Growing up, we had a set of dishes for everyday use, and then another red set of dishes that came out only at Eid, or when we had guests for dinner. I remember the long washing plank being brought in from the outside basin where my mother did the laundry by hand. The plank would […]
Category: Memories
Making peace with running
I am not a runner, or so my brain tells me. But I’m learning that not everything I believe is true and am untangling the limiting beliefs. Running and I have a complicated relationship, actually its marginally abusive. I try every few years, running beats me to a pulp and I skulk off to the […]
A fleeting memory
A conversation with my brother sparked a memory from a trip to India almost 10 years ago. I think we were talking about solo travel in places with a language barrier, but I don’t really remember. I was traveling from Benares to Agra by train. I had spent a few days along the Ganges and […]
The best years of my life
I often talk to people who are holding their heads in despair as they approach 50, thinking the end of the world is nigh. When I was turning 50, someone sent me this graphic as a birthday greeting. What a clever way to reframe it. The year I turned 49, I took a solo trip […]
I am a BC Bike Race Finisher
Or am I? After the BC Bike Race (BCBR), I was home for one night to do laundry and repack and then headed off to do Singletrack 3, another mountain bike stage race in the Kootenays. Following that race I traveled to Whitefish, Montana to do a one day gravel race, The Last Best Ride, […]
Falling in love with South Africa
Having grown up in Johannesburg, coming back to South Africa may seem like coming home. But my growing love affair with this beautiful country has little to do with being born here. This is an entirely new relationship, taking root in an completely different part of the country, that I never knew as a child. […]
Figs – a consumer’s manual
I purchased a punnet of fresh figs at the store today. When I got home, I rinsed them and pulled one open. It took some pressure top pull it apart which should have been a sign. It was alright, I suppose, but neither as plump or as juicy as I had hoped. It took me […]
Cranbrook Gravel Grind
This race was back in May, and in the days after the race my life was consumed with the two events I work for, the Mega Volt and the BC Bike Race, so I never got around to talking about it. The race experience was particularly special in that the whole weekend was so filled […]
Gifts we don’t always recognise
I am a knitter. It is at once a creative outlet, a hobby and a meditation as I sit here quietly in the evenings, with soft music and a full heart. The joy is not in the end result but in the process. Once a project is done, it gets shipped off to the recipient […]
This was my brother
His name was Ismail, and would have turned 60 next month, but he died 40 years ago today in motorbike accident. 40 years? He has been gone twice as long as he was here. He had played well in a rugby match a few days earlier, and limped proudly with some minor injury that he […]