AwkwardInk

I've finally finished the pic that I promised Alessia months ago.

So the scabs are slowly healing and getting grosser by the day. I've gotten back into the jogging thing though, having gotten over the fear of falling down. But I have realised that I do have a tendancy for my mind to wander when I'm running. I really do have to pay attention to what I'm doing, if I'm to prevent more scabby injuries!

Last weekend a few of us squeezed into Trinny B's very small car and went south to find some good camping grounds around the Isle of Wight. We met early, but left late and ended up facing the prospect of pitching our tents in the dark. Until we realised that there was no space at the camping grounds we had intended to stay at. A disaster was averted however by the peadophile sympethiser working in the office of the camping ground who responded to Big Head's and Al's sorry tale about needing only a small amount of space to put their three small tents for the three very small girls that were in need of shelter. Reassured that us three girls were all 'legal' we were ushered in and allowed to set up our camp.


Setting up tents in the dark was not as challenging as I had expected actually, considering that it has been a good decade at least since I last went camping. Although it must be said that tent technology has come quite a long way since I was a kid. Considering the heat wave that had been taking place in London last week none of use expected the rain that poured down that night. Luckily we had decided to go to the extra effort of putting up the fly. Although Trinny and I learned quite a lesson when we felt drips of rain seeping into our shelter becasue of our lack of expereince in putting every peice of tentage into its proper place. But no big harm was done.
We enjoyed the night's sky of stars and realised once again how much of a novelty stars in the sky have become. Too sad really.
After a very quick packing up of much stuff into the little car we raced down to catch the 10.15am ferry to the Isle. We drove onto the boat and were thrilled when the platform that our car was on lifted up. I guess its the small things that keep us all amused. After a scenic but uneventful (although there was the incident of the hysterical woman calling out for her son with the unfortunate name that sounded not unlike the word 'asshole') ferry trip we disembarked on the isle of wight.


The Island was much bigger than I had anticipated and the claim of Mediteranean weather was soon disproved by a large rainstorm that fell just after we had set up our tents and were planning to set off on our first frog march.
We moved onto plan B and ended up lunching at a rather nice pub while the skies cleared. Al went forth looking for the fresh local seafood that he had been anticipating, but was somewhat dissapointed when he was informed that no the sardines were not local, but they were fresh (and might have come out of a plastic bag).
He ate them anyway.
When the weather fixed itself we decided to head out for a short frog march. Three hours later we found ourselves at our destination in search of more fresh seafood. The best we could find was some lovely looking prawns in a plastic container that had come all the way from Vietnam. Very local and fresh!


We BBQ'd and campstoved our way through dinner and tried to console Al who wrestled with the chemically laden disposable bbq's from Tescos. After some quite mushy bbq'd bannanas with chocolate we headed to bed, to be woken by the country sounds of mooing cows.
We breakfasted leisurely, but eventually packed ourselves up and headed off for another frog march up to see the needles. A very conveniant rest stop appeared in the form of a farm house serving Cream Tea. We stopped to rest over tea and Scones before making our way towards the damn needles.



Our sightseeing tasks accomplished, and all frogmarching accounted for, we were able to lunch (again on non-local but fresh seafood) before departing the island on the 5.30pm ferry back to the mainland.
Traffic scuppered our drive home however and it was exhausted but happy campers that returned back to London - scabs intact.

Alessia very kindly returned from her recent trip home to Ardinia with a lovely bottle of home made olive oil for me. I ate some tonight with some ciabatta bread. Without a doubt it is the best tasting olive oil I've ever had the pleasure to consume. The bottle shall be consumed on special occasions only I think!


Alessia has been talking up how dark she would get in two weeks on the beach in Italy. She even challenged me to a tan off which I thought that I would win easily. what with my recent travels to Turkey and all. But we compared tans today and Alessia was definatly the darker of us. James included his pasty white arm in the photo for reference as well.

I had a bit of a spaz moment monday night. I went out for my regular jog around the common and I was just 15 minutes in and I found myself tripping over air and landing knee first in the dirt. I smashed my knee, the palsms of both hands and my right elbow. I was covered in dirt and a bit stunned as I managed to drag my sorry self back home.
Standing waiting at the lights to cross I was surprised to hear a hello from the boy standing next to me. He was a foreigner and not that great with English. I think he was trying to chat me up, tellin gme to be careful of the buses and such. I was quite stunned to find myself in this situation but I kept responding out of mere habit. He only realised the state that I was in when he asked me how my run had been and I admitted that I had fallen over! He still went on to ask me what I was listening to on my Ipod, and then laughed when I said it was the Fugees.
I finally made it home however and it was a very sad and sorry sight that greeted my housemate Val when she opened up the door.
Val was a star as she helped me to clean myself up and give me the sufficient sympathy that I needed. I was quite disturbed by the amount of dirt lodged under the various wounds. Luckily I had registered with a doctor the day before, so I able to quickly get myself down to see my local GP to get some anti biotics and a proper cleaning.
The moral of the story....no matter how co-ordinated Chelle thinks she is, she can fall over at any time! (sorry about the gross wounded knee pic, but I couldn't help myself)

