Turtle trouble: A postcard from Turkey

I've been away. Let me show you.
Imagine Europe, as pictured from above. Find the Aegean sea, and pan across a bit, to where Europe meets the East, in Turkey.
Zoom in a bit. Focus on the Southwest coast.
Zoom in a bit further. Picture the Muğla Province, rich in scattered ancient ruins and modern marble quarries.
Zoom in further. Find the coastal resort of Sarigerme.
Track SouthWest, until you find the 4-star First Choice holiday village. In the South corner, you will see a block of apartments. Head for that, observing as you do that the fine people of the Marriott hotel chain are building a 5-star luxury golf resort some 25 metres away.
At this juncture you can add a soundtrack, which will enable you to marvel at the scant respect the contractors have for local planning regulations that are meant to restrict building noise to reasonable working hours. (You can also feel a slight twinge of envy, if you like, because on this trip we're going four-star and the people next door will eventually be going five...)
You may also choose, at this point, to wonder aloud if this beautiful region of the world - which features a sparkling sea that laps a beach of tumbled gemstones (where protected turtle species lay their eggs) and a series of jaw-dropping 4000 year old tombs carved directly into the hills - will really be improved by the addition of a 18-hole golf course and another set of waterslides. Then remind yourself that the local economy relies almost entirely on tourism, and that you have contributed to the ecology problem by just being here - so in some tiny way, if the turtles all die, it's your fault...
But leave that aside for now. Continue zooming. Swoop down through two floors and find apartment 3011.
More specifically, find the bathroom. And that, my friend, is where you will find me.
On the toilet. At my lowest ebb all week.
(What, you thought I'd write about the good times on holiday? How little you know me...)
I have been sitting for some time, lamenting both the second chicken kebab with chili sauce that I ate the night before (and which I believe is responsible for my current situation), and my new swimming trunks, which were purchased in haste a few days before leaving for holiday. They feature a blue and white floral pattern and, in the the lengthy time I have had while seated to examine them puddled around my sunburnt lower shins, I have decided they make me look ridiculous.
But this is only one source of discomfort for me - leaving aside the first, most obvious and pressing issue, I am also not enjoying the fact that I am performing for an audience of three, as follows:
a) Myself, in a large mirror that runs across one full wall. This allows me to catch the occasional glimpse of my contorted, sun-reddened face, which is extremely disconcerting - because with one thing and another I am not really looking my best.
b) A large inflatable whale. This was purchased for my daughters to ride on in the swimming pool, and which they have decided in the meantime to store on the bathroom floor. This means that, by happy accident, it can 'observe' everything I am doing with its big cartoon eyes. Every 30 seconds I stare malevolently at its stupid painted smile and think about stabbing it with some nail scissors - but that would involve rising from my throne, which currently feels inadvisable.
c) My youngest daughter, who is outside the bathroom and whose short chubby legs, complete with pink sandals on each foot, I can clearly see through a louvred panel at the bottom of the door. She has been chatting amiably to me for some time, even though I have tried to explain that this is not strictly welcome right now, because Daddy is busy. Unfortunately, as she is currently enrolled in the School of Toilet Training herself (sadly, it appears, with graduation day still same way off), she clearly feels a kinship with me in my current position and has decided to share some some of the verbal encouragement she normally receives:
"How is your poo doing, Daddy?"
"It's...it's fine. Go away."
"Are you trying hard, Daddy?
"Go away. Please."
"Is it coming yet?"
"Go away. I'm begging you."
"You need to try hard, Daddy....."
"Go and see Mummy, will you?"
"You need to concentrate."
"Go away!"
"Concentrate, OK, Daddy? Concentrate and try..."
At this point I notice the absence of toilet paper. I recall with some sadness that I removed the last roll myself, in order to show my eldest daughter that if you draw something in wax crayon and then rub it hard with tissue paper the wax melts and soaks into the paper, leaving a translucent pattern. Even now she is in the other room, making a series of stained-glass window pictures to adorn the window, tearing up sheet after sheet of precious toilet roll and throwing it in the bin.
Outside the door, my youngest daughter discovers she can reach the bathroom light switches. As a result, both the main room light and the one above the mirror start going on and off intermittently.
"Keep trying, Daddy..." she calls through the door.
In the flickering light, the whale continues to smile at me. I swear it is laughing at my swimming trunks.
Zoom out now, and just keep going. Up through the apartment roof, up away from the turtle beach, higher and higher, until Turkey is spread below you, the planes heading for Dalaman are passing beneath your feet, and you can clearly see the curvature of the earth.
Now, listen.
I'm sure, even at this height, that you can hear me shouting for my wife...

Dog, Car, Camera, Car, Road, Rabbit, Tree.

