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What circuitous routes we take in our lives. Driving through Aylesbury after visiting friends today, gazing up at that grey concrete tower at its centre, I recalled the summer of 2000 spent looking for jobs at the central library. I ended up there because my grandmother lived a couple of train stops away, and I had found myself spending a lot of time with her since moving to London for studies in 1996.

My grandmother was a great help to me after I returned from a Masters degree in Scotland, hoping to secure a job in publishing. At that time, she offered me her spare room as a base from which I could attend numerous interviews across the south east. Of course, despite attending multiple appointments with publishers big and small, none were successful. Sometimes I’d take the Chiltern line back into London. Sometimes I’d drive to other towns. And when those failed, I’d return to Aylesbury library to scour the nascent internet and newspapers for further openings.

Eventually I’d settle for a temporary job secured through an agency. It was only very vaguely related to publishing. It was a business to business consultancy based in Maidenhead, and my role was assistant desktop publisher. I didn’t require a degree; indeed, I could have left school at sixteen to take up such a role. But beggars, as they say, can’t be choosers, so I took whatever I could. For a while after taking that role, I remained with my grandmother, a thirty minute drive away, but eventually would have to seek more permanent accommodation.

So it was that I ended up in Hanwell, as a lodger with my eldest brother’s sister-in-law, embarking on a daily commute by train out west. A fortuitous turn of events, as it happened, for about six months after that I would meet my future wife. That meeting itself credited to my nightly routine, getting a shish kebab and mango juice from a takeaway on the corner of Boston Manor Road, followed by an evening spent at West Ealing Mosque. It was as a result of my regular presence at those two locations that I came to the attention of the gentleman who would introduce us. Strange happenstance given that I was working twenty miles away.

Such are the circuitous routes we take in our lives. After four years of marriage, realising we had no hope of affording a house in London, we would contemplate Aylesbury as a suitable home from which to commute back into the capital for work. I knew from my university years that central London was a one-hour train journey away. Given the relative affordability of decent housing there, it seemed like a reasonable compromise. For a few weekends in a row, we would set out from Ealing to get a better feel for the town, spending time in their mosque and trying out local restaurants. Yes, we decided, we would give it a chance, and thus booked house viewings with several estate agents.

As it happens, it was on our way to one such viewing that we first visited the little market town we now call home. That diversion was completely unplanned. We’ve always imagined that an angel must have whispered in my ear, causing me to suddenly swerve across a dual carriageway and go hurtling up over the forested brow of a hill. I had heard of this town from a friend who had told me it was home to some scholarly types, but knew nothing more about it. Still, I had decided we had time to check it out before our appointment, much to the alarm of my beloved, who by then was perplexed by my chaotic driving. That visit changed everything. We gave up on Aylesbury then, and instead sought home in that wee valley, last stop on the Metropolitan line.

That wasn’t my last encounter with Aylesbury though. Nearly a decade after spending my days scouring job listings at the central library, I’d end up starting a new job as a junior developer a ten minutes walk away. Had IT been on my radar then, I could probably have commenced a role there as soon as I graduated. Instead, I took up a role in a team managed by a woman who had left school immediately after her GCSES. We were the same age, but I had arrived at a far more junior role by a far more circuitous route. That’s pretty much the role I have occupied ever since, only taking on more responsibility as the years passed by.

I don’t know if any of my studies were worth anything at all. Not for career progression, anyway. But for bringing me to London and towards the path of faith: yes, of course that is worth infinitely more. And that first job: yes, for settling me in Hanwell so that I might be introduced to that smart young lady on the edge of Southall months later, that was priceless. And heading back west in pursuit of affordable housing: had we not travelled that Saturday morning to view a house in Aylesbury, would I ever have headed off on that unplanned diversion to discover this town nestled in the rolling Chiltern hills? And then would I ever have met that dear friend, teacher and mentor I go wandering with on Saturday mornings? And without our link to Ealing, would we ever have adopted such beautiful children?

On and on, it goes like this. The circuitous routes we took in our lives which brought us to this point along the road. It would have been unimaginable really. Alhamdulilah for such adventures. Alhamdulilah for blessings I could never have seen at moments often verging on despair. Such trying times along the way, each of which would come to define everything.