Close to the apartment we stay in in Beşiktaş is a small and perfectly formed park called Ihlamur Kasrı (Linden Pavilion). The 1TL entrance fee and park attendants ensures that it is always clean and safe (although not always open). The two small palaces or pavilions, Narnia lamp-posts and roses make for a magical shift once you enter its gates. Its wonderful in winter too.

Today I took the two littlest for a series of minor rebellions. I wanted Neve to put her feet into clover for the first time. The little stone house in Yorkshire that I left to come here was near to a clover field as lush as you are ever likely to see. Happy cows munched the oversized leaves all day. It sloped upwards, and so, as you climbed over the stile at the bottom, clover (and cows) was all you could see. How we would love our children to be racing down that hill barefoot towards us. But in Istanbul even a quick dipping of toes requires some determination and furtive action! I waited till there was no one too close and lifted Neve from her blanket to grasp clover in her hands. Almost immediately I was spotted by the type of woman for whom dirt means certain death. She marched towards me shouting my irresponsibility, but I was ready. 'ENOUGH' I shouted loudly, giving Anton a start. She turned away from me muttering and Neve giggled as the grass tickled her toes. Round 1 to me. Then there was the high wall that Anton walked the top of enough times for me to be told off by several groups (I just focused on taking pictures and looking like the crazed hippy they believed me to be). Luckily there was no one around when he did the first actually daft thing and try to taste the water from a very old tap. Luckily it didn't yield as I was just snapping away. Whoops!

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