Sally-Part 40. TURKEY 1! THE WORST TOILET STORY IN THE WORLD!

TURKEYS IN TURKEY! IS THAT HOW THEY GOT THEIR NAME? ALL THE WOMEN TURNED THEIR BACKS TO ME!

I have eaten some really disgusting food in restaurants all over the world! And I will eventually tell you about them, so bear with me as this blog becomes an introduction to many a rancid tale!

In 1996 Gemma came back from Turkey and said," Mum! You and dad would love Turkey and there are such good deals around at the moment that you must go!

In those far off years, before the internet and laptops, Shirley was The Queen of CeeFax and in less than a day had found us an Hotel-Alloted-On-Arrival-Last-Minute-Deal for as little as £99= per person, Bed and Breakfast. And that meant a phone call to book it and Gemma paying for it with her credit card because we wouldn't have known what one of those was!

Gemma had been to a hot Side (Seeday). We had just come back from a freezing week on Colonsay in the Hebrides and needed warming up!

AN ASIDE:

JUST DON'T TELL ME THAT THEY'RE BOTH MY SONS THOUGH I TREAT THEM BOTH AS THOUGH THEY ARE!

 We had rented the "Mini" chalet behind the Hotel and taken Jonathan ( my heretofore unmentioned eldest son ) and Julian my youngest and looking at the photo you might also doubt their paternity the way I do! Still, I treat them as if they are both my natural sons!

Boys of all ages pig-up everywhere and the chalet was no exception, so they were left with instructions to tidy up whilst Shirley and I went for a walk to hand feed the family of otters who enchant visitors to the harbour....I've made that bit up!

 When we returned the boys hadn't even moved but said that the hotel owner had brought round a visiting tourist-office inspector for a look at his now crap chalet! An appropriate choice of word there as apparently Jonathan had just been to the toilet and hadn't even opened the window!  Shirley, mortified, insisted that I went in all haste to offer our profuse apologies for the state of the place but I and I don't know where I summoned the courage from, refused, saying probably quite timorously that in my humble opinion, hotel owners should ask permission first before showing people around and tough if the place was a bit untidy! My wife quite unsurprisingly and speaking rather vehemently did not agree with my opinion and so we did not talk or communicate for the remainder of the holiday, actually ignoring each other as we passed in opposite directions on our bikes with our mouths down-turned and chins upturned, heads twisted away from each other, rather like petulant children!

 Of course, in the end I apologised as I always do whenever I'm not in the wrong but that's men, always wrong and women,  ALWAYS RIGHT ! 

Possibly the BEST EVER holiday toilet story also involved Jonathan and a group of friends in a Swiss skiing chalet.

 Everyone was disgusted with Jonathan for leaving a mighty log jammed into the u-bend which refused to complete it's journey despite a ferocious onslaught with various kitchen implements.

 The lads insisted that Jonathan stayed behind when they went off to the slopes to apologise to the very attractive chalet-maid, a first year and naive fashion design student on her first-ever job and explain the problem.

When she arrived and without speaking her language he beckoned her through to the bathroom and in abjectly humble mode pointed at the offending matter intending to demonstrate his concern for it's permanence with grimaces and other distorted facial expressions, though what he expected her to do about it escapes me when his full-on eighteen stone attack had already failed! To add meaning to his gobble-dee-gook he pressed the flush intending to give an empathetic raising of his shoulders and outward turn of his hands in a "See? I'm really sorry!" gesture as the water rushed past the "article" leaving it firmly wedged.They both watched, one in incomprehension, the other totally embarressed as the monster disappeared!

I think that the chalet-maid left her employment later the same morning and Jonathan still suffers from terrible flashbacks, or would it be Flushbacks? To the extent that you can often see him suddenly clutch his head in both hands and let out a pitiful groan! If he does this in your company, be nice to him and just ask gently, "Switzerland?" and if he nods stay quiet and put a comforting hand on his shoulder!

 Oh and examine his kitchen implements before agreeing to eat at his place!

Sorry! No photo!

END OF ASIDE.

We were young enough to cope with a 4 hour flight leaving at 9pm, or so we thought.

The ancient Turkish Airlines Russian-built-rust-bucket-of-a-jet should have rung some alarm bells as we entered the tired-looking cabin and sat on seats with springs breaking through the cushions.Cushions? I think I need to think of another word before I go to press.

And then, about half an hour before landing the crew suddenly rushed to the old lady who until a short while before had been sitting chatting, alive and well in the row directly in front of us but was now hanging gruesomely sideways over the gangway, stone-dead !