I trooped off with Maya to the wimbledon grounds to watch the Men's final. We didn't get centre court tickets, but instead crammed onto the hill with the million or other so spectators and watched the match on the big screen. It was a pretty awesome atmosphere and I was glad to finally make it to Wimbledon without having to get up at 5am or something equally crazy.
Federer beat Nadal fairly easily, but it was good match.
When it was over we scooted over to Court 1 wher ethe Woodies were playing. Quite a few Australian's seemed to be present with echoes of 'Aussie Aussie Aussie' filling the stadiam. One particulary drunk guy even yelled out 'Show us your personality!'. It was very cool to see some Aussies up there playing though, although Mark Woodforde really is starting to look a bit like a fat Bastard. Which was quie unexpected. Todd Woddbridge, remains looking just as much like a little chipmunk as ever.

I've become a bit obsessed with Borough Markets. Its not really that surprising considering that all they do there is food. Now that I'm living in Clapham it is alot easier to get to the markets and pick up a few things. I've been every weekend for the past three weeks, and its a habit I can see continuing.
Since I got back from Tukey I have been absolutely craving watermelon. I have been obsessing a little bit about it, because you can't find it in the supermarkets near me. The other week at the markets I had seen two small watermelon's for £1.50 and I was tempted to buy them, but I was not prepared to carry the buggers home. So this week I went with my back pack determined to bring home some melon.
When I got there, I was dissapointed to find only large Watermelons available. I almost turned away empty handed. But I decided that I was not going to give up so easily. I picked out the smallest large melon I could find and whacked it in my back pack. It nearly broke my back on the way home! And I must say that melons are not very good at contouring to one's back. But I finally got it home and up the stairs.
I finally cracked it open after a bit of anxiety abut fitting it into the fridge. It's taste was actually a little dissapointing. But I'm glad I got that out of my system!

Spent today making a card for Anna's 2nd anniversary with her boyfriend Alex. Quite a fun little project.

The next day Feri had organised for us to go on a boat cruise around the waters near Oludeniz. Looking forward to a day in the sun, we clambored onboard the boat at around 10.30am in the morning. We staked out our mattresses in the shade up on the top deck, stripped down to our cossies and enjoyed the sun which was still pleasantly warm. The boat filled up fast and we were gratefuk that we had chosen a place to lie in the shade. One british woman climbed upstairs whingeing quite loudly, 'What's the point of coming on here if we are going to sit in the shade?'. She was obviously after some intense tanning action. Looking around us there were quite a few people camped out in the open sun with straps pulled down and such to get the full tanning expereince. There were also a number of people who were showing the harsh effects of such disregard for sun block and too much sun. Their leathery burnt flesh reminded me to reapply my 50 plus sunscreen whenever I could.
The boat headed off to he first stop which was at butterfly island where we got our first bit of swimming in. The water was glassy blue and a perfect temperature to cool off in. We did a bit of snokelling staring at the mini fish sharing the sea with us. After an hour we climbed back onto the boat and settled down for a bit of a sleep as we moved onto the next stop.
That pretty much set the routine for the day. Stop for a swim. Get back on the boat and rest. Very stressful stuff.


From the beggining of the journey, brash turkish boys carrying boxes of pastries and various other things strode around the boat selling their wares. They had a selection of pastries, ice creams, and even melons (rock melons I mean). They were quite good at the sell, and obviously knew what they were doing.
They seemed to follow us in their own smaller boat from stop to stop, and would visit the numerous day tour boats who were making the same trip as us.
Luckily, lunch was provided on the boat as part of the package. I was mighty impressed with the overfilled plates of bulger wheat, roast chicken and salad. At about the same time as lunch was being served a small blue boat pulled up and tied themselves to us. On board were a team of a man and a woman who were making and selling fresh Gozelmeles (turkish pancakes).
They seemed to have arrived just at the wrong moment, when lunch was being served, but as people finished lunch there was a rush on pancakes. Lemon and sugar, honey and bananna, chocolate sauce. They sounded good. They were also doing the savory varieties but who needed any more savoury food after lunch. Oh, wait a minute. That's right ben and Pissy got a savoury pancake to share, becasue they were obviously dying of starvation!


With our hunger saitiated, we continued on our way. Jarrad provided the sensible mum advice to wait after eating before swimming again, but Ben would have none of it, diving in almost imediately after swallowing his last bite!
After lunch there were a few more stops, but none as refreshing as the cold water spring. It was a shock to the system how cold the water was, after the ideal temperature of the water elsewhere. The water got colder and colder as we moved towards the cold springs source. I didn't clambour up into the rock pool at the springs beginning, mostly due to a fear of poisonous sea urchins hanging onto the rocks. I didn't think a trip to the hospital would fit in very well with the rest of the blissful day.


