Greetings from Turkey

I don’t mean to brag but our trip has been lovely. Obviously we have been working very hard with our training schedule and meetings but the place Izmir is idyllic. We are staying in a 5 star hotel right by the sea and the weather has been in the 20’s and sunny. It seems so far away from the floods and devastation that has been happening back home. For Leeds we have had 2 games cancelled due to the rain. The worst one was against Millwall at the weekend, we travelled down on the Saturday, got to the ground we were all just about to warm up and the referee called the game off. This means we have still only played one game in November. I will stop moaning at how the weather has affected our football, some parts of Cumbria the weather has affected their entire lives. My brother and my little niece Ella live in Carlisle and thankfully they are ok due to the flood defences that were put up a few years ago. Only a few miles down the road though people’s homes have been wrecked, some are stranded unable to get food supplies and even lives have been lost. My thoughts go out to these people and hopefully things will be sorted really soon.

Can you believe I am now officially an adult; I turned 30 on Tuesday and being away in Turkey with the England girls definitely made it fun. I have had the worst pictures of when I was younger posted all over the hotel I have had to wear a T-shirt saying S.Smith and 30 on the back and various badges. Then at dinner I had a big cake with candles on and everyone singing happy Birthday (it was obviously a low fat cake). All the girls made it really special and I now look forward to celebrating it with my friends and family on my return home.

I have a funny story that I will have to share with you and before you say it its nothing to do with my age. I have a bridge on my front tooth, long story but briefly I fell off a climbing frame when I was younger and knocked my front tooth clean out. When we played Blackburn last week I got an elbow in the mouth and I straight away panicked my tooth had come out, luckily it hadn’t. Then whilst eating my dinner on Monday the tooth fell out (thankfully it wasn’t a romantic meal for two). If anyone has lost their front tooth they will realise it is very difficult to say any words beginning with F or T. I phoned the dentist first thing in the morning only to be told by the receptionist they can’t fit me in for a week. I laughed and was like surely this is an emergency, after lots of arguing I managed to get in that afternoon. But that morning the amount of people I bumped into was un-real. I even tried to put a chewing gum there; it didn’t really do the trick. So I don’t think I will live that one down for a while.

Anyway this 30 year old better go and prepare for our big game against Turkey this afternoon. So I am just going for a brew, and then a sleep by the fire with my slippers on!!!!