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, […]
Old times
I have noticed more and more people around my age – or younger – talking about how free children used to be when we were all young, and how sad it is that children today don’t have the same liberties that we did. Certainly, times have changed; there was a single state TV channel until […]
Flamingo wall
Our architect has annoyed me. I asked her to provide the electrical wiring plan so we can approve it, and instead she has sent a photo of a custom-printed wallpaper of giant flamingos.
Stopped at the gates
Our plan, to visit a graffitied house in Kadikoy, was thwarted this morning as the city has decreed that all travel cards should be linked to the HES codes allocated to track the virus. We all have HES codes as they were needed for inter-city travel and – more relevantly for us – to enter […]
A happy chance
We had to go to the flat today to discuss with the contractor and architect some decisions and instead of being the usual thing where we stared foolishly as the contractor tried to explain in Turkish, it turned out to be a very useful session indeed. This is because I overheard two of his workers […]
A nickname
I had an early jolt this morning when I woke up to a conversation between my siblings wondering what a particular word referred to. This was a nickname given to me by our grandfather who died nearly 30 years ago; no one else uses it other than one of his children, very occasionally. It was […]
Boxes of chocolate
Today the GF and I distributed chocolates to all our future neighbours, with a card carefully written in Turkish (translated by a friend) apologising for inconvenience due to the noise and work going on in the flat. It was rather satisfying, even though we just left the box and card at each door instead of […]
Moral degradation
I have not written here about the massacre of Hazaras in Baluchistan some days ago because what was there to say? And it was so ugly. Over the days it feels increasingly like (yet another) symbol of Pakistan’s moral bankruptcy, as the Hazara, who have been targeted and killed by Sunni militants for years, refused […]
Important people
In the morning we went off to the northern Bosphorus to visit a friend who has a house there at a rather pretty spot which opens up towards the Black Sea. We arrived in time for brunch and a TV show the friend had been awaiting, featuring an important person they knew. So they propped […]