We reluctantly returned to Oludeniz beach and left the boat with tans a few shades darker than when we had woken up that morning. Except for Jarrad of course. Whose industrial proof sun cream meant that he remained the smae lilly white colour that he always is.
Actually the only one to get sun burnt was Feri. Who had been on a strict sun strategy involving carrot oil.
When we reconvened to go out for dinner that evening he was quite red across the face and acmitted that his shoulders were burning with pain. He soldiered on though, despite our jibes about the carrot oil, and drove us all down to Fetiye to have dinner. Earlier on we had discussed what we might do for dinner before the Football. I heard the word Kebabs mentioned. I was imagining take out and was not prepared for the nice restaurant that Feri ushered us into. Freshly cooked Pide came to our table accompanied by white butter infused with dill.
Despite not feeling too hungry, I made a solid effort to eat the food on offer. I am me after all. Rushing out of the restaurant we made our way to the bar showing the football. Since the Brazil match was being played at the same time this seemed to be the only place showing the less popular aussie match. Feri had reserved us a table and everything. It is so nice to be looked after.
There was a crazy Australian guy sitting further down in front of us. He provided the outward passion and excitement that we were all feeling on the inside. If anyone gave him a look as they walked by because of his yelling or screaming, he would yell out 'Why don't you just go watch turkey play." Obviously there was no Turkish team in the world cup.
Australia played really well though, and I was surprised at how involved I felt in it all. Watching 'our' boys play was quite exciting, and made the game alot more exciting. I've watched alot of soccor over the last couple of weeks, and wholeheartedly supporting one of the sides playing seems like the best way to enjoy the game. Or not enjoy the game if your team is robbed (like Australia was by Italy in their next match. But let's not relive that agony...)
We were all happy with the result however, although not as happy as the crazy bogan who spent the next half an hour hugging his mate as well as random passer byers. We headed home after midnight to bed. Our last night before flying back to reality.

So we left Istanbul and caught a flight down to Dalaman. Bets were made on the presence of a snack on board despite it only being a one hour flight. And we were a bit surprised to be asked if we wanted a sandwich or a salad. Luckily I saw the chicken ham on the sandwich before ordering and settled for the salad.
We were greeted at the airport by Jarrod's friend Feri. We loaded our stuff into his van and drove to the Alkin Hotel in Oludeniz, which he just happens to own. We were impressed by the abundance of greenery and an amazing looking pool that called out to us in our heat bothered state.
Actually, we were all quite filthy by the time we reached the hotel. The fact that I had difficulty in keeping the dry retching under control everytime that I went to the bathroom meant that I decided to pass on a shower inm the hostel and no one else seemed brave enough to give it a go. So the first thing on the agenda when we arrived was to get clean. We had nice twin rooms with balcony's and our own bathrooms. Which after the whole gross hostel thing was complete luxury.
Pissy who was actually the one who was techinically the dirtiest raced for the shower, but didn't quite expereiment enough to work out that the hot and cold water taps were back to front. So she had a cold shower. I was actually genuinally surprised that she was able to do so without screaming! Which is her usual response to unpleasant things.
Feri had his on staff chef, Eddie cook us up a meal. Which was delicious. Lots of eggplant and an array of different tomoto and yogurt dips. I am a complete sucker for a dip, and I fell to work cleaning it all up, although I did face stiff compeititon from Pissy. I might have even eaten a nice peice of chicken. But I obviously don't respect myself for it.


Over the course of the next couple of days Eddie's skill at keeping us satisfied in the eating deparment meant that at the end of our stay Pissy admitted that she wanted to take him home with her. He didn't speak any english and his wife was expecting twins apparantly, but all of our stomach's were well impressed with the turkish cuisine.
That night Feri took us out to the beach side strip along Oludeniz. We ended up in a bar after strolling around, and Feri admitted that his family owned the bar as well. actually his family owned the whole block of buildings!


