Dalyan – 29th & 30th May

It was another quiet day of dog sitting with Norman on Friday 29th May. He’d been doing so well and, as I was getting up at 6am each day, he’d not once had a pee or poo in the house. I priced up a guided cycle tour in Vietnam for a customer before learning that Wendy Wu had offers on for business class upgrades on Japan holidays with Turkish Airlines for £199.
In the afternoon Norman wanted to help me work so I put him on the round chair where I could keep an eye on him. At 5.30pm I took Norman for a walk, he was so slow but we managed it. For dinner I had a mystery freezer meal which I think was a chicken casserole and I added a chopped courgette, as you do!
I checked the weather forecast for Sheffield for the next week and it looked a bit cold and wet! Typical, as I planned to just take an under seat bag for my 3 week holiday.

Gratitude List
1. Norman
2. Excellent holiday offers
3. A mystery meal and a night in.

I didn’t bother with the Dalyan weekly market on Saturday 30th May because I was leaving for England in 2 days. Instead I worked more on my content plan for June and wrote at least one social media post per day for the whole month. I’d noticed loads of other travel agents using AI to write their posts and I didn’t want to do that, I wanted my posts to be authentic and actually from me. My existing customers trusted me and liked the real me so I wanted that to come across to the rest of my followers who were still to book a holiday with me or buy one of my books. I worked hard and then had a video call with a friend in the UK.
In the evening I agreed to meet Ma & Pa for a drink at Retro bar. It was warming up a bit so, after walking and feeding Norman, I had to find some summer clothes to wear. I wore one of my new tops with jeans and washed my hair, only to realise my hairbrush was still at Jamie’s. I had to use a comb which wasn’t ideal.
At Retro bar, Ma & Pa had beers and I had wine and we got chatting about last weekend’s incident. Ma & Pa didn’t remember what had caused the to-do or know why I had left Lukka abruptly but they made it clear they didn’t want to get involved. I explained how I felt and I said I’d not put up with anyone treating me badly. They said it was up to me and the other person and it wasn’t anything to do with them, I disagreed but understood their position so that was the end of that!
It was a shame but it wasn’t the first time and I felt that by pretending all was fine or ignoring bad behaviour, it would just set me up for a repeat performance in the future. I also think going through the menopause has meant I’m less likely to walk on eggshells or modify my actions to please someone, no matter who they are or what they’ve said. It’s interesting, as I know if it had been a male spouse who had acted that way towards me, the outcome and reactions would certainly have been very different. In my humble opinion, it shouldn’t be. We left around midnight and paid cash for the bill, forgetting exactly how much the total was but a wine was 140 lira (£2.33).

Gratitude List – I completely forgot to write one.