Living on one of the Princes Islands you cannot help but spend many hours on vapur. When I leave Istanbul I think it will be the these trips that I remember most. The hour and twenty minutes it takes from Heybeliada to Kabataş is a chance to just be. There is nothing to be done but look out at the water, the pursuing seagulls, the fishing boats, the birds drying their feathers on the pier near Haydarpaşa, the changing skyline and the familiar silhouettes that have stood through centuries. You can drink tea and eat tost and feel your eyes closing.... Unless of course you have children. Our memories, and others memories of us, will be of rhythmic pacing with a baby, usually another child trailing behind. Matti's homework being done on the Sunday return to the city. Anton's cars lined up precariously on the stairs that for him are roads. Endless stories read to save fellow travellers from too much exuberance. And the occasional delicious moments when everyone is simultaneously sleepy. On the vapur I am very visible. People I have not noticed have told me how they love watching my children, when we have finally made acquaintance. They will remind me of incidents I have forgotten. Through the winter when daytrippers are scarce the commuters become a community. Everyone on the boat knows everyone else and vapur friendships are made. Many of the people I have come to know on Heybeliada spoke to me first in the companionable confines of the cafe deck. I love the holiday atmosphere of the 6.30 boat home on Friday, and the young men from the naval school sleeping, leaning in rows, on early boats. I love how early on weekdays commuters walk on and lay down to extend the night. Islanders have their own spot, unspoken and not worth a dispute, but true nonetheless. I love setting off in the darkness and arriving to sunrise illuminating the peninsula, unloading the kids into the bright morning air. On the days that I travel home sitting on the stairs, the vapur crammed with tourists I look forward to the conspiratorial nods of sleepy vapur friends next winter.

Vapur at dusk.

Ville reading to Anton on the vapur.

Mehmet, a 'vapur friend' and his son.

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When I was reading lots of Orhan Pamuk in preparation for my move here, and deciding that idly watching boats on the Bosphorus would be an important use of my time, I hadn't really come to terms with how little idle time kiddos leave you. Yet now looking back over the last few years (and enjoying our last summer on the Island of Heybeliada) it feels as if vast amounts of time have been spent gazing out of boat windows at Bosphorus boat traffic and the light shifting over the historic peninsula. These acres of time are not just a feeling either. Each trip on the majestic ferryboats takes an hour and twenty minutes and I have very rarely had a week that did not contain four trips. I have nursed and carried and chased the children through hours and hours of journeys from Heybeliada to Kabataş and back again ( and then there are dozens of shorter boat trips to Büyükada to buy gas credits and Bostancı for shopping and playgroup). Matti met Anton new born and just arrived from England for the first time at the Kabataş jetty, and so it was during a vapur trip that Matti held his new sibling for the very first time.

During the three Winters we stayed on Heybeli (this last Winter we retreated to the city for comfort) the moods of the particular type of south-westerly wind known as lodos, that brings violent squalls to the Marmara Sea, became quite a character in our lives. When Anton was a few weeks old we were on a vapur caught in such bad lodos that as I sang nursery rhymes to soothe Matti and Anton the news reported a boat in danger of sinking on the Marmara Sea.

The time on the water is so precious to me because we are forced just to be. I cannot do housework or answer mails. The children have my full attention and I love to watch as theirs drifts outside the windows across the water to the landmarks that signpost our way.

My pictures today begin with a visit to Pierre Loti, where you can ride a cable-car to one of the best views in Istanbul, and eat ice-cream in one of the prettiest cafes. We arrived as the rain began but all enjoyed how dramatic the weather made the already incredible view. Then there is Anton on the boat from Eyüp to Usküdar. The next six photographs are of Matti and Anton on the vapur to Heybeliada on Friday evening after we picked up Matti from school. The last few are of a Saturday dawdle around the boat yard at Heybeliada where you can still swim for free and buy tea for 1 TL.
















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For our last few days Heybeliada put on her most vibrant clothes. One afternoon I sat on the kerb watching one of the men who sweep the street with a brush and an oil tin cut for the purpose. The pools of debris he collected were only brittle shards of old leaves and freshly fallen blossoms. Even the rubbish was exquisite that day! Talking of rubbish, I have really enjoyed seeing the Island recycling in practice this week. Determined not to take anything at all that we didn't need or love to our new home (and we were taking every item in suitcases by boat!)  I put box after box of stuff next to the bins. Over the following days I saw the things turn up in the places they were needed.

We arrived, nearly four years ago, to an apartment with vomit-coloured lino, peeling paint, a toilet that wasn't really attached to the floor, no lock on the back door and the name of the previous occupant's son written all over the walls, and that is also as we left it! So much money has flowed through our hands during the last few years but none of it into creating a little comfort at home. However, this Island has given all of us air and space and natural beauty so close to the overwhelming, overcrowded city we are now excited to take our place in the heart of. But first, tomorrow, we are going to Finland....

