Beginning of another school year
But this one is so different! For the first time since we left Cape Town, at the end of 2010, the four of us, Peter, Billy, Daisy and me, are living together again in our own home, albeit a rented one. It’s been an interesting journey getting us to this point, where we are all living in Istanbul. When we made the decision to leave Cape Town four years, I don’t think any of us would have imagined that our path would have been quite so circuitous – not uphill exactly, although when is it ever not a challenge?
After our first year back in the UK, when we were indeed altogether, but living in my long-suffering sisters house, Peter took up a new job in Saudi Arabia. Then moving to Istanbul last year allowed us to regain one member of the family whilst losing another.
So after making some tough decisions earlier this year, Billy has come to join us for a year or two in Istanbul, before we (hopefully but who knows?) move back to the UK.
As I wrote in my posts last year, it was a very difficult time leaving Billy behind in the UK to weekly board and then spend the weekends with many loving and generous family members and friends. In hindsight was it the wrong decision for Billy to stay while we lived in another country? Maybe. But hindsight is a wonderful thing and many people have helped me not to see it as a mistake as we all learnt many things from it.
Possibly the biggest lesson for all of us, is the value of family. Perhaps we all took it for granted a bit before, but now we all relish it, and when everybody gets on top of each other, then I for one, just pinch myself and remember how lucky we all are to all be together, enjoying life, learning lots, eating well, fishing and rollerblading along the Bosphorus, and continuing this journey together.
