First flight from Gatwick since I was around 7, and fronting started with  driving our car there so we could drop it off with the “meet and greet” service person who would stick it god knows where for the two weeks while we were away.

Then we had a fairly simple but slow journey through the processes of the airport starting with us being 12.5kg overweight on suitcases, one of which was 10kg over but that’s to be expected when you travel with a baby and have all the things required to do so.

We were charged for 9kg excess baggage which came to £36, around double what it would have been if we were able to pay in advance. I’m writing this first bit on the outbound flight, young couple next to me who seem scared by me holding a phone after the excessive pre-flight warning video obviously scared them sufficiently.

Today we are flying with “Kiss flights” who seem to be “freebird” some turkish airline and somehow this confusing setup is all linked to the owner of XL who liquidated last year taking our holiday to the canary islands with them. Fortunately I paid by credit card so didn’t have the refund headaches so many other people had.

In-flight meal was 0/10, couldn’t eat much of it but then the best I could determine beforehand there wasn’t even going to be any meal included so was a pleasant surprise anyway.

Its now Wednesday, we have been at club turban for 3 or 4 days now, starting to lose track of time as this place is so relaxing and has it all. This morning I had a bali massage straight after breakfast which has to be the best massage in a long time and beats Thai massage hands down..

Natasa had a health massage yesterday which she really enjoyed too. The food here is pretty good, there’s lots of variety and always easy to find something you like, my appetite died for 24 hours on Monday, bit of  a bad belly adjusting to new cooking but that always happens when I go on holiday to a new place.

our transfer bus was pretty small and crammed with Brits, we were the ultimate drop off and joked that the hotels looked better and better as each lot were dropped off. Our hotel I’m happy to say was no exception, impressive first impression with the massive lobby and gardens that are brilliantly laid out.

The first night here after the many hours of traveling Natasa and theory went to bed while I went to get wasted, the spirits are very generous measures and get to work quick!, I then set out to find the disco, via the sunset bar on the beach where I got more whiskey and coke, the disco was pretty much dedicated to me for the time I was there, a basic place with a mix CD, the “DJ” didn’t change it to techno when I drunken asked him ;)..

So here on Wednesday afternoon me and Theo are on the beach, him sleeping, Natasa in the sauna and Turkish baths until 3 when we have a late snack session at the Italian a-la carte.

Nationality wise its mostly Russians and British, quite a lot of Serbs, couple of dutch and have not heard and Germans!.

The reviews all bitched about arrogant Russians pushing in at the restaurant and there not being enough Brits, well I have to say every nationality here is outstandingly well behaved except northern brits who are loud mouthed chavvy lancs. Through and through, I had to tell one of them to keep his voice down yesterday as he was being an embarrassment, the Russians not admiring seeing the northern family from he’ll spitting on each other…

The evening shows are pretty good, some sexy Russian dancers some nights, others have comedy shows.

Today is Wednesday of week two, on Sunday we did our a-la carte seafood dinner which was super tasty bream and bass after a few nice starters with an enjoyable bottle of wine. Made a nice change from the main restaurant although we did walk to Marmaris with the pushchair on Friday I think and had dinner there while admiring the yachts. The buses are cheap and more like a van than a bus, but a collapsed pushchair is no problem to take on.

Sunday I took Theo to see the hotel doctor as he started to get Natasa’s cold, long story short we paid 240 lira just to get a basic check then another 2003 for some basic medication that got delivered to the hotel.

Yesterday was really amazing as we went scuba diving for the first time. I had many chances to do this on my 4 trips to Thailand but never got round to it… So yesterday for 150 lira I had two dives and Natasa had 1, the instructor offer everyone the chance to upgrade the dive to a 12 metre deep start odds Discover SCUBA Diving which me and a guy from Russia did and we were both blown away by the experience, getting the pushchair onto the speedboat that took us to the lifeboat was a little unnerving but the people at paradise diving (www.paradisediving.net) handled every aspect of the day brilliantly, we saw another couple of boats around the second dive site that looked pretty shit but the paradise diving boat was 10/10.

Our room is 1115 so pretty near the lobby where you get free wifi, so with our Nokia E71 phones we have free WIFI from our room, you get the login details from reception.

To my surprise when we had a look around the boat I saw up top a load of topless Russian girls with some bloke taking photos of them that added an extra dimension to the day…

If you are looking for a place to stay in Marmaris-Icmeler I recommend club turban, we sneaked into the next hotel along (all three appear to be owned by the same company) called Mares, initially it looks great but we were told otherwise. The second sneak trip we tried to score a couple of free ice creams, as we walked away the guy asked for 10 lira, strange as there were no prices listed and inconvenient as we only had a total of 70 lira left thanks to the doctor and there being no cash machines within 5km (take lots of cash with you). we said to the ice cream guy that was too much and started to walk away, then he said we could pay tomorrow, so we took it, never to return.

If you are wondering which currency to take with you, believe it or not getting lira before you fly is not the best way – you get great prices here paying directly with pounds sterling, euro also works well, and the exchange rate here is better than back in the UK.

Everyone at club turban was amazing, friendly and helpful. We were there for the first two weeks in September and most days were 36 degrees C, only the afternoon on the last day did it rain and the staff rearranged the outside resources including the many dinner tables and brought them all in to the main hall while they were also preparing teo of the three MASSIVE exhibition halls for a wedding.

