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.

I am currently reading Orhan Pamuk's Museum of Innocence in preparation for my second visit to the physical museum Pamuk has created, on Friday. It has got me thinking about the small objects I have that evoke a moment in time, and I realise that I have very few. I am in no way a hoarder and love clearing stuff out, but as I get older I wonder if I will want more of these little things to help me remember. A couple of precious things that would be pride of place in my museum are the two slips of paper Ville gave to me the first time we met. We were at the Amnesty International AGM in Nottingham, him from Istanbul and me from Yorkshire. Looking at them I return to that moment. Displayed in the photos below are an Amnesty International AGM voting card on which Ville wrote the name of the Turkish author Yaşar Kemal. I, desperately hoping to engage him, had told him about the Orhan Pamuk book I was reading and asked what other Turkish authors he would recommend. He wrote the pronunciation of the letter ş underneath. Now that I live with him in Turkey this letter is all around. The other slip of paper is the business card he gave me, leaving me to wrack my brains to find an excuse to use. I wrote Yaşar Kemal on the card in exactly the way he had in case I should lose the other. It is now one of the very few things that I will never pass on or throw away.

If you ever happen to read this post I would love to know what would be in your museum...

I just wanted to have a celebratory moment. Life is so non-stop at times I forget how far we have come. Here are Matti and Anton having a hug.

I have put off starting this blog for a long time despite feeling like it was something I really needed because I had, still have, a dilemma. I am not Matti's mother, but the girlfriend of his father, and mother to his siblings, so should I write about him here? On the other hand I am here in Turkey so that Ville and Matti can see each other every week. And so from Thursday to Sunday he is very much part of the action here. I would never use mother language about myself to Matti but we do describe all the children as ours to anyone who asks us. And here in Turkey people often do! This used to cause me great annoyance at times, especially as the questions were often put to Matti as a Turkish speaker. He is our brown eyed boy in an otherwise blue eyed family and people here are not hesitant about asking why.

Being an extra person in a child´s life can be complicated but when I am with Matti it is very simple. I could not possibly treat him differently from the others.  Matti clambers over me all the time and I love it. We met when he was 4 and had no common language and I know that soon he won't remember a time before me or before speaking English. I never ever consider persuading Ville that we should move to an easier country, even on hard days, because I have fallen in love with Matti.

Do I have the right to blog about Matti? Part of me knows that its not a perfect idea but just needs to talk anyway.....I hope it will turn out ok. So if I write less about Matti or am a little more careful in my posts you understand why.

During the first week that I spent with Matti.

Here are Ruskin, 15, Matti, 7, Anton, 2 and a half and Neve, 2 months. The source of vast amounts of happiness, and a bit of tiredness too!

Hello. In 2008 I fell in love with Ville, a Swedish-speaking Finn with a son in Turkey. I was living in the Yorkshire Dales with my 12 year old son. To be the soft solution to the complicated question of how to be together as a family, I moved from England to Istanbul in 2010. We now live on the Island of Heybeliada, a boat ride from Istanbul, and have added a son and a daughter to the mix. I am approaching 39, and thanks largely to the kiddos (and a certain lack of ability!), am learning Turkish at snail's pace. So I am here just needing a place where I can share the little things. Thanks for dropping by.

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