I’m back in Lahore. My father and I drove back this morning, stopping en route at the farm near Chakwal to inspect the damage done by the windstorms to the almond groves (significant) and to discuss the next crop (daal) for the fields. It was all very green thanks to the rain. The Salt Range […]
Putt
A gorgeous dinner today at The Charsi Tikka. Charsi means dope smoker and this was apt as successive waves of hash smoke swept over us and the cooks and waiters were alike clearly under the influence. THere was a group of extremely rowdy and loud children that had us in a terrible mood to begin […]
Weather
Another cool, windy, rainy day yesterday. We drove out to Islamabad in the late afternoon and the light became very beautiful as evening fell. Evenings are one of the things I miss living in Malaysia – you don’t have that still time before darkness falls. Anyhow, there was a diffuse pink light in the west, […]
Early morning nihari
Woke up early and went to the Walled City with my sister visiting from Islamabad. We arrived at around 6.30 or so, when few were out and the streets were still piled with the rubbish from the day before. The driver dropped us off at the Sheranwala gate instead of Lohari gate as we’d asked […]
Marlboro man
The oddest relative (OR) turned up today, unavoidably, and wearing a Marlboro Man hat. He is making cheese: cheddar, emmenthal, jarlsberg, monterey jack, all that. He has also bought a house, though not the one he wanted because his son inexplicably refused to take out a loan for it.
Superhot
A day spent working while Lahore goes through a heatwave, or summer as we also call it. Around 45 degrees, with loadshedding at 1 hour off 2 hours on – not that it’s so predictable, of course. Meanwhile the election here is also feeling imminent, and the word on the street is that fuel for […]
News from London
Not from the GF, but of an election called. I have no idea whether to vote Labour or Lib Dem this time and am inclined not to vote at all. And from Pakistan the usual breastbeating about the poor boy beaten to death by fellow students for blasphemy. Of course most of the breastbeating is […]
ROAR
A ROAR of rage at work today – the usual annoyance about having to make changes to a document that had been finalised and approved, making it about 11 more drafts of the document than I was contracted to do. Work generally has stepped up. Another ROAR of rage when I was reminded that to […]
Terrible
Another day without posting. Travelling has turned this fragile still-new routine upside down. On Saturday I went to visit an old friend and her mother. The friend and I were very close at school. We were almost neighbours and had a long-running carpool. Then something happened and for some reason we were no longer close […]
Brief absconding
Several days without posting! And I only remembered during the night. There was more to write of, too, during the past few days, though of course that is related to my failure to post. A brief summary of the past days: 12 April: Finished work early, took the day to do some present shopping. A […]