How I came to love my incinerator and what it taught me about life

Anyone who has a garden, especially one that is large and inaccessible, will know that every spring and summer there are two, and only two, ways of describing your relationship with your garden; either you have overcome the garden or it has overcome you. When I first bought my house almost a decade ago I

A father’s love for his daughter; Part 3

I read somewhere that infants become self aware at approximately eighteen months of age. You can often see this by placing a mirror in front of them and noticing that they appreciate it is their own reflection rather than another toddler. I have not tried this with Hana but she is clearly much more self

On the kindness of strangers

It is with the greatest sadness that we inform the reader that today, in the early hours, ‘kindness’ bid farewell to this world. She had been in decline for some time. Neglected and deprived of the most basic of needs she had, in recent times, fallen into a critical condition. She will be remembered fondly by those who knew her. Kindness is survived by her two children `courtesy` and `respect’ who, both being in a terminal condition themselves, are soon expected to join their parent.

In the shadow of London

Every city is a witness to the injustice and harm of one group against another. No city however is quite like London. In London you will find the most affluent of people and also the most deprived. The undergarments of one person might cost as much as what their neighbour spends in one month. In London you will find every conceivable opposite. Streets are alive with footsteps and with the hustle and bustle of daily life. But behind bleak walls, on these very same streets, lurk countless people who live in almost absolute loneliness.

Love and Hate – and 36 different ways to get there.

The hypocritical compass

If our expectations and our desires are considered, in the geographical sense, as a giant mountain standing adjacent to another similar such mountain representing the reality of our affairs then the valley which joins them – its descriptive nature including both its depth and its width – determine how happy or sad we ultimately are.

Visiting the Lake District; Coniston the King’s estate.

This blog post is about my recent visit (2nd July – 6th July 2018) to Coniston and in particular our stay at the Lake Bank Lodge in the Crake Valley Park. With a background like this – even the birds like to pose! Picture taken by author. Coniston is the third largest lake in the

Happiness Series Part 5: Hardship to Ease; the Alchemy of Happiness.

“It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.” A. J. Toynbee For thousands of years people, including some of the greatest scientific and philosophical minds,

Marriage and Felicity: Part 1

The following series of extracts, forming the marriage series, are based on my own experiences. They are set within the context of a traditional Asian marriage and begin with my own real life experiences from my first marriage. Since a considerable amount of time has elapsed since then I have also incorporated my own general

A father’s love for his daughter, Part 2.

Given her size and weight at birth, we spent the first six months worrying about every little conceivable thing. Any raised temperature (measured using our sophisticated Star Trek like probe) or any difficulty breathing (measured using our not so sophisticated ears) were always a cause of concern. It was a relief to see her grow