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 […]
Grumpy
Second day in the enclave. I am slightly grumpy today as the stir of excitement of meeting others I knew, and reminiscences, faded. Now it’s to work, to navigate all the inconveniences of working for a large organisation, and several months ahead of it. The office has a cafeteria which serves a fairly mediocre lunch […]
First day in the enclave
It was my first day at work and the office is in the Diplomatic Enclave, so it is barred off from the rest of the world. No one can enter without special permission and when I arrived in the morning the permission had not arrived so I kicked my heels for about half an hour, […]
Flames along the motorway
I have arrived in Islamabad. I took the Daewoo bus, opting for the luxury version where you can get a seat to yourself and are served a meal that I didn’t eat, having had a very large breakfast of paratha with some very tasty qeema with simla mirch. Delicious but enough to keep one going […]
Reality striking
Reality struck today as I realised that I must go to Islamabad for work tomorrow and then stay there for the next month at least, going into the office almost daily. I had managed to avert my eyes from this unfortunate reality, but there it is. I’m off tomorrow. This morning I made a quick […]
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 […]
Sinking
So here I am, back. There is not a great deal to report as I sink back into Lahore life as though I were sinking into a swamp. The air is very slightly cleaner – the day I landed was one of the worst this year and since then it’s only been veering between unhealthy […]
Poison in the air
Here I am, in Lahore. Just before I left the startling news arrived that the seller had accepted the offer (we had assumed he would want to bargain). So I left the house for the last time. It was not the house I grew up in, nor was I born there (as the GF was, […]
Watching the English
Unrelated to anything specific in the past few days, but thinking over the years, just how lacking in compassion the English upper middle classes can be. I am thinking, particularly of things like the huffing and puffing when someone kills themselves by throwing themselves in front of a train. I find it really distasteful how […]
Working weekend
Finally got a bit of momentum going after a week where I found it quite hard to just get down to work, so spent most of the two days at my computer. It is somewhat frustrating work, as it’s been lingering for six months now and is really quite tricky work, but there it is, […]