On the steps of Moorgate station

It was around this day, ten years ago, that I met my P as a grown-up. At an entrance to Moorgate station. It was a warm summer's day, my first week in London, and we stood amidst the rush hour commuters as they parted midstream to avoid us. He had just come off a night shift. I was running late for a class. I don't remember us saying very much. I do remember us smiling. We bought an orange juice from the EAT opposite. P may have offered to show me around London. It was an ordinary weekday moment and neither of us had any idea yet how important we would become to each other. It was the quiet start of something beautiful and a moment I always remember every time I pass by that station.

Freeze these moments in time

I feel content. And happy, warm, cosy, loved. There have been so many times over the last 6 months when I have wanted to freeze moments in time and live in them forever. 

The three of us playing the piano together in the evenings; sun lit afternoon walks in our neighbourhood parks with little J on P's shoulders...holding his ears tightly like reins; naps with J cuddled up under blankets together; evenings with P snuggled on the sofa watching Star Trek...hoping J gives us a peaceful hour; introducing J to the wonder of splash pools, ducks, hide and seek, cats, aeroplanes...pretty much everything; meal times together in our garden; waking up to find J beaming at us and shaking the bars of her cot; unexpected cuddles and kisses from J in the middle of her play;...so many more memories!

I didn't expect to enjoy motherhood as much as I have. I didn't expect to love my little J as much as I do. I didn't expect P and I to be as cohesive a team as we have been. These have been wonderful months that have suffused me with love and happiness.

The pandemic has made itself felt. P's redeployment and his dad's time in hospital has kept the virus real for us. But it has only highlighted the precious time that P, J and I have together. 

I have enjoyed being married to P. I always thought that things couldn't have got better than our togetherness the last many years. Little J has been the icing on our cake in ways I never imagined possible. 

I have so much to be thankful for.

Those voices in my head...

There's a book in my brain! Little streams of storylines keep bubbling up in my mind, my commute to work is overflowing with words I feel I simply have to write down, and more than anything else, I want to know how this story will  end. I shall get typing, if only so that my curiosity is sated.

There's a summer calm in the house tonight. PB is playing Bach softly on the piano, the dim yellow lamp is flickering mildly and a solitary moth is making its presence felt.

I feel relieved to have finally blogged after a hiatus of more than three years.

Taking the long way around

A friend recently remarked that I have shown few signs of life online this year. That is true, but is the happy consequence of days that have been filled with God and family and friendships and work...well, mostly work. Still, these (annual) posts are important to me. A way of marking the passage of time and with it the lessons that my Teacher places before me and my own personal growth. 

2014 has been an easier year at school. I have been a slow learner, however, and though I well recognise the lessons set for this year I cannot claim to have mastered them yet. There is a time for everything (Ecclesiastes 3) and we live through many seasons in life. My mother, a wise friend, has often impressed on me the importance of living each season fully and embracing the growth it brings. This year has been a season of waiting in most spheres of my life. Seasons of waiting bring lessons of patience. In a quick paced world lessons of patience are not easy to grasp.

I have often remembered the time of the biblical Exodus and when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt to years of wandering in the desert. The bit that always struck me was a couple of lines at the beginning of the account: "When Pharaoh finally let the people go, God did not lead them along the main road that runs through Philistine territory, even through that was the shortest route to the Promised Land. God said, "If the people are faced with a battle, they might change their minds and return to Egypt." So God led them in a roundabout way through the wilderness toward the Red Sea." (Exodus 13:17, 18a)

God had a purpose when He led the Israelites the longer way. They were compelled to learn lessons of trusting His plans and depending on Him for their every need. I always thought that I depended on my Teacher for everything and I have always asked that He bring my will in line with His. The hardest lesson during this season of waiting was discovering that while this was intellectually true, deep down inside I still needed to learn to trust my Teacher, to depend entirely on Him, to recognise that His timing, while not mine, is perfect and to ask for the patience I need to be content with the many blessings He has already given me. 

As always, this post is vague. But then, as always, perhaps it was never really written for you. So, to end on a more definite note, below is a picture of a fried quail's egg (it is the little things that mark milestones) and here are some of the many blessings that I can count from 2014: close-knit family, loving friends, supportive church, my job, a piano (finally!), a warm flat, travel and new places (the Shire!!), whatsapp with my grand uncle (at 89!) and finally, the lessons of a Teacher who loved me enough to give His life for me.

Happy 2015!

Playing with fire and getting burnt

A year ago, a crystal ball could never have told me, nor could I have believed it if it had, that I would be approaching the end of 2013 with such a joyful heart. A year of hard lessons learnt in life's classroom, and my Teacher finally decreed that a slightly greater degree of maturity, yearning to be led by Him and a deepened understanding of His love had sunk into me at last. School isn't out for summer yet (is it ever?) but the lessons I am learning now are of a different type - pleasanter, less prickly and more of relaxing into the knowledge that He knows best and learning to ask for wisdom wherever it is required with the confidence  that if it is, it will indeed be given. 

