The builder’s ring

We came to Whitstable yesterday afternoon, a pleasant seaside town in Kent, just in the Thames estuary. I’d been here before as the GF’s parents have very close friends near here, whom we’ve visited as well, but never overnight. This time we’re staying for the weekend and other relatives of the GF arrive this evening. […]

Another shit Eid

Technically Eid here was yesterday, and there were the usual dressed-up families, all taking advantage of a rare Eid falling on a UK bank holiday. As usual I decided to keep it for the day it’s celebrated in Pakistan so had it today. Got a gift from the GF’s mother who was very sweet, but […]

Embarrassing

Shameful that it’s well over a month since I last posted. Even my frontpage collection, though ongoing, is somewhat desultory. Is this yet another blog, and yet another effort at writing, that is petering out? Perhaps, probably. In the meantime, I’ve arrived in London and have a new computer. Further updates to come, or not […]

All that remains

This afternoon we went to look for the zebra carcass and all that remained was a strong smell, some hyena droppings (I now know how to identify hyena droppings) and a flat bone. Remarkable. Other than the lingering stench of death, not a bad way to clean up a body.

Information firehose

It’s stating the obvious, and hardly unprecedented, but the information firehose around the invasion of Ukraine makes it profoundly difficult to find what is significant and what is not, at least on news websites like that of the Guardian. Aside from the never-ending op-eds (‘The cold war terrors are back and generation X finally has […]

Stormy weather

This morning Russia invaded Ukraine. Is this the start of something new? In the past years of growing fragility and certainties shaken, it has felt as though we are ratchetting up to catastrophic breakdown. It this it? Or is it a story and actually history just keeps going and there is no cataclysmic moment? Two […]

My turn

Today I woke up and realised it was my turn – a fever, weakness, and a heaviness around the chest. The poor GF, still very unwell, had to take over cooking and getting foodstuff, which nearly felled him (it was his first time outside since we arrived, and then he was too out of it […]