Today we all (its lovely to be able to say that) went to Asaf Plaj for our first swim of the year. Really trip to the beach is more accurate, because Ville and I are still working up to coping with swimwear (Ville kindly gained weight with me during my last pregnancy). Its definitely suiting me to be behind the camera. So Ruskin and Matti swam, Anton played with cars and Neve snoozed. This is by no means the poshest beach on Heybeliada, but it does have a good view of them, and we love its charm. There isn't actually any beach but it does have hammocks in the woods and a man who spends all day cutting potatoes, so we can have chips. Last year we came here nearly every day for a couple of months, so it was good to be back. And its only five minutes from home.

Last year he was still screaming every time we put on sunscreen. He's really growing up.

Anton and his bucket.

Playing ball with Ruskin.

Neve snoozing on Papa's comfortable belly.

Neve in her great sun hat.

Beautiful Matti.

Lost in thought.

If Neve is on Ville's lap Anton wants to be there too.

Just watching the sun on the water.

Just amazed at how fast Ruskin is changing.

I was actually nervous about telling Ruskin I was pregnant, seems so silly now.

The light was gorgeous.

The whole brood.

Ruskin with the Asian side of Istanbul in the background.

Wherever we go he always ends up playing with cars.

When I was not so much older than Anton one of my favourite songs went like this:

Blue, blue, blue is everything I'm wearing.
Blue, blue, blue is everything I like.
Why do I always dress myself in blue?
Because a sailor is the man I love.


It had as many colour verses as my Mum could think up jobs for. Not the perfect feminist rhyme to sing to your daughters, or sons for that matter, but fun nonetheless.  When I was a little older Mum went through a (short-lived) phase of encouraging us to pray for our future husbands during our night time prayers. I loved this idea, little though I was, it was such a romantic thought that somewhere out there my spouse was growing up in preparation for us meeting, and living happily ever after. Two failed marriages, and years living in clear, comfortable atheism later, the idea that there was someone right for me seemed preposterous. I would either find someone I liked enough to spend my time with one day, or I wouldn't. I was saddest about only having one child when I had pictured a brood. I was lonely but, most days, I knew how to manage it.

Meeting Ville was everything described in songs. I felt as if the gods, frustrated by my constant mistakes, just stuck me next to the one person who would make everything good, and said 'Now for goodness sake go and have a proper life'. The idea that someone's chosen profession can be a reason (one of the reasons) that you love them, like in the song above, became truer than I had really expected. While I was at the Amnesty International AGM at which I met Ville, and it being a rare weekend without Ruskin, the friend I was with suggested we go and chat up some 'human rights hotties'! With all the confidence of someone who has been ditched for a younger, prettier model, I followed Cath to the bar. People who follow their convictions wherever they lead, (and have decent values in the first place) are a rare find. I felt immensely proud of who Ville was and the things he chooses to stand up for. I still do.

Once we had spent a bit more time together it was clear that there was something about Ville that was different. His ability to concentrate was super-human. Being the kind of person who needs a cup of tea and a biscuit every 15 minutes, I was in awe. If you asked him what he was thinking the answer would come as an explanation of a philosophical problem, or a real idea, quite unlike the 'I like that girl's shoes, what shall we have for dinner, etc' that ran through my head. I soon realised that Ville was utterly transparent, in that you could see worries pass over his face like clouds. He also never sought his own comfort: the man could be sat on lego bricks for hours and not notice till the discomfort was over. He would fall asleep in his clothes every night if you gave him half a chance. As he relaxed around me he occasionally made slight flapping movements in his excitement about a new idea or answer.When he first mentioned Asperger syndrome, it clicked.

Asperger syndrome is a condition on the autistic spectrum. It is an aspect of Ville's personality and I would never want to change it. People with Asperger syndrome often trade social skills and understanding others easily, for exceptional abilities in one or two areas. For Ville these areas are languages and analytical thinking, and he has learnt to compensate for the stuff that hasn't always come naturally. Its been useful for him while he has been working from home that he can concentrate even when all four children are at their most energetic! Sometimes we all have to ask him whether he actually took in what we have said. Yesterday Anton demonstrated his understanding of this by saying to Ville 'Don't say mmmmm, say yes'.

Now the idea that there was someone out there for me all along doesn't seem quite so daft a notion. And feeling as romantic as I do about life with Ville, having a little girl imagining the union that will one day happen, less problematic. I mean, meeting Mr or Mrs Right or Nearly Right does bring with it so much potential for joy. Its incredible to me that I got my perfect man and my brood after all. And an aspie is the man I love.

Ville in Skipton soon after we met.

Ville with Matti and Anton in Finland.

