How to walk in high heels?

Can you hear that sound?

The sobbing, sniffling one? It's really faint, but every so often you'll hear a full on sob.

Yeah, that's my Visa cowering in a corner from over-use.

"Please don't use me again" it wails, in a really poncey voice, nothing like the voice when I first had it and it was all shiny and new; "use me, I'm all yours" it pronounced then, all clear of balance and begging to be christened.

It's been christened alright, a few too many times, in fact you could even say that card's been christened so many times it's turned into a bit of a Visa-whore. It's not choosy where or who it gets down to business with either.

Floozy.

I'm on a mission you see, it's a rather expensive mission, but it's a mission of self-transformation, and these things are never cheap. Be it hair, nails, clothes, shoes, handbags, whatever, I'm bored, I want change. Thing is, the universe doesn't seem to see it that way and every time I go out with my floozy of a credit card in hand, I never find anything I want, so end up buying something else. So at the end of the month I have a bill that skints me to clear the balance and I STILL have the same hair and no new clothes. Grrrr.

Take today for instance, today was a slight success in that I found new shoes. They're beautiful, they're pink, they'll change my world. However, whilst looking for these (bargainous) beautiful foot-adorners, it has struck me that I am never going to be able to wear fashionable heels ever again. Have you seen the size of the heels nowadays?! Okay, I sound like my mother, but oh my days, I'd end up in A&E after half an hour of shuffling. Did I ever actually manage to walk in them before? Or this is a new development since the advent of gladiator sandals? I blame flats and gladiators, they've ruined me for life, never again will I put on a pair of sparkly sky-scraper heels and strut confidently a-la Carrie Bradshaw; no, instead I look more like Patsy or Eddie from Ab-Fab after too much wine.

Is this because I'm 30 now? Do you suddenly stop being able to walk in heels when you turn 30?

Nobody told me this before, I'm sure I'd have remembered. So shuffling it is, unladylike I know, but we suffer for fashion, and besides, I only have to get from A to B and find a chair, then I can sit perched, with beautiful shoes. It's not like I have to actually walk in them really, we're not hiking Everest.

The clothes issue is a problem however, mainly because some daft sod has deemed it fit to start stocking autumn clothes in August. Some of us would like to continue with a sad excuse for summer until at least the official end, and don't want to be forced into hats and gloves before it's really time. The problem I have is that shopping for new holiday clothes has become pretty much impossible, and therefore I'm having to reinvent my existing clobber. This does not sit well with me at all.

Where's Gok Wan when you need him? Off cooking bloody Chinese food, that's where!

Abandoned by my fashion guru, what is the world coming to?

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

Down with the violins ... hello tissues

Cue the violins.

I am miserable. I am borderline depressed. I am full of cold. I need to go back home.

There, that's got it all out in the open.

Now let's get onto something more hopeful ... oh, wait, there is nothing.

I made the mortal mistake of looking through old photographs last weekend; anyone who is friends with me on Facebook will see that it triggered a week long sulk and depressed everyone within a five mile radius. I then decided that I hadn't tormented myself enough, so I dug out my old holiday blog from last October, and that really sunk me into the depths of despair.

Why, oh why, do I do this to myself?!

And I've been listening to Adele.

I might even have made a couple of ill-advised phone calls in an easternly direction ... which got me absolutely nowhere as per usual.

Someone slap me now.

I'm feeling the need for copious amounts of vodka, but I fear that'll just send me into a Bridget Jones-style 'All By Myself' singalong, but without the dodgy PJs. I don't even like vodka that much.

So whilst trying, and failing, to distract myself from my unfixed heart, I've decided I want to explore the country that I've decided my future lies in.

I love Marmaris, I really enjoyed Istanbul, but I want to see more. I want to see the real Turkey, I want to experience the real culture when the tourism element's taken out. I want to see a willage, sorry, village, and experience that. Forgive me and my western girl sensibilities, and yes I'm very grateful for all I've got, but I think there's something beautiful and stripped-back about the way of life in a south-eastern village, and I want to really see it for myself.

Problem with all this is, how the bloody hell am I going to manage it?!

I don't know anyone in a south-eastern willage, well I do, but he doesn't want me, so it's going to be a difficult one to sort out. I've found some places that do home-stay tours, but I don't really want to do a guided tour thing, I want to wing it. Might take some thought. The other places though, they're much easier to visit, so maybe I'll start with those and hope I make it back in one piece before I get too ahead of myself.

Anyway, anyone with any ideas, feel free to throw them my way ...

I'm still on countdown, as I always seem to be, and I'm starting to feel progressively more guilty for feeling this way. I have a good job, I have friends, I have a wonderful family, yet for some reason my heart screams for me to be somewhere else completely. It's got to be wrong, surely.

So yeah, as well as feeling heartbroken, lost, lonely and like I'm not where I should be, I now feel guilty.

Happy, happy days.

And here's me thinking my 30s were going to be fun ...

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

Flirty Thirties!

Not sure who Micky is, but happy birthday to them!

I am 30.

How the bloody hell did that happen?

I main thing is, I survived. And let's face it, that's always a positive. The other positive is that I feel alright, in fact I don't feel any different. Age is just a number, right? I thought that was something old people said to avoid talking about their age - oh wait, I am old.

Okay, I'm not old, but not being in my 20s anymore has caused me a bit of grief over the last year or so, I have to admit. Now the painful day has gone, I'm not so bothered, because as long as I don't think about it, nothing's any different. Ignorance is bliss and all that.

It probably sounds weird, being so bothered about entering another decade, and I wouldn't mind had things gone to plan but, well, they haven't really. Whatever the plan was.

See, I was meant to be sorted by the time I was 30.

