As I wandered the lanes of our village forty years ago with my little band of friends, I could never have known what would become of me. How could a timid boy like me end up an inhabitant of the world?
If I had the opportunity today, I would apologise to all who were troubled by my youthful gaze. Yes, I would apologise to serious students, whose focus was set on making the grades for university and setting the stage for a bountiful future, who had to put up with a weirdo glancing all around. I …
“And among His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquility in them; and He placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought.” Quran 30:21
I confess that, with the exception of my wife, I don’t really know how to behave around women—and practising Muslim women, in particular. I have a long history of putting my foot in it, with that eternally awkward and self-conscious behaviour of mine.
The tides of time. How the years pass us by. Some of those I knew at university have already seen their own children graduate. Some then were already married and had started a family when we were in our first year of studies; those children now all grown up, with children of their own. Some …
Neither is my enemy’s enemy my friend, nor is my enemy’s friend my enemy, neither my friend’s friend my friend, nor my friend’s enemy my enemy, or my friend. I will make my own judgement based on my own experience.
Several years ago, a teacher and friend told me of a dream he had once had, in which one of his noble sheikhs had decided to pay him a visit at his home. Most people in that situation would undoubtedly roll out the red carpet and take the fine china from the cupboard, honoured to …
Marriages are complex. In the relationship not just between husband and wife, but also with parents, in-laws, siblings and children, are manifold dynamics. When things go wrong, it is hard enough for those intimately involved to apportion blame, let alone those on the outside looking in.
Oh how I love my wife. What a shame such sentiments hit with such force when she is so far away, when I am ill like this. In a moment of delirium wrought by the altercation between those biting shivers and the piercing sweaty heat late at night, I dispatched a message: ‘Come home early, if you …
Do you know, I’m getting rather tired of the near constant chatter that husbands and wives are enemies? The mockery of marriage amongst work colleagues, perhaps, is only to be expected, where phrases like “getting tied down” abound; the night before one’s wedding described as “the last night of freedom”. To encounter the enmity of …
In Loving Memory
My mind is crowded with memories of Grannie Bowes. Of those warm days in summer when she would host my sister and I, treating us to elevensies, to a mug of Ribena and half a Kit Kat each. Of those moments passing through the fly screen door at TreeTops with bowls with which to harvest gooseberries from the bottom of the garden. Of super-ripened bananas powdered with glucose for pudding at lunchtime. Of mountains of sunflower seeds munched before Coronation Street whilst babysitting for us at night. Childhood with Grannie was always a joy.
My mind is crowded with memories of Grannie Bowes. Of those warm days in summer when she would host my sister and I, treating us to elevensies, to a mug of Ribena and half a Kit Kat each. Of those moments passing through the fly screen door at TreeTops with bowls with which to harvest gooseberries from the bottom of the garden. Of super-ripened bananas powdered with glucose for pudding at lunchtime. Of mountains of sunflower seeds munched before Coronation Street whilst babysitting for us at night. Childhood with Grannie was always a joy.
Have you ever read the polished floor? I read it every day when I see you. There are words on the polished floor, invisble to your eye, but I read them. Beyond a hidden world, there’s something there. I try to look out, but the words on the floor say, ‘No’. I say, ‘It’s not …
It is when you feel down that you really realise that the friends you have are worth more than anyone else in the world. It should be obvious that the friends you have are worth more than the ones you don’t. I was so, so down one evening; I had hurt someone in a desperate …
