgive it's bad bits and fall head over heels with the good bits every time. That's true love for you, right there. Who needs a man?! Five years and still going strong.

Speaking of men, this was the first trip back to the scene of the crime since it all went pear-shaped. It was weird, I'll admit, and I refused to go into the ex's bar (thankfully he was in Alanya, and not lurking behind a palm tree waiting to ambush me and drag me back to the darkness, with his questionable eyebrows), completely out of protest, which is just as well because it's been taken over and it looked, quite frankly, pants. So instead I found a new one, bar that is, before everyone jumps to the completely wrong conclusion.

Is that a tan?!

I had a ball. I had fun, I partied, I did everything the ex didn't allow me to do. I met some new friends, who I miss now I'm back, but will see again really soon. I actually had a proper holiday without rules. I missed him, and I shed a few tears, but I found closure and that chapter is complete.

Time to write some new ones.

Speaking of writing, I seriously regretting not taking my netbook, as inspiration hit in the biggest way whilst sat on a sun-lounger with a strawberry dacquiri in my hand. It could have been the alcohol but I took it upon myself to find paper and pen. Chaos insued. Turns out it's not easy to buy paper and a pen in high-season Marmaris. In the end I managed to convince a bemused-looking shop-keeper to give me some of his printer paper in return for me buying a pen for twice the price. I sat on the balcony, full of Efes, and wrote my little heart out. I wrote a letter to the universe, let's hope it listened. Time will tell.

My summer romance - Mr Efes

See, Marmaris might be bad for me in many, many ways, but in terms of inspiration, it's highly beneficial - in fact, I think it should be on prescription, I'd have a bestseller in months. If only. Writing is my future though, it helps me empty my head of crap and make sense of it, it distracts me from reality, and who knows where it might lead. If I can combine the place I love and the thing I love, I'll be a happy bunny, albeit a slightly borderline alcoholic bunny, thanks to the influence of Efes.

I'm deliberately not giving you a blow by blow account of the whole 16 days because it literally involved a lot of madness and, again, Efes, which is never a bad thing, but makes for really boring reading. There was the usual Marmaris politics, fights, drama and confusion - it wouldn't be Marmaris without it, but it all came good in the end. As per the way it always goes when I'm in that part of the world, the full moon had blood on it, and that night was, predictably, fight night. Turns out lightening does indeed strike twice. Or even three times in this case. They say Cancerians are ruled by the moon, I think I'm a complete case study to prove that correct.

The sun sets on Marmaris part 1 ...

I didn't have any commandments to protect me from the madness this time, because anyone who read them last time will know that I broke every single one of them in about four days. It was, quite frankly, a shameful effort, so I didn't bother this time. It's for the best, because I'd probably have broken them within two. I blame the Efes.

I always blame the Efes.

And the moon.

So first installment over, successfully survived - just. Only question is, how long will it be until part 2? Bets are on ...

Around the world in 600 words

Oooooh big news, big news!! I, yes, little old me, am now a freelance travel writer. And get this, I've actually earnt money for it. Yes, it may be peanuts but I don't care, someone has actually paid me to write at long last. So I can't be that crap then, surely?! I'm ridiculously excited, I don't think you understand what this means to me, wooohooo!

Anyway, when I finally stopped grinning, I got down to business and did some writing, and seriously enjoyed it. So who knows, fingers crossed some more assigments come my way.

I don't want to speak too soon, and touch wood and all that, but I think things might be looking up. I'm feeling quite positive, and I like it. I think this has a lot to do with the sun finally deciding to shine. This also goes some way to proving that I certainly need to go and live somewhere hot and sunny. It's obviously a medical need, I mean when the weather starts affecting your health and mood, you have to take notice.

One thing that certainly is not looking up however, is love life disaster central. Oh my days, when will it ever end? Disaster after disaster, in fact, I'm not trying anymore, sod it, Mr Right can find me, I'm done trying, all I ever find are nutters. The current walking disaster has took it up on himself to "save me". This is all very well and good, but I wasn't really aware I needed saving. I'm running out of excuses, soon I'm just going to have to be painfully honest and say 'look mate, I'd rather saw my own arm off with a rusty butter knife', or words to that effect. I've even tried the old 'it's not you, it's me, I'm just not over my ex', because really I wouldn't be completely lying, but that just led to the infamous 'I'll save you' line. Best way to deal with this? Ignore. Yep, I am a coward.

I went out with my mate the other night for tea. It was meant to be a nice little sociable gathering, and to a degree it was - enter stage left half a lager and lime. Regular readers will know that I am not a hardened drinker. I try, lord knows I try, but I am, and always will be, a lightweight. This has it's advantages - cheap nights out. But anyway, hello gobby Nicky. In my defence, I had reason to get a little defensive. My friend made some quip about me still living at home, in a not particularly favourable way. Now don't get me wrong, yes, I would rather have my own house somewhere, with no bills to pay and a nice easy life but unfortunately life isn't like a Hollywood film. Nor do I need a man and a mortagage to make me a whole person, I do a good enough job of that as it is, thank you very much.

So anyway, when I may have normally bit my lip and silently seethed for a little bit, well instead I snapped her head off then silently seethed for a bit. Am I wrong in getting a bit annoyed though? I suppose you should know that said friend is engaged, living with her fella and planning a family. She is 5 years younger than me. Am I bothered? No. I won't go into the whys and wherefores but let's just say her life isn't my idea of fun, and I'm sure my life isn't hers either. I'm also sure she won't mind me pointing this out, because I would say exactly the same thing to her face. However, what she fails to understand that I'm currently in a little planning stage for the next chapter of my life, and really it isn't her place to judge - carry on debating the colour of your new curtains love.

Phew, rant over.

Anyway, onto less controversial subjects. Have you been watching the new series of Take Me Out? Remember I was offered an audition but didn't go? Well thank god for that is all I can say. Have you seen some of the munters coming down that lift? I don't think it would have helped my disasterous love life in the slightest.

See, I must have known.