All their attempts at shaking her, shouting at her and slapping her face back to life failed and as the Captain had ordered them over the intercom to take to their seats for landing, the old dear was left where she was, without so much as a blanket covering her face ( apparently because a doctor hadn't pronounced her dead for goodness sake! )

I'm not going to spoil your tea by describing what happened to her head or her false teeth as we kangarooed down the runway when the pilot misjudged the plane's landing speed and leapt back into the air three times before slamming on the brakes!

 ANOTHER ASIDE:

   I can't tell you how many times my father, the local Doctor, couldn't be bothered to go and visit a patient when a relative or neighbour came rushing to our house begging for the Doctor to come quickly because someone or other had been found dead and sent me instead!

 Alright, I will tell you. None!

 But once, when he was away on holiday and I was about seventeen and sunbathing in the garden in my swimming trunks that sort of scenario did occur and the panicking caller wouldn't take " I'm sorry but the doctor is not here! " at face value and despite staring in horror at my attire, demanded my instant attendance, very immature goatee beard and all. So I went and saw my first cadaver; a little old lady with blue lips who had collapsed forwards onto her maroon velvet-covered dining table ( I have always had an eye for detail! ) and lifting her head by grasping her hair whilst trying to disguise the fact that I was shaking with terror, dramatically pronounced her " Dead! Dead as a doornail ! My condolences to you all ! " in the manner I thought a real doctor would do it and summoned an ambulance. The 999 operator said that they couldn't send an ambulance unless a doctor asked for it so, using only a small amount of subterfuge and ingenuity and attempting to disguise my only just breaking voice, I said," I am Doctor Nash's son, now would you please send an ambulance immediately!"

 "Ah! Sorry Doctor Nashison, forgive me, you sounded a little young and I was confused by your high and then low voice! An ambulance is on it's way and please have a death certificate ready."

Now I didn't happen to have a death certificate on me so, seeing a pile of dog-eared used envelopes on a sideboard, I cunningly peeled off the stamp and wrote as genuinely as I thought a death certificate would look, " DEATH CERTIFICATE! " And below that, " This charming old lady is as dead as a doornail. Signed Doctor Nashison ." ( I'd opened and read enough  consultant's letters to my father to know that they always used *charming* in correspondences but come to think of it now, although I didn't at the time, probably about living patients ) and peeling off another stamp put it in as clean a looking envelope as I could find! Which wasn't very and addressed it "To Whom It May Concern".

When the experienced and cynical ambulance men saw me, still dressed in my bare feet and trunks and asked with scepticism if I was Doctor Nashison only to be told "Indeed!" they whispered something to each other and refused to believe that I was a doctor but agreed to take the body in a sitting up position in a wheelchair, wrapped up to her chin and therefore with her blue face still visible!

I insisted that I WAS who I said I was and forced them to take the "Death Certificate"

I often wonder if it is still in a filing cabinet in West Ham's Coroner's Office or framed on a wall?
 

AHA! THE ORIGINAL DEATH CERTIFICATE!  SEE!  I WASN'T MAKING IT UP!

 ANOTHER ASIDE OVER.

SO! Unavoidably banging our cabin bags and knees against the poor lady's head we disembarked and joining two hundred passengers from other flights stood, knackered at 2am, in a queue to pay a solitary official £10= each for the priviledge of being allowed to visit his third-world country.

At the concourse those who had paid for a known destination were directed one way to a fleet of pristine coaches. Those of us on Alloted-Upon-Arrival deals were directed to an obscure, unused darkened hangar where we couldn't see what we were boarding.

By 4am we were sat on the back seat of a dilapidated coach and instead of heading west towards the well-known resorts, headed east towards Iraq !

The relief driver sat beside me and immediately fell asleep on my shoulder, his head jolting up and then crashing down painfully on my collarbone as we drove down their potholed highways!

 Every attempt to move him resulted in his actually cuddling closer and whispering in Turkish what must have been something lovely to his wife, kissing my ear and reaching for my crutch! I was too tired to care and left him to it!

After three hours we started dropping people off at various unfinished dumps, each group pitifully calling out " Oh My God ! "

We were dropped off in time for breakfast, which should have been welcome, at a city side-street-bomb-site that you wouldn't have put your dog in and shown to a room with a tiny window overlooking a yard full of rotting rubbish and chickens and all in a temperature of about 50 degrees Centigrade!

DELIGHTFUL VIEW OUT OUR TINY WINDOW! I GOT US MOVED!

Shirley was not happy and I did my party trick of returning to reception to request a change of rooms!

This trick doesn't always result in success but once culminated in three changes within an hour in a Majorcan Hotel in 2008!

Breakfast was sliced tomatoes and cucumber with a runny fried egg, ham and a fly-covered roll all tasting like they'd been put out the night before!

A POOR PHOTO BUT I FEEL THAT IT CAPTURES THE MOOD PERFECTLY!