We found out from a lovely pensioners couple that they had been to each of the three a-la carte restaurants for free whereas our booking only entitled us to 1 so if you are booking then ask about that.

Also some of the tripadvisor reviews mentioned the overpriced freshly squeezed orange juice in the restaurant, Mick and Margaret told us you just need to tell the woman you want to pay the regular price of 4tl rather than the advertised 6.99tl and she will go with it.

Its our last night now, our transfer bus picks us up at 01:40 which is going to be a pain then we don’t fly until 07:20 I think so this is going to be a long night – then we fly to Gatwick for 3 hours or so after which I call our meet and greet car service who have had our car for the last 2 weeks… Hopefully it is still as we left it and not too many more miles on the clock. Finally after that I drive us all round the M25 semi conscious so we can sleep all day at home – I’m  sure we will all go back to turkey and wouldn’t mind at all going back to club turban.

A couple of years ago we had to change the driveway on our house as a delivery truck caused the original one to sink and crack a concrete path. So I had the unenjoyable task of searching for reliable block paving contractors and bricklayers as I wanted to get a partition wall built at the same time.

After getting 5 salesmen to come in and show me flashy brochures, I weighed up their costs and the impression I got from them about the company they represented and made my decision, the final result was a pretty good block paving replacement but a brick wall that started to literally fall apart after 3 months due to the fact the mortar was not well mixed and the coping stones were coming off the top and a row of bricks had partly collapsed.

So how can the internet help us to avoid cowboy builders and plumbers?, well I was looking for spare parts for an old car of mine once upon a time and came across a website that you could specify what you were looking for, supply your contact details, and shortly after that I had several quick and friendly phonecalls from breakers yards offering the exact part (an electric window motor for my Nissan Primera) all at least 75% cheaper than a brand new one from Nissan and they would all post it to me. I picked one and the next day had the part installed… fantastic!.

But back to cowboys and how to avoid them, I found recently a website where people who have hired a tradesman write up a review of how it went so you could instantly get references for previous jobs that a local tradesman had already carried out recently they seem to get 1000′s of jobs every week so it must be really working.

All you do is sign up – which is free and takes 30 seconds, then you post details of the job. e.g. “My tap won’t stop dripping!” and then literally within around 10 minutes you can have 3 calls from highly rated local tradesmen asking if they can come round and quote for the job. Best of all, it’s free to use as a customer (they make money from the tradesmen) and none of the tradesmen who rang when I tried the service wanted to charge me for coming out to quote.

It’s free for you to get quotes from tradesmen so get that job done with someone reliable!

Bookmark: http://www.bradmcallister.com/go/ratedpeople/

Want to know how to improve your workplace and infact make the world a better place, absorb what Barry Schwartz is trying to get across in this TED presentation.

Ever been driving up the motorway, everything slows down, then speeds up again leaving you wondering what the hell caused the jam in the first place?.

This should clear that up for you nicely.

After 18 months of being tied to a Sony Ericsson K800i on Orange, I am finally free to choose a new mobile again. So after much shopping around for an N95 8GB which I have wanted for months now given it has WLAN , a nice Carl Zeiss 5MP camera, and GPS, I at the last minute decided to go for something completely different and I am oh so happy with the decision to buy a Nokia E71. It arrived on Tuesday and I have found it almost impossible to put down ever since.

After reading so many positive reviews where the only thing people seem to complain about is that the camera isn’t the best thing since sliced bread, it seems well on route to being the best smart phone of 2008 if not phone in general. The GPS is brilliant it locks on here in west London in a matter of seconds, the camera is OK but then on a device 1cm thick what do you expect??. WLAN browsing is super easy to set up and setting up to connect to my home network took a couple of minutes including adding the MAC address to my list of allowed devices on the router.

It feels like quality, mostly metal construction with firm keys that even my large fingers can speed around accurately. The screen is not too small, and is super crisp and clear.

For the deals side of things, there are a few around but the best value I found was on three where for just £20/month for 18 months on mix and match 300, you get 300 minutes/SMS per month to any network and 50 mins video calls which I thought was to any network but seems is only to same network users.

The real selling points about choosing three for me were that somehow you get to connect to skype and MSN messenger for free all day long without any data charges, and £20/month was the cheapest rate for the phone, the next cheapest networks were asking for £30/month. I just can’t see the point of spending £30+/month for a phone, global credit crunch etc.

With three you can get a coupon code allocated to you if you chat to one of their agents online during the online shopping cart process. I worked out this is just an identifier for the agent who offers you the special deal, you get the actual code sent out with the phone, if you chat to another agent they will give you a different “code” and say the first one does not work, they are just trying to screw each other out of a commission so don’t worry about it, must be a cut-throat selling place where they work in India. You can at least get a free voucher for £20 of accessories from threeaccessories.co.uk which gets sent out to you within 24 hours of you ordering, very simple and nice freebie.

Because I want to use my own headphones which are the bomb rather than the Nokia ones I just got a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter from ebay for the tiny sum of 15p which some lovely Chinese fellow will be sending be from the other side of the planet, amazes me how cheap things are when bought like this.

If you are thinking to get a phone that does pretty much everything, I would definately recommend the E71. If you are already thinking about getting an E71 then what are you waiting for?, go buy it now!. If you are in the UK the best deal really does seem to be with three, I was on three a couple of years ago and I really must say that their customer services has improved massively I find them very professional and pleasant to deal with this week.