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.