Needing cash as the market traders who come to our apartment complex mostly don\’t accept bank cards, my Turkish friend Mehmet kindly took me to the ATM that is just a few hundred metres from home; managing a substantial business in the food and beverage industry, he has a curfew pass as most of what he does cannot be done remotely.  After withdrawing the cash, and knowing both that I had been nowhere for two months and that the city is preparing for the phased removal of daytime curfew on Monday, he suggested that we take a drive through the city.

It was a weird feeling to see empty streets in place of chaotic congestion, and police or military checkpoints every few hundred metres – but lovely to at last get out, even if only for a few minutes.

Steve