Does this word even exist? I have used it all my life to mean a low, flat basin, the sort that one might use for handwashing clothes. Probably plastic. But no one other than myself seems to know it. It doesn’t appear in Urdu so far as I can tell. I put my recently acquired […]
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The other side
After the night’s unrest a quieter day passed though I still worried all day, since the Gentleman Friend’s way of expressing illness is different enough from my own that it is difficult for me to assess how ill he is, and whether something needs to be done. I made daal and rice for dinner – […]
All night long
After returning to the flat from our superb meal, I did a spot of work and then pushed up the old sleeves and began cleaning. I scrubbed the bathroom and kitchen on my hands and knees, cleaning off stains that looked like they had been there for years. The kitchen sink is really terrible, with […]
The lazaretto
The morning started late. We decided to go down to Karantina which lies just across the big road from us. If one Googles it the main thing that comes up is a massacre of Palestinians that was one of the sparks of the civil war. Once, appropriately, it was a lazaretto, where travellers were kept […]
Two busy days
I had two busy days, having taken rather more than one could complete in a normal working day, so I was drowned in words. The best thing that has come out of the past days is probably that I am now fully clear on differences between youth, youths, etc. Basically, here’s the deal: youth singular, […]
Curses
Today, in my routine checking of Kindle ebooks on sale, I came across the fine specimen below.
Bollard antibollard
On the way out to dinner, without noticing, I walked into one of the bollards that are strewn liberally down the narrowest Beirut pavements. I must have strode out particularly vigorously as it is really quite painful. Fortunately it was low enough to get me on the thigh rather than in the groin. Our dinner […]
Half an hour later
Or thereabouts. The power today goes from 3 to 6 and moreover the internet at the flat is throttled, so I have made my usual pilgrimage to one of the cafes. My preferred one is Urbanista, about a seven minute walk west of the flat, where the waiters now recognise me – though I am […]
Tusk
I was to meet the Gentleman Friend at the Kalei Cafe, where he was taking advantage of their superior internet connectoin to make some work calls. I went first to the Tusk Bakery just around the corner and bought a loaf of focaccia (thinking that given Lebanese proclivities a bread that rises and falls on […]
Up to the hills
A busy and very pleasant weekend. On Saturday we stayed in Beirut, first going to find some knafeh, a sweet cheese breakfast sort-of-pastry, then strolled through the rather odd Villa Audi museum. This is a merchant’s mansion that has a display of mosaics, but there were a couple of temporary exhibitions up that were just […]