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 ...