What a yoyo of a month it has been...

In last month's review, I talked about our intention to spend some time in Istanbul, on our way back to Sarawak, and about the pall of doubt that Nigel's prolonged headaches were casting on that plan.

Well, we made it to Istanbul... But even a week out from our scheduled departure from the UK, we weren't entirely sure what we were doing, and when we did decide to stick with Plan A, it was very much in a tentative, suck-it-and-see kind of way. If things got worse, we'd abandon ship and go straight home, we said.

Nigel initially did quite well here, but a couple of days' relapse again sent our thoughts scurrying off in the direction of rearranging plans.

We decided to hang tight just a bit longer, however, and for a week now, he's been going firmly in the right direction again. There's still head and neck pain. But he's much, much better than he was.

You see what I mean about rollercoasters?

Exhausting.

Our last two weeks in the UK were heavily impacted by all this, which was a real pity. Not only did we miss out on a lot of Derbyshire, which is a really interesting county, but we also missed out on family time. Never mind. We'll be back (if we're spared, as Dad used to say...).





Unsurprisingly, given the restrictions, the PT post count dropped from last month's stellar heights of 23 right down to just 11...

The Velvet Cushion, on the other hand, sprouted a very disparate set of posts this month. Two language log entries (on Ukraine and on translation); two discussions of novels (The State of Terror by Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny; and A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks); and a reflection on Gold, Haleh Liza Gafori's very beautiful new translation of poems by Rumi.

And everything is relative. By the end of this month -- just a third of the way through the year -- we'd surpassed 2021's combined photo total by several hundred. Even when we weren't doing much, we were doing more than we were able to do last year...


Istanbul certainly inspires photos. We really like it here. It has all the factors that make a great destination, as far as we're concerned. It's a good place for walking, and the walks are never dull, because there's always something ordinary-but-new to look at. There are thousands of historical points of interest scattered around the city, which make handy little objectives. There's sea (and seagulls to go with it). There are cats. And there's awesome food at cheap prices.






We're tackling it all very slowly, not only because we don't want to overload Nigel, but also because it's just nice to do it this way. We're retired, after all. It's really great to be able to spend a month here (a length of stay that the cost of living makes eminently possible), rather than try to fit a ton of things into a hectic few days. We don't like hectic, even when we're fit and well.

So we crisscross old Constantinople, and we bumble around on the ferries, and we shop in the little neighbourhood stores, and then we withdraw to our quirky old house to do the other things that we like doing. Not stressful, either for us or the environment. Optimal travel, really.





Meanwhile, back in Malaysia, tomorrow will see the relaxation of a lot of covid rules. This will make things easier for us (no pre-departure PCR test for the fully vaccinated, for example). But you can't help wondering whether it's all moving a bit too quickly...

Outside the little cocoon of our own affairs, April has continued to bring depressing stories of geopolitical, humanitarian, and climatic horrors. But the event that saddened me most, because I've been following it for a while, always hoping for a better outcome, was the news that Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, a 33-year-old Malaysian with an IQ of 69, who had languished on Singapore's death row for more than a decade for smuggling 42.72 grams of heroin, had been put to death by the state on 27 April. Kirsten Han, who -- along with many others -- has been campaigning for clemency, wrote this moving account of the aftermath.

RIP, this victim and all the others...



God willing, the next month's end will see us back home, after two more weeks here and a week in KL. I'm hoping this plan will be carried out without any further alarms and excursions...

Meanwhile, we'll just enjoy a bit more of Istanbul: