folio

Remember when we were first married, we’d shop for groceries at Cudi’s on the broadway. We’d return home with bags bursting at the seams, filled with fruit and veg. Luscious red tomatoes on the vine. Turkish cucumbers. Dolma peppers. Fresh coriander and parsley. The smell would be heavenly.

I used to shop there before we were married, and before that Turkish family took over. I’d drop in after the evening prayer at the mosque on Singapore Road. I’d developed a penchant for their Tandoori chicken pizza, which is the only thing I’d buy from them before my one-mile saunter back to Hanwell.

That was until the day the proprietor got angry with me. He must have recognised me from the mosque. Glancing into my basket, he growled: “Is this all you’re buying? You’ll force me to sell alcohol.” I didn’t go back after that. I wonder if I was the final straw, which convinced him to throw in the towel and turn his hand to something else.

There always seemed to be such barakah in our weekly shop back then. Although we hardly seemed to part with much cash, we’d come home with enough to keep us going for a week or more. How the times have changed. But then it was just the two of us, in our little flat, with its tiny kitchen; I suppose our expectations were more modest. Now we have hungry mouthes to feed.

Alhamdulilah in all circumstances. It’s amazing to reflect where life has carried us. From where to where. By now, we’ve probably eaten 15,000 meals together. No wonder I’m no longer the skinny chap I was when we first married. If ever there was a prescription for recovery, it’s here: marry a Turkish lady. That will fix you, for sure. Alhamdulilah.