Today is the start of the actual weekend; yesterday’s idle day was a bank holiday for the GF and a day without work for me. In the morning, the four of us went back to Serenity for another excellent meal. I must say, they have the best fried rice I’ve ever had, I would dearly love to know how they make it. This was a large enough meal that a coffee seemed in order, but Simple Kaffa, as usual, had a very long queue which gave us time to walk through a park to an art centre and see an exhibition. At the cafe I had my preferred of their wares, a latte which mixed coffee and tea, though it was less nice than I remembered it and the Boddhisattva didn’t care for it at all (she ordered it seeing my enthusiasm for it). Then we parted ways: the GF and I went to do the week’s shopping at the farmer’s market while the other two returned home. And so, a quiet and pleasant Saturday, unmemorable other than the ghastly front pages. As the GF remarked, waking up and looking at the newspapers, it felt more as though a world war is imminent than ever before. Hopefully this will be the most it feels this way in our lifetimes. May November give us a reprieve, at least.
In happier news: my father happened to find a qawwali on Youtube and sent me the link. It is the earliest music I remember: my parents singing along to it when I was a child, just more than a toddler, in Karachi. Then the tape was lost and the recording seemed nowhere to be found. And now, here it is, after all these years, a reminder of my earliest childhood and of soft dark nights and cool sea breezes and two young parents and a world that was just right.