Istanbul October 2007
The boys have gone to stay with their father for half term
I head off to Istanbul. I get the usual flight which arrives in the middle of the night. I arrive at my hotel (Hotel Ipek Palace) which was booked at the last minute and am shown to my room.
It is very shabby with holes in the walls and horrible rusty old radiator. The shower room is a tiny cubicle with paper thin towels that are starchy and tattered at the edges. The shower is broken and there is single dispenser of brightly coloured soap above the sink.
I am too tired to care at that point. The next morning I go down two floors to reception to ask where the restaurant is for breakfast. I am told that it is on the sixth floor and the lift is broken.
I feel slightly better after the traditional Turkish breakfast of cheese, fresh bread, tomatoes and cucumbers. The hotel is packed. It has been raining over night and there are large windows with fabulous views overlooking the Bosphorus but there are towels on the window sills mopping up water.
I make a mental note to take more care over internet booking of my hotels in future. In the high season of the summer an extra €10 a night had provided fluffy bath robes hand made soap with herbs, a luxurious bedroom and outstanding breakfast (Hotel Niles in Behzat region). 
It is Sunday so I am forced rather reluctantly to do some sight seeing as everything is closed. I set off to find the Museum of Turkish and Islamic art. A couple of people mentioned mentioned it to me while I was in Turkey in the summer but I never had time to visit it.. I had heard that the museum had yurts and other textiles which had formed the inspiration for the yoga centre that I had visited in the summer where guests stay in their own Yurt in the mountains.
The area around Aya Sophia and the Blue mosque has a very festive feel. Istanbul residents and tourists mingle in a relaxed and happy mood. I go around in circles and eventually find the museum.
If you like textiles the museum is absolute heaven. There are fabulous displays of a full Yurt, looms set up for making a rug, displays of how they would die the wool and displays of the inside of non nomadic homes of various different types. There are wonderful photos of the yurts being transported and set up.
In another section of the museum there are all sorts of other things such as candle sticks the size of a giraffe and some very serious carpets. There are also fabulous views of the awe inspiring Blue Mosque. 
Outside in the Hippodrome there are queues of buses as in all big tourist attractions in major cities. In the Sultanhamet Park the colourful tea sellers of the summer are missing but it is still very busy and everybody is taking photos of each other in front of the spectacular sights.
I head back to the hotel to meet my friend Ibrahim. Ibrahim asks me if I have heard the news. I had not - Kurdish rebels killed 17 Turkish soldiers and wounded 16 others The attack by rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), came four days after Turkey's parliament approved a motion to allow troops to enter northern Iraq to fight guerrillas hiding there. The Turkish people are not pleased about the loss of their soldiers. Ibrahim later tells me that his mother weeps every day over the deaths.
Ibrahim is big in textiles and in particular dyes. We talk a bit about his business. Unlike the dyes used for my rugs, his dyes are highly technical and there is constant research to improve techniques. He travels all over the world selling. He remarks that black is a big seller in Syria and that China is emerging as a huge market. There are great Turkish communities in China where the silk route started. It ended in Bursa which is just outside Istanbul and is where Ibrahim lives. The silk route was legendary for centuries until the Afghan war erected a complete barrier.
I had managed to have some simple cotton boys shirts made up in a different area of the Turkey during the summer. I want to source some larger sizes for grown ups and Ibrahim is going to help me. I show him the sample that I have brought with me and we talk about possible suppliers. 
Ibrahim suggests that we go to Taksim for coffee. We drive off across one of the bridges and he points out the British Embassy and other landmarks on the way. I had visited Taksim previously - it is a lovely area where artist and musicians hang out.
On the way up the hill towards Taksim square we see lots of riot police. Some of them are blocking a street that leads onto the road we are travelling on. Others are running up the hill holding their riot shield in one hand and talking excitedly into their mobile phones with their other hand (presumably the modern way of planning riot control strategy…?.
We could see the protestors at the top of the hill waving their banners. I was very frustrated that I had not brought my camera. As we arrived in Taxim square everything seemed fairly calm. The numbers of protestors were relatively small. The riot police were forming their ranks at one side of the square. The press had their cameras set up on top of their vans so that they could look down on the scene from above. There was a sense of expectation.