We watched the other tourists dressed up for clubbing swanning around. But eventually headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.
The next morning we headed down for a great breakfast. It was basically the same breakfast that we had in the Hostel but itwas a hundred times better. Tomoto, cucumber, olives, boiled eggs and bread. Followed by sweet sweet watermelon.
We jumped in the pool soon after breakfast with the temperature reaching somewhere in the 30's. Pissy gave us all a scare by getting too close to the creepy crawly sucker tube that sucked her belly in. In response she screamed like a wild banshee woman. I thought she had been bitten by something. She pulled herself off the tube and more than a little embarrassed she tried to maintain that it was really scarey.
More than a few jokes were made at her expense.
We eventually pulled ourselves out of the pool and went to take a look at the ruins of the town where Feri was born. His Aunt and Uncle still live in a house nearby. It was so nice to see a lifestyle so close to the earth for a change. Chooks ran around the yard, which was shaded from the heat of the sun by a massive Mulberry tree. Over to the other side of the yard, an impressive garden of vegetables was in the midst of giving up its summer produce. Zucchinis, eggplants, watermelons, mint and various other things grew side by side. I can't wait to have a vegetable garden when I grow up. It reminds me of school actually. And that really great summer where we grew tomotes and herbs in our garden instead of flowers.
On the way we were unlucky enough to get a flat tyre running over a large rock on the side of the road. I was quite impressed by the efficiency of the guys to get it fixed and we were back on the road in no time.
Burning in the heat we headed to a private beach. There were small waves and we were able to wade out and float in the blue water. I was able to start my strategic tanning plan too. starting with my tummy and the bit of my chest that had missed out getting burnt when I was home earlier in the year.
There were nice sun chairs with umbreallas over them, and we lay and swam for a good many hours.
Earlier one of the boys had mentioned something about paragliding. Ben got all excited about it and admitted that he was keen to go do it, and Feri's family conveniantly had a paragliding company as a part of their empire. So we had all decided to take the plunge. Pissy was quite nervous about it all, and I have to admit that at first I didn't think it was a good idea for her to do it. But I soon realised that she can't just lock herself in her room in cotton wool and never come out and do anything just becasue she's been hurt before. Having a near death experience should make you appreciate the life you have more. Which is not to say that extrememe sports is something that I would like to see her get involved in more regularly.
But when decideding if I wanted to have a go, I basically decided that yes I did, becasue I wanted to remind myself that I was alive and well and capable and I guess for those same reasons Pissy decided to say yes too.
She was more than a little nervous, and even skipped lunch (which is a huge thing for her). But they do let you take your camera with you up there, so I wandered how extreme it could be.


We spent 45 minutes driving up the mountain side with a bunch of other would be paragliders. I must admit I took a wee nap on the way. Then we were paired up with a pilot and given instructions. Pissy went before me, and I was quite anxious watching her coast a little too close to the cliffs for my liking. I was very aware of the wrath of my parents for letting anything damage their youngest daughter.
We climbed into these crazy suits which became like little hot houses of humid sweat. The waiting to take off seemed long and hot. But finally we started to take off. Jarrod first and then Ben and then Pissy.
The pilot's had told us to start running when they said and keep going until they said stop. Pissy seemed to take two steps and then her pilot yelled 'Don't sit down don't sit down'. Apparently she said sorry, and jolly Ebo said, 'that's ok'. They eventually got going though, and my pilot was adamnet that I shouldn't do what my 'friend' had just done. We had a smooth take off, and it was a brillent feeling gliding over the coastline, looking out over the cliffs and the water. I snapped some snaps and had a bit of a chat with the pilot who tried to teall me that he started paragliding the day before. It was surreal. I was silent as I watched the world below. It really was brillant. Apparently Oludeniz is one of only two places in the world where you can land on the beach, and I have to say that the landing was lot softer than I had anticipated.




Amped up with adrenaline we headed back to the Alkin for more swimming a massive BBQ feast. Fish, chicken, meat balls, lamb chops, eggplant done all sorts of different ways, roast potatoes with rosemary, and the dips and breads.
Even Pissy felt defeated by the sheer quantity of food. Ben outdid himself and surprised us all by eating non stop. Right through to the watermelon that we had for dessert. I can't remember being so full in quite a while.
After some intense digestion we headed out to Fetiye where we wandered along the pier and through the stores that sold turkish delight, spices, carpets, ceramics, and random tourist nic nacs.
We stopped at a token Aussie pub. Feri filled us in that he knew the owners and the owner's wife was Australian. She came out to say hello, and invited us to watch the Australian v Croatia football match there the night after.

Alright so I know that I havn't finished the second part of the Turkey story, but I just had to write this post up about the latest freak who tried to befriend me.
I was sitting in the park drawing, and this oldish guy comes up and says hello. He didn't look too crazy, but he started with that all too familiar question, 'Are you Philipino?'. I've heard this one before, as some of you will no doubt know. I responded with my usual 'No I'm Australian', but this guy would have none of it and started telling me that I had it all wrong and that my chinese mother was dumbstruck by her need to spend a night with a pakastani man and hence I came to be born with dark skin but chinese eyes.
He rambled on and on about this for a while, even after I told him it really wasn't any of his business. He eventually left me alone, feeling more than a little worked up, but his final advice was that I should find myself a Pakastani man.
This freak made me angrier than most of them do. How dare he presume to know anything about me. If only I wasn't such a freak magnet. Hopefully I'll never run into this one again.