When I am really down there have always been books and stories to cheer me up. One of the darkest times of my life was after I had finished school. More than a year of torment and suffering found a break in an exam! Alevel literature, taken in three months, required strict discipline and a long list of reading. I relished it.
King Lear by Shakespeare, Chaucer's tales, Volpone, Age of Innocence, Mansfield Park, Frost, Emily Dickinson, Heart of Darkness and so much more.
I remember sitting by a spluttering gas heater and a bowl of water with a book on the thickly carpeted floor. Losing myself in fictional places and characters, forgetting the real. What a pleasure it was.
Then another dark time years later. Tolstoy was discovered to put a nice bandage on myself. Nasim Hijazi, Phillipa Gregory, Sophie kinsella peopled my sad world with their stories and characters.
These days are not so dark. They are simply tiresome and lonely. I have bumped into Jane Austen again. A film I watched in 2005 Pride and Prejudice, I watched again. It was comforting like hot chocolate. I love the plot, the dialogues and the people in it.

life has stilled itself. Sometimes I wish for company, someone to talk to alot. Then there are times when I do get the opportunity and come home tired. I feel exhausted. Will there ever be something to excite me furiously. I mean something more than just passing days. I hope so. But I am not ungrateful. Maybe its a luxury, this lull, for I have known storms.

The first thing that I noted on my blog before I began writing was the date. Thank God the last entry is of the same month. I intend to keep my enteries regular inshallah even if they are short. I think I am down with maid fever.
Nearly two weeks ago I decided to keep a full time maid. Apart from the obvious questions of why would I require such services and where would I put her, the question of how would I procure one became quite a headache. From putting ads in my supermarket, to approaching dodgy companies to running after friends' maids' contacts ( wonder if the apostrophes are well in order). It has been a learning curve to say the least.
I just had to take a break to explain to my maid in my higgledy piggeldy Arabic that she can eat and drink whatever she wants.

Pros and Cons of keeping a maid

I think I will add on this list as time passes
1. You get a chance to not only excercise your vocal chords, your brain jogs an extra mile trying to construe a sentence that works despite being in three languages or may I say four.
(Arabic, English, Urdu and Indonesian)
2. You discover google translate and though it makes your life harder when you find the correct alternative but the maid is still clueless, it is a marvellous discovery nonetheless. ( Gosh my sentences are getting loooonger, but who cares. Here I am the boss and yup no. 3 stems from this)
3. You are the boss.
4. Think again when you have to give endless demonstrations for the umpteenth time by washing the sink or mopping!
5. Meeting a cornocopia of characters. Listening to unbelievable demands like 'I want an attached bath!'
6. Privacy can go out of the window.
7.Finding yet again that life is a surprise. The most unlikeliest of the candidates stepping up to do the job.
5. Some good things come with a pinch of salt. Another reason to thank Allah that He has blessed us!

The heat is on but the flowers in my garden are bursting into bloom. Every time I look out the window, I have an urge to take a book outside and sit on the red tiles of the veranda but when I open up the glass doors, my body negotiates if its a good idea to step out of the airconditioned room. The bubble bursts in exactly a minute.