This morning, his second at the office, Ville set off on the 6.05 vapur to Kabataş so he can be back before the children are sleeping. Now after lunch Neve sleeps and Anton is watching nursery rhymes and I drink tea while watching the downstairs neighbours weekly ritual of putting all their rugs on the railings outside our windows, and beating them hard. As neither of this elderly couple even walk that well it is a sight to see. I feel they are doing enough housework for all of us, so its fine if I take this opportunity to write.

Anton really wants to go to see his Grandma in England. I suspect that as I have been ill this week he is a bit bored, and he has very fresh memories of the daily adventures he went on during our stay in England for Neve's birth. Being the eldest of 9 children (three adopted, two of which have Down's syndrome), and close to them all, I really want to record some stuff, but its harder than I thought. Being a Cooke is such a huge part of my identity, but there are many different individuals that make up this group, and I would never presume to speak for any of them.

My parents have made a complete success of raising this many children. I know this because every single one of my siblings is a stable, interesting, generous, reasonably drug and hang-up free person. Raising kids there is a terror that whatever you do, some force (self-hate, heroin, whatever current nightmare you have) will take them from you. It happens. But it hasn't happened to the Cooke kids and that gives me courage that all the love I pour into mine will work.

Once when I was bemoaning the fact that our children will remember so little of this (mostly) happy time before they start school, Mum said something to the effect that during the first few years you are creating the paper on which your children will write their lives. I want my children to draw the lines of their lives with a certain aplomb. A bit Aubrey Beardsley, a bit Gerald Scarfe. I want them to write their stories with confidence, ink will flow freely, because the paper I am making with wood-pulp patience and cotton cuddles, is going to be the good quality, lightweight kind: it will have a certain luminosity. I imagine it completely smooth but if you look very, very closely you can see the richly interwoven fibres, it is eco-friendly, the perfect surface on which to write a life with ease, or at least not to add resistance when  life lacks flourish. This image has helped me through many moments when I felt like speaking less gently or ending a game quicker.

Yet here I am writing a blog. Anton is playing alone when he would prefer to play with me. I could be making vegetable rainbows. Its a complex balancing exercise between being led by a child's whims and not going insane with the boredom of not interacting with adults. We were so convinced that we were all my Mum ever wanted to do, that once when she told me in a moment of exasperation that sometimes she imagined another life, I ran to tell my sister Helen as if it was sensational tabloid news.

My Mum has also taught me never to beat yourself up if you can't keep your cool, but it has to be said that my parent's very, very rarely lost theirs. They managed to achieve the ideal family set up where we saw them as a unit and that their time together was sacred. I remember once being very sick (I was probably around 8) and they sat me on the sofa with them downstairs, past 8 o'clock! Everything looked and felt different in this land of after the kids are in bed.

Being their first-born, and understanding how I feel about mine, I love to think about how they felt about the tiny me. Mum recently told me how after I was born I was taken upstairs in the hospital where all the babies slept together. It had been a quite difficult labour, as I was breech, and she was ordered not to leave her bed. Of course, being Mum, she crept along the corridors and up the stairs and snuck in to feed me. She avoided me ever having a bottle.

Since I started living here more than there, my relationship with my Mum has transformed a little again. Ville and I have spent a total of 18 weeks living with my parents over the births of Anton and Neve. Mum was there for both of these births. While I was labouring in the bath, during Anton's home birth, Mum helped me manage the almost continuous contractions just prior to transition, when the gas and air I had been looking forward to didn't work. During Neve's recent birth (again in their bath) Mum played with Anton, removing  a big worry. There are lovely pictures of them doing biscuit decoration so he would be fully occupied, though he didn't need to do many, it being over so quick.

Mum now shows her love in the meticulous packing of cases, by buying porridge, chorizo and parma ham to squeeze in amongst toys and clothes for the kids. I also feel that I understand her better since I have moved here and we have in common not living in our birth country any more. I understand what it means not to speak with ease (or barely at all in my case). Mum met Dad when she was an au-pair in Brighton and he was a student there. Missing her native Austria she had gone to check out the Catholic society and found herself interested in the only non Catholic there, my Dad having just gone along with friends. I love Brighton for many reasons, but most of all for it being the setting for their romance. Mum and Dad decided to marry during a long correspondence when Mum returned home. Ville and I organised our new life in hundreds of facebook messages. Not quite as romantic but I am glad that life is much easier for long distance lovers nowadays. E-mail, skype, Easyjet: I owe you a debt of gratitude for allowing me to avoid feeling as my Mum did every time she left loved ones behind. And to Mum and Dad I will always be grateful for my paper, grimy with eraser marks and crossings out for sure, but good enough to write this adventure on.

Jake, Mum and my brother Stefan.

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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