We forgot about the coffee and moved quickly through the square and set off back down towards my hotel. Ibrahim talks about how a lot of the Mosques are built in such a way that they defy current architecture and technology. I remember visiting Aya Sophia the firs time I was in Istanbul with the boys. The same is said about Aya Sophia. It is a mind blowing place and they say that it was made with the help of Angels. You can put your hand in a particular well worn stone and make a wish which is said to carry the message to the angels 
That evening I talk to my friend Behzat who I had visited in the summer. I had been supposed to set up an online shop for him on my website. He is thinking of closing the shop down which is a real shame as he has a fabulous range of rugs and kilims. We talk about various ideas but the credit on my Turkish mobile runs out.
I get an email from my English friend Chris who had sold me the original stock of rugs from his shop in Brighton. I had asked if he or his Turkish wife Mebrure wanted anything brought out from the Uk. In the past I had brought out special cat food for Mebrure. She likes to feed the special cat food to the 19 or 20 stray cats that she looks after in their home. He has a request but unfortunately it is too late. I look at coverage of the protests on the internet and realise that Ibrahim and I had been lucky to get out of the area before things kicked off.
I sleep fitfully. I hear lots of talking and people taking countless showers or baths. I try to work out what they can be doing. Shortly after 4.00am I can bear it no longer. I have only two days in Istanbul within which to do my business and have a very busy day ahead of me. Once fully awake, I work out that the noise is coming from the room next door. I knock and eventually the door is answered. I tell the young man that I need to get some sleep and can they please keep the noise down. He looks at me blankly and I hear lots of sniggering coming from the room behind him.
I do not manage to get any more sleep. I head grumpily off to breakfast at 7.00am. I am be faced by tormentors at a nearby table. They are dressed in natty bright red track suits that have logos on the back declaring them as the National Karate team from Peru. On the way down from breakfast I find a man stuck in the lift. He is banging on the door and it is swinging rather precariously. I go to reception and tell them about the man. The receptionist rushes off to make a phone call. They seem to have a procedure in place for releasing stranded passengers from the lift. I wonder why they don’t fix the lift?
I spend a busy day doing business. I am greeted by my existing suppliers and find a couple of new suppliers. One of them is particularly interesting. He comes from Afghanistan and has some of the fabulous head dresses worn for weddings and special occasions (many of my tassels come from these head dresses and from house decorations). He pulls out a book called Caravans of Tartary by Roland and Sabrina Michaud. I also have the book and it shows a picture of a wedding procession. He says that his wedding was like that and that his wife still wears the traditional head dress at home in Istanbul and at special occasions.
I am greatly heartened. I had thought that the way of life depicted in the book had been completely decimated by war. 
While buying beads from my Uzbek supplier, I point out that my new Afghan supplier had given me a better deal on a particular type of bead. He goes into a sulk and refuses to deal with me for an hour and a half. He sells some of my favourite beads that I can not get from any other supplier. I learn my lesson. He eventually talks to me and tells me that I do not buy enough beads (not the first time that day that I have been told the same thing) he is grumpy and dismissive but does at least say that he would bring some particular beads that I request from his warehouse in the morning. This is a step forward. He has previously said that he can not be bothered to bring beads in from his warehouse for me.
Back at the hotel, I have been moved into another room. This one does not have holes in the wall and even has a liquid soap dispenser near the shower. I am kept awake late into the night by a building site underneath my bedroom window. It is rigged up with bright lights so that the bulldozers can work into the night.
The next morning my Uzbek friend has brought some beads from his ware house. I feel suitably flattered and relieved. He is even quite nice to me and asks what prices I have paid for textiles and tassels. I spend what is a lot of money for me on beads but I know that he is not impressed.
I set off back to my hotel to meet Ibrahim. He has been held up by further demonstrations which have led to gridlock on the roads. We drive out of Istanbul and travel to the village where he thinks that I may be able to find the shirts that I am looking for. The shirts are much more expensive than the other ones that I have bought but lengthy negotiations in a number of shops prove that there is no movement on the price. I chose some nice round neck shirts that have been made by the lady who is selling them in her shop. 
I buy some other nice shirts from a charming gentleman who apologises for sitting down while doing business with us. It is against his principles. We have a delicious lunch in a tree house like structure looking out to sea.
We travel back to Istanbul. The traffic is in a state of gridlock again. Ibrahim takes me to a ferry buys me a ticket and hands me over to the man in charge of tickets. It is a delightful trip back to a spot near my hotel and I walk past the traffic which is at a complete standstill on the other side of the Bosphorus also.
I pack up and am kept awake for hours by the bulldozers again. I sleep through my alarm clock which is set for 2.30am. The hotel staff eventually manage to wake me up. I go down to meet my taxi driver who is pacing around in the lobby looking impatiently at his watch. I set off for my flight and am very much looking forward to getting home.