Midlife Lately – July 2025

We had a fabulous evening and a rather late night as you can tell by my pallid complexion here. As you can probably see we were now at the airport. Back in the cold days of winter when we saw that the dates for our two events in the south were so close together we decided that we’d fill the in-between days with a little break in Dorset or Devon or somewhere like that. When I started looking though it turned out that even with travel it was going to cost less for us to have five nights in Turkey than on the south coast.

We’ve talked a lot about personal geography on here in the past. You may remember that it was a project that my eldest brother introduced me to, of working out which places mean the most to you. Some hold key memories even though you know you’ll never return there, others have an ongoing place in your life simply because you love them and so you keep going back and Turkey is one of those places for us. This time we decided to try Bodrum.

Me+Em Travel Co-ords SS19 (this year’s version now in the sale here); Nike VaporMax trainers SS18

I’ve been to Bodrum before. Back in 1992 I had my first honeymoon there and I wasn’t sure how it would feel to go back, however the flights aligned so well with the few days we had available that somehow it felt meant to be. Back then I chose Turkey because my brother and his then girlfriend had spent a summer travelling through the country and returned with so many stories filled with Eastern promise that I couldn’t wait to see it for myself. At the time I was working on a travel magazine at the BBC called World, we covered all kinds of intrepid travel destinations and my colleagues were distinctly unimpressed that I was going somewhere so ordinary but my heart was set on it – plus we didn’t have the budget to go to Sarawak!

Anyway here we were, just married, snapped by an enterprising street photographer as we were going into a nightclub and as it was the only photo we were going to get of the two of us together, we bought it on the way out. Those of you who’ve been reading for a while know how things panned out, my first husband died a long time ago and I’m not going to go into it again here – but at this moment in May 1992, I was full of hope for the future.

Back to 2025 and Turkey for me is the only place other than home that soothes my soul. I love the fact that its difference in culture and terrain makes it feel as though you’ve really left Europe even though you’ve often only flown as far as Greece. When I’m somewhere that I don’t want to be such as the dentist’s chair, this is where I go to in my mind – I lie back in the water in Turkey looking up at a blue sky framed with bougainvillea and feel the contrast of the cool, silky water with the dry warmth on my face.

We spent our first day doing nothing more than this… oh apart from a Facetime call with the youngest so that we could sit with him while he tried repeatedly to log onto onto Leeds University’s crashing website as the degree results went live. I’ll tell you more about that in next week’s post though.

Boden bikini SS15

Later we wandered out to the harbour… (this outfit is navy blue by the way, the setting sun makes it look black)…

Boden halterneck SS18; Hush skirt AW21; Arket sandals SS23

… to a little restaurant called Trafo that had been recommended to us. It was hidden up a quiet ginnel next to the castle and we were the only non-Turkish people there. It sits up above the tourist drag with a stunning 180 view out over the sea. The food was basic but delicious – it’s a simple place, not one for you if you’re a foodie who likes complicated dishes but if you’re looking for down to earth Turkish food then it’s a wonderful spot.