Dalyan – 4th May

I got up before 9am on Thursday 4th May and made myself a cup of Yorkshire tea then checked my messages. My Mom hadn’t messaged yet but they might still be on English time and were 2 hours behind. The rain was heavy and it wasn’t the best weather for my parents to be welcomed in. I logged on to my emails and sent my invoice for payment to my boss. I didn’t have breakfast as I thought my parents might be hungry and up for meeting for food, especially as they wouldn’t have got any shopping in yet. I went to the shop to order more water and generally pottered about but by midday I was hungry and still hadn’t heard from Ma & Pa. I ate a small bit of courgette tortilla from the fridge and I’d got a beef stew out of the freezer for dinner.
At 1pm my Mom messaged to see if I’d got up yet, as she’d thought I’d still be in bed with a hangover. They popped over to mine, it was good to see them and I made cups of Yorkshire tea for us all. They had already had quite a busy morning; shopping, getting the internet put back on and a breakfast at Ela’s Kitchen (when the rain came down hard). If only I’d known I’d have joined them at my favourite place for breakfast. After drinking tea, my parents went back to their place to drop their shopping off and we arranged to meet again later. The Bengisu Boys were playing at the Jazz Bistro bar tonight and they had an open mic as their support so I was really looking forward to it.
Having eaten very little all day, I was ravenous so I ate my beef stew and then had cream crackers with cheese, cheese spread, gherkins and beef bacon. I needed to line my stomach but be fairly healthy as tonight I was wearing Carol’s size 12 dress for the first time out in public. I didn’t wear the heels as it was raining and I knew I’d be dancing, instead I wore my £1 Primark flipflops which Daisy had got me.
My parents and I sat at a table quite near the front and we asked for a menu to check prices of the drinks. They didn’t have draft beer on but an Efes bottle was 100 lira (£4.08) on the menu, which was a bit pricey. Ramazan came to take our order and told us that because the band was playing for free tonight a beer would only be 70 lira (£2.86) which was more reasonable. The various support acts, including Daisy, were all really good and entertaining. The place really filled up and the staff were definitely overstretched – it took ages to get served and they ran out of beer. Most of Mark and Kate’s table left earlier because of that which was a shame. Like an idiot, I had forgotten my phone so I was unable to take photos of us or the band. I did ask a friend to take some but they weren’t the best! I met a girl in the toilet queue who I recognised as Fatma, the Algerian waitress from Heybe during a power cut a year ago. She was amazed that I remembered her because of her ghost story she told me, Louisa, Linda and Alex. She got up and did a few songs and played guitar – she was very good too. It was a great night and all 3 of us were on the dancefloor giving the ball a kick! When we came to pay the bill we’d had 12 beers between the 3 of us which wasn’t bad. We decided to have ‘one more drink’ in Sofra bar after, as you do! When I got home, and after dancing like a woman possessed, I was hungry. I’d got half a Lukka Sunday dinner out of the freezer for tomorrow which I warmed up and had with Oxo gravy at 3.45am.