blog

Along the walls

The plan this afternoon was to walk along the land walls of Byzantium. It was not the best devised plan, as I was a bit under the weather, so we got off at the wrong tram stop and then wandered through residential streets, along the tall walls of a graveyard we should have walked through, […]

Coming together

After a good bit of work this morning, I went off to run a couple of Friday errands, or rather one errand, to top up my phone. This done, I walked down Istiklal towards Taksim. It’s much, much warmer now, with barely any need for a coat, and very sunny. It was fairly crowded, though […]

TV time

The GF had a late call tonight, so I had the ipad and watched a bit of I will destroy you. I think I am unused to watching anything on television, as I found myself looking at it rather than sinking into it, though I did start enjoying it partway through the second. Yet remained […]

Founding fathers

The other founding father of the nation had his folk artistic treatment. First there was Jinnah’s birthday cake in December, and now there is this rather splendid sculpture of Iqbal in a Lahore public park. The first still makes me laugh, but the second I rather like, and thought it was rather lovely that it […]

Samosas on a train

A message received. I had such a profound dream last night. Saw X and myself on a train in Australia in bikinis and eating samosas. I did eat one yesterday actually after I got my Indian groceries. It was a terribly fat samosa.

Demolition

A rather difficult day. I had a lot of work, but it was a sunny day and I went with the GF to Kadikoy. We waited for the ferry at Karakoy, didn’t realise it was the one moored at the pier, and missed it as chugged away. The next one was only 20 minutes away, […]

Evasive

We went over for a very brief visit to a friend of a friend, a rather curious gentleman who divides his time between Istanbul and elsewhere. A most extrordinarily evasive gentleman, with a knowing sideways glance, as though he is expecting you to share a joke, and a great reluctance to reveal anything about himself. […]

Take a breath

We went to the flat today and it was a shock to see how it had changed. Many of the walls were now plastered, so it was bright and smooth, with clean lines. They had also built the bathroom wall – we are extending it as the original was a dark, dank, smelly little cubbyhole, […]

Brief outing

We took the opportunity for a brief outing this afternoon while it was sunny but with an icy breeze. Nothing particularly exciting, just to Cihangir to get some groceries from the organic shop, where their Wednesday delivery was a little meagre due to snowfall. But we are set for the next few days now. Late […]