Miraculously, I was able to leave the office at around 2; another could leave at 2.30, and soon we were on our way to Lahore. Cars are so much nicer than buses, there’s no question of it. Certainly quicker. It was a fairly smooth trip despite fears of fog until we approached Lahore — at […]
A blow to the wallet
Last night I went looking for a gift for someone whose spouse had recommmended the purchase of a Tom Ford cologne. I have never purchased cologne in my life, so when I arrived at Shams (an old high-end import shop in F6, currently very Christmassy) I was thrown by the finding that there were at […]
Battlefield Lahore
The air is terrible. 400+. I can taste it at the back of my throat, acrid burning. I’ve felt nauseous all morning. How can this go on? My nephews are forced to live inside closed rooms, with air purifiers. The older one, four, had to be let out eventually and he came over and we […]
Old school nose job
I decided to switch to handkerchiefs, and if I am sacrificing the convenience of paper tissues, then I decided I would get genuinely nice handkerchiefs. I found an elderly German woman online who collects and sells old embroidery, and have purchased a stack of silk and fine lawn handkerchiefs from her. Of course they will […]
A bit of shopping
Last night my host and I went shopping for me and I returned with three new kameezes, and narrowly left behind one more. I had realised, you see, that of the seven kameezes I had to wear to work, three were plain white, which was a bit much. Got home and realised that I’d spent […]
Weekend day
A quiet weekend day. I woke early and did some work, then when my hosts woke we went for a desi breakfast of halwa puri. This had its usual soporific effect but we persevered and went to a shop that sells the excess stock from Pakistan’s residual textile industry. I got myself a very bright […]
A spot of shopping
Work finished early today – not something I should get used to – and I returned to the house and then went off on foot to the F-10 Markaz. F-10 is the sector of Islamabad that I am staying in. It’s a highly planned city so all the numbering makes sense, and there is a […]
Changing times
This afternoon I went with a friend to Daachi, which is a (now) long-running artisan/ craft fair that has become one of the city’s main events. It has a mixture of artisans from all over the country, including from some very poor and remote areas, and others who are less marginalised: older men and women […]
Overspent
After a few days of anxious slaving, I sent off the report I was working on and then had a couple of days free before leaving. So of course other obligations cropped up, most importantly, collecting all the presents I need to take with me to Lahore. Today, first, we went to see a flat […]
Filthy
A filthy day today. Cold, raining, miserable. A bad day to go into town, for other reasons as well, but I had to go to Liberty and collect a gift I’d bought online. Liberty is always a hellhole, particularly on weekends, when the weather is bad,, and in the runup to Christmas. Today it was […]