Today was a funny, dissatisfied sort of day, though a pleasant one. Soon after the GF woke we went back to the Syrian place for a chickpea-based meal, again very delicious and this time there was no wait. Sadly they were out of the fatteh or rather, out of nuts to put on the fatteh with nuts so we had a different type of fatteh instead. Then we strolled in a slightly different direction towards the Fatih mosque, a fine Ottoman baroque place, with Mehmed the Conqueror’s ornately decorated tomb to one side. Once it housed Constantine’s grave; I wonder what happened to it.
We went next to the mosque dedicated to Selim the Grim. Simple but rather beautiful, I thought. There was a little madrassah operating in it and one little boy came out fulfilling a madrassah stereotype and carrying a toy gun. He said something to me, but we were not sure if he was fulfilling another stereotype and asking me to go to the women’s side, or asking me for permission about something. Anyway. This was a particularly beautifully located mosque, over an old Roman cistern, and with the ground falling down towards the Golden Horn and seagulls swooping through the clear grey air.
There was a stone-cut staircase leading down which came out into a steep little street lined with pretty little terraced houses, and turned towards another spectacular view, of the red castle-like Greek Orthodox school perched on another hillside. We were already in Fener with its Armenian and Phanariot houses, I hadn’t realised it till I saw the school.
We’d intended to go to the usual place for coffee but it was full so we tried another, perfectly acceptable though not spectacular one. And then returned.
Why dissatisfied? Well, it’s an unusual weekend when I have no work and a lot of niggling worries about the flat, work, a coronavirus winter, family, etc, plus the awareness that I have written anything in a long time. One of those days I can feel life slipping away, and this feels a rather ungrateful thing to say when it was a lovely day, and I am so fortunate to be living the life I am.