Today, I travelled 5,000km, leaving home at 3.50am and arriving back just after 10.00pm. Too far to travel just to pick up a few loaves of bread? Don’t worry, this was just our reward. We had a much more important cargo — our six months guest — successfully handed on to their next host. I …

Outbound leg of an extraordinary day-return.

On this day a year ago, we were notified of an earthquake 550 miles away by our motion detecting home security cameras. Such was the immense power of that tectonic fracture which flattened whole districts in an instant. Those events should have been a reckoning for corrupt officials. But, alas, memories are short.

A day trip it is then. I look forward to two Do & Co inflight meals and catching up on a few unseen films. I don’t mind, as long as there’s no extreme turbulence on the way.

I’m perpetually amazed that I became tied to this land.

It’s funny: seven years ago I made multiple trips to and from Turkey alone, as if I was an international businessman, coming and going. But today the thought of a single trip fills me with anxiety. I don’t remember it being this hard.

It’s funny how our ideas of neighbourhood expands in proportion to distance travelled. In the new year, I will have to take my mother-in-law to Istanbul. So I’ve been saying, “While I’m in the neighbourhood, I might visit our place.” But of course Inverness and Plymouth are closer together than our place is to Istanbul. …

God bless our Turkish neighbours. Today was the day we were to fix the road outside our house. Fifty square metres of concrete on its way. Then the specialist road builders cancelled. Into the breach step our neighbours, shovels and rakes in hand to make the best of a bad situation. Some let you down …

My retirement, inshallah.

May it be sadaqa to others in our absence.

We left Istanbul at sunset and arrived in London at sunset. In fact, it was sunset all the way. The closest any of us will come to time travel.

Autumn blows in.

I don’t know how anyone here can afford a car. Any new car costs double the price we’d pay in the UK, primarily due to the high tax rate. But even old bangers are completely out of reach. A battered 1998 Renault 12 will still set you back nearly £8K. In the UK, you could …