"Please, will you just just stop shouting? Stop shouting. Stop shouting. STOP SHOUTING!"
"But you are shouting..."
"I am shouting because you can't even hear me asking you to stop shouting over the noise you are making. That's better. Thank you."
"I am bored..."
"Shh, now. Daddy is concentrating on driving."
"Can we have a song on?
"Song on! Song on! Puffamagicdwagon!"
"No, no songs."
"Puffamagicdwagon!"
"No, no more 'Puff the magic dragon'. Not again. Let's play a game instead."
"I-spy! I-spy! I-SPY!"
"I said stop shouting!"
"Yes, yes, good idea - we can play I-spy."
"Me first! Me first!"
"Me first! Me first!"
"No: me first."
"Stop shouting. Please, will you just stop shouting? How many more times?"
"I tell you what, I'll go first. Are you ready? I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with 'D'..."
"Dog?"
"Doggie?"
"No."
"It is 'dog', mummy - there was a dog just there."
"Yes, I saw. There was a dog. But that wasn't what I chose."
"Doggie?"
"Why not? You should choose 'dog'. It is a waste if you don't choose 'dog'."
"It is not 'dog'. Any other guesses?"
"Is it 'death in a huge fireball, because the driver can't concentrate'?"
"No. Play properly."
"Is it 'despair'?
"No. Try again."
"Is it 'dog'?"
"Ha ha. Very funny..."
"Doggie?"
"It should be 'dog'..."
"Fine. Fine. Let's say it was 'dog' after all. Well done, all of you..."
"Me next! Me next! My turn!"
"OK, your turn. Off you go."
"I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with 'red'."
"With red? What do you mean, red? 'Red' is not a letter..."
"Car?"
"You can pick a colour or a letter. It's allowed."
"Is it? Since when?"
"Since forever."
"Car?"
"Well, nothing can 'begin with red'. You can't begin with a colour, so you would say, 'something that is coloured red...'
"Just drive, will you? She is five. It is a kids game, not a grammar test. Nobody is scoring her on sentence construction..."
"Car?"
"Yes. It was 'car'. That one in front of us."
"Very good. OK, little one, your turn..."
"Nooo! I want another go."
"But your sister has guessed it...it's her turn."
"That was too short! I made it too easy! I want another go - it will be longer..."
"Yes! Another go!"
"Stop shouting..."
"Okay, well, if you are both happy..."
"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'C'..."
"Car?"
"No."
"Caravan?"
"No."
"Cat?"
"No."
"Hmmm, are you sure it's not 'car'?"
"No, Daddy, it is not 'car'. I already said so."
"Car?"
"I'm only asking, because last time we played, you said it wasn't 'car', and then at the end you told me it actually was a car, just 'not the one that you meant'..."
"Which was news that Daddy didn't take very well, if I recall..."
"It is not 'car'. We already had 'car' last time. Do you give up?"
"Cloud?"
"No."
"Car?"
"No. Stop saying that. It is not 'car'!"
"OK, we give up."
"It is 'camera'."
"Camera? Camera? Really?"
"Oh, well done. That's an excellent word, sweetheart."
"Where was there a camera?"
"At home."
"Oh, for the love of..."
"Shhh, now. It's your turn."
"I don't want a turn. I'm driving."
"Get on with it."
"Something beginning with 'C'..."
"Car?"
"Oh, come on, say it properly..."
"Oh, for Heavens sake! Fine. I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'C'..."
"Car?"
"Yes. Well done. Your turn."
"You can't do that! We had 'car' already. That is cheating."
"Cheating? You think I'm cheating...? When you just had 'camera'?"
"Do another one!"
"Unbelievable..."
"Yes, play properly."
"God. Okay, okay..I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'R'..."
"Rabbit?"
"Rabbit? No. There's no rabbits here..."
"Rhinoceros?"
"Rhinoceros? Rhinoceros? Can you actually see a rhinoceros?"
"Is it 'road'?"
"Yes. Well done."
"I'm seeing a pattern here. Are you just saying the first thing you can see immediately in front of you?"
"No, because then 'R' would be 'red mist', wouldn't it?"
"You're not really trying very hard..."
"That's right, and do you know why? Because I'm driving. I don't know if you've noticed, but in front of me is this sort of wheel, that I keep turning left and right, and what's actually happening is that it's making the car go where I point it..."
"I swear, sometimes it's all I can do to not to slap you upside the head..."
"I'm driving. I have to concentrate."
"The light is red. We're stationary at the moment..."
"Is 'R' for red light, Daddy?"
"Rabbit?"
"Yes, fine, OK, turns out it was 'rabbit' after all. One just magically appeared in the footwell. Well done. Your go."
"Where? Where is there a rabbit? I can't see a rabbit..."
"It's your sisters turn now, darling..."
"But I want to see the rabbit..."
"Shhh, now. Let's just play. Come on sweetie, your turn..."
"I spy...little eye...something beginning with...tree."
"Tree? Beginning with 'tree?'.."
"Yes, tree."
"Is it 'tree'?"
"Yes! Tree! It is 'tree'! Well done."
"That's not right! It can't start with the thing it is! That's CHEATING!"
"Will. You. Please. STOP. SHOUTING!"

(I've wanted to do a post that was 'dialogue only' for a while now, but my apologies to those reading via email subscription, who I suspect have no highlight colours to help them determine who's who...though it may well read better that way, I can't tell...)