My holiday in numbers

Wow, it's a long time since I blogged! I've just come back (well, a week ago) from two weeks in Turkey. After the stress of handing in my last draft (working 7 days a week almost, with lots of meltdowns) it was an extreme relaxation holiday - just lazing by the pool, watching the sun go down and eating lovely food and the occasional glass of wine (I was very pleasantly surprised by Turkish wine). The picture above is taken from the website of the place where we stayed, and that is pretty much what it looks like - except I think that's sunrise, not sunset, which we never quite managed to see. I feel very lucky ...

Here's my holiday in numbers.

Nights we were away: 13
Numbers of holidays I've had before that were just beach/pool/relaxing: 0
Marks out of 10 I would give to Turkish food/landscape/hospitality: 10
Dresses I took with me: 2
Number of dresses I wish I'd taken: 4
Infinity pools we swam in: 2
People around the pool reading Fifty Shades of Grey: 4
Boat trips with snorkelling: 2
Sea-kayaking days: 1
Jeep trips into the Taurus Mountains, stopping to look at ruined Lycian villages and Carpet Weaver's Cooperative: 1
Carpets bought: 0 (despite best efforts of Cooperative salesman)
Pottery bowls bought: 4
Average lengths I swam every day: 20
Magnums eaten from the poolside fridge: 4
Wasp stings on me: 1
Amount of times I wondered aloud if I might need steroids/adrenaline shots to reduce the swelling of my wasp sting: 10-14
Turtles seen crossing roads: 4
Sighting of swallows over the infinity pool: 2
Orange moonrises as we ate dinner: 3-4
Books I read by the pool: 7.5

The books, by the way, were:

The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst
Wife,22 by Melanie Gideon
The Hunger Games trilogy (!)
The Soldier's Wife by Joanna Trollope
The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel - started on hols but finished at home.

I enjoyed them all, especially the Joanna Trollope. I was pleasantly surprised by the Hunger Games books, I just found them in the hotel library but they were really quite compelling! The only one that was a slight disappointment was the Hilary Mantel - but that's probably just because I enjoyed Wolf Hall so much and, just in my opinion, this sequel to it was a little less exciting. He's still alive at the conclusion and I'm guessing there will be a third novel, though, so that's something to look forward to.

I hope you all had lovely holidays (or are still on them) and are feeling energised for the return to school!