The excitement of a break in Istanbul is slowly fading as we re-establish our UK routine back at Bigland Towers. Well routine for me. Dawn’s still on holiday, so – after pottering around at home she left to join Fran and Kath for an afternoon watching the King’s coronation on catch-up TV. Having the house to myself I pottered around solo. The garden’s really burst into life during the four days we were away so I soon lost an hour or so catching up on weeding and general maintenance in-between showers. The weather’s been crap since we got back with bouts of rain and temperatures only just in double figures – a good excuse to stay indoors and catch up on emails, paperwork and picture editing.

The shots I’ve taken in Istanbul are going to take several days to sort out, but the first collection (shipping) ended up on my Zenfolio website this evening. You can find the gallery via this link. Istanbul’s on the gateway to the Black Sea so the amount and variety of maritime traffic that passes is great for anyone interested in the nautical world. Add in the cruise liners that call and the multitude of ferries, tourists boats and pleasure craft that to and fro and you’ve a fascinating collection of craft to observe.

I suspect I’ll be trapped at home for the rest of this week as I’ve a lot of stuff to catch up on, plus, we’ve rail strikes on Friday and Saturday which will cramp my style anyway. I suppose I’ll be able to get all my picture backlog cleared at least…

I’ll leave you with the picture of the day which is one of my new shipping pictures. Here’s the passenger ship Ilker Karter which was built in 1980 at the Halic Shipyard in Istanbul. At 456 gross tonnes it’s not the largest ship in the world but it and its sister vessels put in a lot of nautical miles ferrying passengers around the Bosporus strait. In the background is one of the more modern ro-ro ferries.

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

Thank you!