We went for a stroll today, looping around the historic penninsula along a newly opened walkway. To reach the walkway one had to go through the most congested and unpleasant bits at Eminonu, shuffle through one underground chokepoint where an elderly woman used her very large belly like a bludgeon, knocking me out of her […]
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Achy day
The day remained achy, though I found a good stretch which seemed to help. The night was also achy, but at some point, mostly asleep, I breathed and felt the air move through my body and into my back and my limbs, causing the muscles to uncoil, and I could sleep. I hope tonight is […]
An accident
Of a sort where I don’t quite know what happened. This morning I warmed up, more thoroughly than usual, feeling pretty solid, and then when I began my stretching, did the first squat and felt something seize in my back and since then it’s been going from discomfort to agony. Quite miserable. It’s happened before […]
Hand work
We’re going to London in a month or so. Last time I took some time to go off to Devon by myself, this time I’ve booked myself weekly lessons on making Japanese style woodblocks. I wanted to do something physical, so not writing or learning something, and also creative. The other option of this sort […]
Winter returns
Winter returned to Istanbul. It was cold and rainy all day long so we did our usual thing on such days and went to Cihangir to buy groceries, despite the carefully angled hills to catch the cold wind and the slopes down which the rain turns into muddy torrents over cobblestones. But that was later […]
Istanbul art scene
Last night in a fit of unusual sociability, the GF and I went with an artist friend to the opening of a show at a gallery in Cihangir. It was a tiny space, the basement of a building so very arty. The first person met was a European photographer who had just come from giving […]
Various developments
The Israel strike on Iran was wiped from my mind this morning by a more immediate development, that of the dishwasher repairman coming and fixing the dangling door panel, though he has to get a part to replace the broken spring that causes the door to fall open (and dislodged the door panel in the […]
Spring clean
This evening I started on my spring clean, inspired by the GF. This was clearing out clothes, largely, and as usual my mind went quite blank, unable to determine what I needed, or indeed wanted, to keep. Finally I decided on a simple rubric, whether or not I found something comfortable, which got rid of […]
Death of an unpleasant man
There was a death in our buildinng some weeks ago. There was screaming and calls for help. I was asleep but was woken. Her distraught voice stayed with me for a long time. The man who died was in his forties and he was the most unpleasant person living in our building. His last message […]
Personal enmity
Murders are often attributed to ‘personal enmity’ in Pakistani newspapers, I suppose a relic of colonial reporting. Strange what lingers and what doesn’t. It was a working day in which I did most of my work in the second half. Began with a session with my trainer, then a short work call, then faffing around. […]