So what did I learn in the toughest school year so far. That when I follow my Teacher, He gives me the peace of knowing that I am in His will, and if that peace is replaced by a nagging feeling of unrest, then it is time to reconsider my choices. I learnt that prayer is answered. Even if the answer is heartbreaking. I learnt that parents could be more than parents - they could be best friends. I learnt that when lessons are being learnt through painful wounds, parents are the best healers with the softest touch and the closest thing on earth to unconditional love. I learnt that my sister is right. Almost always. (But don't tell her I told you that!) I learnt to appreciate her discernment. I learnt that my friends in His classroom could be family (and that I could be myself, even lose my temper and strop off like a toddler, but they would still love me). I learnt to let people into my life. I learnt to ask for help. I learnt that when you play with fire, chances are you will get burnt. But I learnt that there is still healing and joy to follow the pain. I learnt that when hope and laughter seem to be myths and nobody can be or is around, that my Teacher always is. I learnt that when I lose the words to pray, He prays for me. I learnt the value of regular prayer with a prayer partner. I learnt that sometimes it is in the midst of silence and loneliness that my Teacher speaks the loudest.

But perhaps the lesson I struggled with most was Forgiveness. With the capital 'F'. It is so easy to say "I forgive you", or think it, maybe even feel it, but not actually do it. I discovered that Forgiveness was a lesson which takes patient perseverance. It's like a yellow rubber duck in a bath tub. Every time you think you have finally drowned it, up it pops again, as resilient...no...as stubborn, as before. And yet, forgiveness is such a vital lesson. The textbook I use tells the story of the king who forgave his servant a huge debt. The servant left his presence, seized his own servant who owed him a small amount of money and threw him into prison. The anger of the king when he heard this was terrible, and he was enraged at the injustice of a situation where he could forgive the magnitude of debt of his servant, but the man could not do the same for his own debtor. Naturally, in his righteous anger, he threw the servant into prison. And so it is in our lives. My Teacher gave everything for me, even His life, so that everything I ever did, or do or will ever do wrong is forgiven. I then have no excuse not to learn Forgiveness. Forgiveness with its hard, bumpy, capital 'F'. And I did learn this in the end. Tear strewn classes and temper tantrums not withstanding. I learnt the value of a friend who could honestly look me in the eye and tell me I was still not Forgiving. I appreciated a little better, when I pain my Teacher time and time again, the unimaginable awesomeness of His Forgiveness.

This year has seen difficult times, but I have emerged closer than ever before to my Teacher, and wiser and more grateful to and in love with the family and friends around me. 

This post is a bit vague. Perhaps on purpose. Maybe I never wrote it for you. So, as compensation, I will leave you a picture taken on a beautiful sunny day on an icy glacier lake as four intrepid young ladies (ladies? us?) decided to take Canada by storm.

Snow White

Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who is the fairest of them all?
White threads - smooth, intricate bound,
Their warm embrace by black strands crowned;
Dark, deep waters - silky, smooth,
Entering in to quieten and soothe;
Capsules - small, shaped like a kite,
Silent thieves of breathe by night; or
Cliffs - majestic, towering, strong;
Freefalling the path along...
Tell me, mirror on the wall,
Which would you choose of them all?!

Ten Little Indians



View from a lonely graveyard on a hill near the sea.








First there were ten
Now there are three
Everyone's gone
'cept two and me
















I have a room to clean and hair to wash, but since it has been so very long since I have felt the urge to blog, it seemed only right to give in to it. Two years have flown by, and I cannot help but think of the beginning when ten little Indians (not quite accurate, but following from the nursery rhyme) arrived in Big City, to experience a new way of life and see where it took us. And I remember, even further back in time, when five of the ten, during a whiz trip to Big City, after a long and ravenous search for a restaurant with a decent vegetarian menu and being forced to give away chocolate to a passing waif, settled for a Lebanese joint in Ca**ing Town, and laughed at how we would come back here, years in the future and fight to pay the bill. Back then, three units of Big City money, translated to such a large number of rupees it seemed such a waste to eat it all in one meal (at least it did to me)!

Time marched on, and some of the ten grew fatter and ponchier (I did) and some absorbed Big City style and panache (I'd like to think I did); we travelled, we danced, we took tons of photographs, we developed the dark circles and insomnia that the Wharf invariably brings, we lived in our little flats, mostly as satellites around the Wharf, and swapped awful landlord stories (Pijeon, not my present landlords of course, I mean my previous one) and made the best use of our time in Big City. We never went back to Ca**ing Town for dinner, but, well, by then we had found better places to dine at (and who has their first Big City dinner there anyway, right?).

And now the two years are over. The mass exodus from Big City began last month (well, actually it began six months ago with the first little Indian who answered the call of Lit). Most of the little Indians are moving on to new and exciting experiences always craved, or going in search of new and exciting experiences to crave.

I knew some of you better than others, but all of you hold a place in my memory and I will miss your faces around the Wharf. So thank you - for the fun, the food, a listening ear, a hug when needed, tips about departments and supervisors, being my travelmate, taking an awesome fb profile picture, keeping a transcript of the Cluedo game, being my partner getting through exams, being an awesome flatmate, being a hospitable neighbour, helping me figure out Rita Ora lyrics ("Let's party and whaaaat?"), being an oasis of home abroad and just generally, being around and making the transition to Big City life a lot easier! Good luck with Lit, Marriage, Entrepreneurship, Policy, Singland and/or the Great Unknown and I hope our paths cross again in the future!