I started dipping a toe back in Istanbul life yesterday by going down to the best local coffee followed by a stop at the best local cake/antiques shop which sadly doesn’t have the best coffee otherwise I would be there all the time. For dinner we went to the neighbourhood manti shop in Cihangir, which […]
Back
I flew from London to Istanbul yesterday. It was a very long day for a flight that was less than four hours long. I left in the morning at 9 London time and didn’t reach the flat until 10 Istanbul time. In between I travelled to Gatwick, remembered what a terrible airport it is to […]
Under the weather
Feeling a little under the weather today, though this might be the power of persuasion, as my hostess is currently languishing on a sofa with a terrible cold or perhaps incipient flu. Hoping I don’t catch it, with my return to Istanbul imminent, but what can one do? The only positive to come out of […]
Family matters
Went to a family gathering today, a not altogether successful one, which was a shame as its design was proposed by me. Elderly relative 1 wanted to meet elderly relative 2; 2 didn’t want to hop on the train to visit 1, while 1 is not able to climb the stairs to 2. Moreover, Sunday […]
Pachinko
Read The Pachinko Parlour, which had been lingering for a couple of days despite being short enough to read in an hour. Quite good, though I preferred the other book recently recommended to me, about the laundries. This one had a pair of very good grandparents, Korean-Japanese, and some of the least appetising food I’ve […]
The ways of fruit
Is fruit a snack, a meal or a dessert? In my mind definitely a dessert and I rarely think of it as something to eat between meals and almost never for breakfast. Struck me this time when in the UK where the people I am staying with definitely think of it as the first two, […]
Going east
A trip east, to Dalston to meet someone for coffee, and what a delight it was to be in that part of town. Such a different atmosphere to genteel Hampstead, with a street market going on, people bustling and talking, an hundred accents and clothes from all over, noise and litter and vibrancy. Coffee was […]
Moment of quiet
A day without social commitments, a blessed change. I can’t say I got a lot of work done, and was slightly annoyed and distracted by learning that someone I like but isn’t very good at their job was about to leave their contract and was offered a permanent position to stay. Ah well. My perpetual […]
Family weekend
The morning was spent discussing the family of yesterday, and in the afternoon another family came by, one less tense certainly, but established in well-worn grooves where one member would say something as true fact and everyone else would explain how they did not understand human beings. No one seemed particularly bothered by it, and […]
Parent trap
This morning we went to London’s outskirts and attended an end-of-year school show. Not something I’ve ever had to do before, being blessedly childless, but I did feel sorry for my parents who had to attend these things, at least for the first few years of my life, after which my father plain refused and […]