Birthday month

March was my birthday month. Yes, every day was a celebration except for 1st March. That was sister number 2’s birthday. I let her have that day.😊 My idea of celebration almost always involves desserts of some form or other. Chocolates, cakes, ice-cream, and chocolate-coated biscuits. The thing is I eat them all-year round. There […]

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Dogs and cats

Niece number 3’s stories about her pet-children, Coco the dog and Zupa the cat, made me smile and go awww. My husband also smiled when I related the antics of these two animal species that are not usually friends or friendly. I especially liked the photo of Zupa waiting for Coco to return to the dog-and-cat […]

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Holiday happiness

One sure fire way to lift sagging spirits or general malaise is a holiday. It works every time for me. Wide smiles. Happy hormones. Great anticipation of what can only be good things to come. Hopefully, sleeping more as I’m an insomniac. Hopefully, relaxing and worrying less as I’m a certified worry wart. The sooner […]

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Getting back my jolly

Last week I wrote about losing my jolly. I’d identified the jolly stealers in writing in the hope of not thinking and giving them more brain space than I already have, and do. All in the hope of getting back my jolly. While I sort of knew somethings that could help, I still searched on […]

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Losing my jolly

I’ve lost my jolly, and I want it back. I know the reasons for my general melancholy. It started with Covid and the restricted movement controls in 2020. Holidays became scarce. The rigmarole involved in organising any form of travel was a deterrent, as was the infectious disease itself. I remember the arduous loops my […]

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Comeuppance

When I was younger, I honestly believed that bad people who do bad things will get their comeuppance in due course. I used to repeat this mantra to my husband ever so often. He was either wiser or just plain cynical because he was sure that wasn’t always the case. Older and a tad wiser, […]

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Feel-good movies

I watched one. Then another, and before I knew it, I was searching for holiday/Christmas movies on Netflix. The soppy and predictable with happy endings variety. No shooting, killing, or maiming. No big companies or individuals with money, power and position abusing and rough riding everyday, regular people. No pain or misery. None of the […]

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Palliative care

Before my mum became very unwell, I knew very little about palliative care. What little I thought I knew or understood was wholly inaccurate. It was first proposed to me by my mum’s cardiologist in August, 2021. He suggested that I contact UMSC’s palliative care as he could not longer treat my mum’s heart failure, […]

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Deepavali 2023

Deepavali came and went last Sunday. It was the most low key in recent years. Even my mum, who looks forward to and gets excited to this one festival in a whole series of Indian celebrations each year, was reticent. This despite the presence of sister number 3, the family’s in-house chef, who returned home […]

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Photographs

Niece number 3 snapped several photos with her pink, an ala-Barbie polaroid camera, at my mum’s recent 90th birthday party. She took one of my mum and me. An instant, hardcopy photograph that captured a special moment on a special day. A fitting keepsake. And, a party favour of sorts. See, touch, immediately own. I […]

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