I'm not sure what I mean by sorted, and it was probably a totally unrealistic plan, but something along the lines of not single probably. Instead I'm permanently so, but I've decided that if it means being single and still looking for someone amazing, and not having been stuck with one of the undesirables I've tried in the past, well I'm probably in the winning position.

I was also meant to have figured it all out, y'know what I actually want to do with my life. Instead, I still haven't got a clue. Well I do, I've figured out the location of what I want, I just have to work towards getting there. As for what I'll do when I actually get there, that's still up for discussion. But I have ideas, so y'know progress.

Seriously though, I'm fine with it, it really is just a number, because I'm still the same and if anything, I still feel about 18. Which is a good excuse when I do really stupid things, because I can just blame it on my mental age. Or alcohol. Whichever is more appropriate at the time.

I'm taking a positive outlook on this, because to be honest that's how I've felt over the last few days. This is my decade. This is the decade where I pay off my debts, for definite because of the end date, where I can make the move I want, and where if it all goes spectacularly wrong, i.e. I bottle it, the only person I can blame is myself. There's something scarily exciting in that. So I'm looking forward to my future, I just have to wait a couple of years to be able to live it completely. That's the frustrating thing, but that's what happens when you stupidly sign a piece of paper from a bank, who stupidly offer to lend you stupid amounts of money, because you stupidly used your credit card for stupid reasons.

I was stupid.

No more.

Let this be a lesson people - loans are evil.

So anyway, to celebrate my day of birth a few years ago, I've pretty much had a week of festivities and spent quality time with my friends and family, which ended in a day at Alton Towers - which explains why today I feel my age, and as though I've done ten rounds with Mike Tyson - I'm bruised to hell and ache like ... well, hell. It was fun though, turns out I like screaming my head off, and I do indeed scream like a girl. It's very therapeutic, I should scream more often. Chance would be a fine thing, mind you.

Today has been spent looking for flights to take me back to where I should be. Turns out that's easier said than done. The cost of flying these days is not fun, and the flight times aren't either, but it's a small price to pay I guess. The next time I write a blog, I should be booked up - exciting! I can't wait to get myself back, I feel like I've been gone too long already and it's only been a fortnight. The countdown has begun ...

I'm now going to bid you goodbye, as I'm very much hooked on the third installment of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. I'm sure you've all heard of it, and Mr Grey is calling my name as we speak. That's my aim for my 30s, I'm going to find Mr Grey - oh what a chore!

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 ...

Two weeks in a suitcase ...

I've decided it was a man who deemed it necessary to give holidaymakers a limit on luggage. It has to be, no sane woman would ever think it sensible to plan day and night outfits for 16 whole days. What about variation and choice? It's a woman's perogative to change her mind after all! Unfortunately 20kg and a smaller suitcase does not leave Nicky much room for changing her mind.

So it's in the midst of this packing hell you find me, surrounded by maxi dresses, playsuits and the occasional pair of leggings ... oh and a ridiculously tiny pair of black denim shorts - what the hell was I thinking?! Even Barbie wouldn't rock those bad boys.

I don't do packing at all well, mainly because my OCD kicks in and I convince myself I've forgotten something hugely important, like my make up or, heaven forbid, my GHDs. Two weeks in humidity without a pair of straighteners would be a disaster close to the great debacle of 2008, when I was forced to go cold turkey (literally) for two weeks from Wispa bars, thanks to me forgetting to buy a job lot at the airport. It wasn't pretty, trust me.

This whole palava isn't helped by my coach company, who shall remain nameless, deciding that my normal sized suitcase (in my opinion anyway), is too big to take on board, so I've had to borrow a smaller one. Now I can imagine you rolling your eyes, thinking I've gone and got a suitcase that's half a metre too wide or something - no, it's 2cm too long. Yes, you heard me right, 2cm.

Again, I'm convinced this is all down to a man.

Other than packing hell, I'm looking forward to my two weeks (and a bit) in the sun. I've actually forgotten what that bright light in the sky looks like, seeing as summer doesn't seem to have bothered coming to England this year. I fear my first day on the beach is going to be painful for all involved, when I blind everyone with my milk bottle skin in a bikini. Cover your eyes people, for your own safety.

It got me thinking back to last year though. Last week (yes, I've remembered the date) was a year to the day I met he-who-shall-remain-nameless. My god how things change. Funny what a year can bring. I'm not kidding myself that it's not going to be weird this year, a lot of people that were so linked in with my summer last year aren't there now, and from what I've heard, the resort has changed a fair bit. I've decided this is a positive though, because let's face it, the faces from last year haven't really served me well, unless you're into self-torture, which I'm not - so out with the old can only be a good thing. And now I've had time to think about it and the dust has settled, I'm glad the dodgy-eyebrowed-one is in a resort a few hundred miles away from where I'll be - or at least he'd better bloody well be.

A good few years visiting Marmaris has hardened me up - I might have lost my senses completely last year thanks to a few heavily-accented, charming words and a wiggle of an over-plucked eyebrow, but my last visit opened my eyes to the dark side of this beautiful town. The idea of falling for it all again makes me want to scratch my own eyes out, so no worries on that score.

What I have done instead, is buy a shed-load of Dairy Milk (very large bars!) to take with me, and the only action I'm intending on getting is with Mr Cadbury, and I can guarantee it will be a hell of a lot more pleasurable too.

I'm going to be quiet for about 3 weeks now, whilst I soak up some rays and turn into a giant freckle with a red nose, but I shall report with my findings on my return, unless my suitcase is too red/bulky/heavy/unstylish for the bus driver and I don't even make it to the airport, that is.

I tell you, it's all down to a man.

Ciao for now! xx