Dalyan – 20th to 22nd August

I woke up in an absolute panic on Tuesday 20th August, having had one of the worst and extremely vivid dreams. Captain Caveman was due back from his holiday with Andrea in Cambodia and I had dreamt that he had become a heroin addict and was in a really bad way. I felt really out of sorts and couldn’t even eat any breakfast – maybe it was triggered by the fact that I hadn’t spoken to him for a few days and was just worried he was ok.
After a few hours work, I decided to take myself to the shops, here’s what I bought and the prices in lira;

Migros Supermarket
Mung beans 22.95
1 fig Quark 24.95
1 pineapple Quark 24.95
Spring onions 26.95
Red lentils 33.95
2 plain Quark 47.90
Total spent 179.65 (£4.18)

Şok Supermarket
Wholemeal loaf 44.95
250g Butter 72.00
562g chicken breast 98.63
578g chicken thighs 132.36
Total spent 347.94 lira (£8.09)

I returned home and had a cheese sandwich for lunch before getting back to work. After I finished, I was really tired so decided to have a little nap. Unfortunately, I had another bad dream where I lost both of my legs in an accident. I was screaming, which woke me up to find I had my legs wrapped up tightly in a bed sheet! For dinner I ate some curry which I had batch cooked and it was certainly better with chickpeas, instead of beans. Tomorrow was weigh day but it was not looking good for weight loss!

Wednesday 21st August was another weigh day and Fat Club, which I was not looking forward to those scales of Carol’s. I’d had over 300 syns this week, a third of them on Sunday! I did my measurements and had put 1cm on my bust and waist, while my hips had stayed the same. My parents don’t have any scales at their apartment so I had to wait until 3pm for the weight results. For breakfast I ate overnight oats with peach and some grapes. I worked all morning and at lunch I made a tasty chicken noodle soup, with bean sprouts.
The weigh in at Fat Club was not as bad as I’d anticipated – I had only put on 0.2kg (0.4lb). I ordered a 1.5l bottle of water for 50 lira (£1.62) and drank as much as I could as the fancy new app told me my water levels were low. Oh, how I missed the free tap water of Sheffield! The app also told me that I had the body of a 61 year old and I was most perturbed! Especially when the ladies around me rated much lower on that aspect of the stats.
After Fat Club, I called in to the supermarket for more essentials, here’s what I bought with prices in lira;

Migros Supermarket

1 plastic bag 0.25
Pasta 10.75
Egg noodles 14.97
Cheese spread 29.50
Wraps 54.95
Mushrooms 67.95
3 plain Quark 71.85
572g of chicken 102.93
Total spent 353.15 lira (£8.12).

Another couple of hours of working was squeezed in before I made some chicken and veg stir-fry which I had in a wrap for dinner. At 7.30pm I met a friend at the Kefal tea gardens where I paid just 105 lira (£2.44) for 2 teas, a diet coke and a lemon soda – a bargain. I’d had a message from another friend to ask if I fancied the Yellow boat trip tomorrow but, as I had very limited funds, I decided to say no. I didn’t want to be tempted to overspend, especially as I could soon apply for my residency renewal appointment and I wasn’t sure what I would need to pay out. I’d asked my go-to residency contact about updating my passport number before applying, as the law dictates that a change of passport number must be updated at the nearest Government office (mine was in Fethiye), within 20 days of returning to Turkey. This meant that I had until the end of the month to do this, but I was advised not to bother and do it all at once when doing the residency appointment. He also suggested that I needn’t apply for an appointment until the end of September as the appointments were coming through very quickly these days. The advice from the authorities is the earlier the better in case there are any implications or changes to the requirements but it did mean that Captain Caveman would be back for if I needed any further evidence or signatures from him.

I decided that in the interests of saving money, I was going to have a zero spend day on Thursday 22nd August. Captain Caveman was back in the cave for 4 days, some of my friends were on the Yellow boat and I had a day of work to get through. I had a cup of Yorkshire tea and wholemeal toast with cheese spread on for breakfast.
At lunch time, I settled for something quick and convenient with cheese on cream crackers, 2 plums, some grapes and a pineapple flavoured Quark.
In the evening, I finished work and ate a chicken casserole that had been tempting my taste buds with its smell all afternoon. It was a Slimming World friendly recipe and was delicious – I was so grateful that Mom had a slow cooker I could use.