This weeks pictures are of Anton chilling in the baby bath before it goes to Island recycling. Of Neve on our kitchen balcony that never had a single plant on it, while the one opposite had an abundance! There are evening walks and sleeping children on late night vapur trips laden with luggage. There is fun with fantastic friends. Here is Anton (with Başak) and Neve being carried onto the vapur on our very last day and Ville cleaning the windows. Here is our record of Ruskin's incredible growth, the flowers Anton picked and we gave to the apartment in deep gratitude for so many happy days in its walls. I caught Anton, on our last vapur as Islanders being persuaded to give kisses to girls! On Monday Ruskin and I walked to our new apartment to pick up the key and we took a few shots of our new neighbourhood. We were (easily) persuaded to drink a few glasses of Calvados with the current occupants and I took some pictures of their girls in their final days in their home. The last pictures are of Ruskin getting a haircut and the shoes that form a ring around the Beşiktaş bird, part of the on-going, though thankfully relatively calm, protests.

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I haven't managed to post for a long time and, thanks to all the family having flu after having a stomach bug, I look like someone who is likely to have people spraying disinfectant in their wake. I feel like I am riding a horse that refuses to go at a speed I can manage, but at the same time there is great calm below the surface paddling because Ruskin is home. His arrival though, as many of you know, contained no calm at all.

Ville heroically volunteered to go alone to the airport to collect him with all of the other kiddos to give me a chance to sleep. It took well over an hour for Ruskin to emerge and so they were all getting a bit vocal about being tired and hungry as they headed for the Seabus from Bakirköy to Bostancı (on the Asian side of Istanbul and the closest part to us). The boat was so full that Ruskin, with his oversized red suitcase crammed full of Easter goodies, was waved down to the back entrance, so he was separated from the others. When Ville disembarked he realised that Ruskin had got off at  the only other stop: Kadiköy. He called Kadiköy ferry terminal and described a teenager with a red suitcase and was told that no-one of that description had got off the boat. Just after Ville told me about this strange circumstance his phone ran out of charge. The next news I had was when Ville arrived by horse and cart to unload the little ones and charge his phone. We phoned all the boat terminals and alerted the police but three hours after he got off the boat there was still no sign. Despite having great trust in Ruskin my mind started to wander down the path of what if, so when some friends offered to start searching in Kadiköy I gratefully took them up on the offer. When Ville met up with them after searching at Bostancı the mistake at the heart of this mystery revealed itself. When asked face to face the staff at Kadiköy said that there hadn't been a teenager in a red jacket only one with a very large red suitcase! A few minutes later (6 hours after he got off the boat) Ruskin knocked on the door having got on the last vapur and dragged the big red suitcase home.

Ruskin had done exactly what we tell the kids to do and sat still and waited for us. He was in full view of the staff we were in contact with, they just couldn't 'see' him. Ville speaks Turkish like a native so there was no real explanation for the fixation on a jacket rather than a suitcase of red. By the time Nemo and Ayse were walking around Kadiköy shouting Ruskin's name (and the police were looking for a Justin Box), Ruskin had gone in search of free wireless. When nothing worked and it looked like he was going to sit there all night he blagged his way on the last boat home.

At 1 am Ruskin and I cracked open some Cadbury's chocolate and I opened the red suitcase and took out the beautiful Easter tablecloth inside and laid it out. I made baskets lined with shredded paper and filled with treats. I put the tin containing fresh hot cross buns and my Mum's famous Swiss Roll on the table ready for breakfast. I felt so close to my Mum who 2000 kilometres away had prepared everything to make Easter special. At 2 am Ville got home, thanks to an expensive ride on a sea taxi, and our entire family were finally within the same walls.

One of the great things about doing the Documenting Delight photography project is that when I get a chance to look over what I shot (even through a flu haze) I see how many moments of near perfection there are for every near miss. Here there are moments of relaxed happiness between the kids while the drama of the Istanbul shoreline builds outside our boat. There is a museum visit with Finnish cousins which included a train to 'drive'. There is Ruskin baby-wearing Neve and looking handsome in Heybeliada's little fishing harbour. There is the kids, theatrically framed, playing on the day bed I made for myself in the hope of getting some rest (I hear parents laughing!). I took a picture of Anton doing what he likes best: making mixtures and my friend Suzie (you can read her beautiful writing at http://anotsoturkishlife.com/) displaying her inspiring mama-skills in Taksim's Gezi Park. And there is Ville, the person who makes all of this possible and beautiful, smiling. Good times. Now I just need to get enough sleep to properly enjoy it!

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