Istanbul Airport has to be one of the best airports so far ... free wifi connection, a great choice of restaurants, fun duty-free and at least one good bookshop. We're too tired to do more than find a restaurant with cool air and good food; a place to relax while we wait to leave.

Our time in Istanbul has passed by in a mad whirl of photography, photography and some more photography actually.

Coincidence has played a huge role ... with Hayden flying in from Japan just after we arrived, TJ turning up from Australia for the tourist season, Emma - my much-loved niece from New Zealand, flying from her new base in London, Antwerpen-based Mehmet on the same flight from Brussels to here and meeting Shirley, a New Zealander who went to school with my mum and her sisters, in the street. I even ran into Veyser in the street, a lovely Turkish guy interviewed back in those days when I lived here.

The coincidences just kept rolling, keeping me a little off-balance and more in the Land of Wonderland than real-life Istanbul.

We've eaten most kinds of Turkish food, revelling in being back in the land of the very best cuisine, and last night found us as guests of Seniha, Nail and Aylin - parents and sister to our lovely friend Beste. 5 hours of eating and drinking and we could barely roll ourselves back to the European-side of Istanbul.

I'm over-flowing with stories and have at least 4000 photographs to sort through and organise ... after 2 nights working on Flanders Fields starting Friday.

My new website ran into a photo gallery problem and so my web-designer decided to re-programme the whole section. The launch has had to be delayed just a little bit longer ... I'll just keep loading the stories and keep my fingers crossed.

Gule gule, from Istanbul.