Overnight the weather changed, as forecast. Seemingly in the course of an hour, the temperature fell from 17 degrees to below zero, and when we woke up it was sleeting lightly. We woke up early, as we had to go to Tarabya as a friend had kindly volunteered to take us to a man who owned a marble quarry from whom we could buy cheaper marble for our floors and bathroom. We arrived in Turabya and it was snowing hard – it didn’t settle much, but it was certainly dramatic, with the Bosphorus only a metre or so below the level of the road, iron grey, and the occasional cargo ship appearing through thick driving snow. We had a quick, and fairly large, second breakfast there, and then went off. We crossed the Bosphorus over the second bridge – a really dramatic journey high over the sea, driving from Europe to Asia, with the fortifications of Rumeli Hisari below, into wild hills.
At some point it was revealed to us, quite by the way, that one of our biggest worries – that the building manager had taken against us, fought with some of our workers, with death threats exchanged, had all been a bit of fun and games and no one was annoyed or likely to take us to court for spurious reasons. So that was a relief, and made the whole day much more enjoyable.
The first stop was Ikea as our companions had errands there, and though Ikea is a horrible business, we were not averse as we intend to get our kitchen cabinets and perhaps a few other items from there. It was almost empty, perhaps because of the weather, so it was not too bad, but certainly Ikea is a hellish warren at the best of times. Nevertheless, we examined the cabinets and had some deep thoughts, and also looked at other items such as an L-shaped sofa (which my preference is to get from there due to the low cost and the ability to have storage underneath), as well as fold-out sofa beds. The latter were quite ugly, but I still think the former are better from Ikea, as it is a substantial saving on an item of furniture that is always quite generic unless one goes for high design. We also bought a few bits and pieces, notably a very heavy frying pan and two small floor cushions, and even got some items from the food shop. The GF, who has a truly hideous memory of going to Ikea on a close friend’s 18th birthday, a day which ended in a psych ward for one of the party, was clearly quite surprised that it could be as painless as it was, but we we undoubtedly fortunate. Anyway, we bought our stuff, set up a time for a kitchen measurement guy to come, and went on to the marble place.
The marble place was everything we’d hoped for, just about. A huge warehouse, stacked with immense sheets of marble, with an office bit made up of offcuts from granite countertops past. Quite splendid. We were given water and coffee, and shown the marble available. It was a fraction of the price in London, of course, though probably still much more expensive than anything in Pakistan. But we are not in Pakistan. We picked out a white marble for the bathroom, and another one for non bathroom floors, a sort of cloudy grey-blue with some yellow in it, which may be far too busy, so we will have to think about it a little. There was also some rather lovely stuff, un-polished marble pieces in a tight mosaic that we were both very taken with, and the owner said carelessly ‘Oh I have too much of this, you can take it for nothing.’ But there was nowhere we could think of to use it, so left it behind.
We crossed back over the Bosphorus from the third bridge, a suspension bridge near the start of the Black Sea. Again, stunning. As long as someone else is driving and the traffic is not too bad, I can’t imagine getting tired of those crossings.
We went first to a high-end marble place in a wealthy suburb to compare the prices with the quarry. No contest: the marble dealer charged several multiples of of the quarry, even for the local stuff. So that was pleasing, though I generally liked the whites he had better. But not at seven times the price. He also had some startling model bathrooms, dreams in marble and granite all, and one with a really startling backlit onyx wall. This particularly struck me as I grew in a house where all the bathrooms were tiled in onyx: orange in one, green in another, pink in a third, and I had always thought it rather ugly, moreover you could not spot a cockroach on that surface, should one emerge from Karachi’s defective sewage system. But they were not backlit, and this was back in the day when the onyx was probably mined and cut by hand, and not valued hugely.
We stopped at a tile place as well. The ceramic tiles were of little interest, but I noticed that they were selling small raw marble mosaic pieces similar those we had been offered for free. How much is that, I asked. A hundred euros per square metre, I was told. We should have taken the quarryman’s offer.
By now I was quite, quite exhausted and over-exposed. Useful as the whole trip was, there is something trapping about being in a car with other people one doesn’t know all that well and who speak a different language, doing something for one’s own self. Enjoyable as it might It reminded me very much, actually, of my trip to Irazu outside San Jose.
By now it was late afternoon, so we picked up some lunch from a lokantasi, stopped at a grocery store and a bakery, and went on to a farm. There we arrived just behind a van with an official insignia. We, the foreigners, were sent off to the warm room while they took care of some business – later we heard some intriguing English words in the Turkish discussion, but were told it was a matter to do with the chicken coop. Here we finally had our much needed meal, which was delicious, not only for the long delay. Some pilav and beans, very tasty, and then a sort of caul stuffed with rice, barberries and liver which was absolutely delicious. It’s been a while since I was so happy to try something so new, and with other people enjoying it as well.
We asked the farmer if we could buy some produce, and he said certainly. ‘Broccoli?’ I suggested, but he looked doubtful. He had a lot of broccoli, he admitted, but he had to dry it. He was making a potion to enhance male libido, and dried broccoli was the key ingredient along with carob. We got celeriac instead.
By the time we left it was quite dark and the GF and I were past exhaustion. We were dropped off at a taxi rank, got a cab back to Pera, and arrived just before the weekend lockdown began. The flat was freezing as I had left the window open, so we heated it all up quickly, and then collapsed.