To Pause

To Pause

“. . . the degree of our awareness is the degree of our aliveness. What is invisible to me is what I have not yet learned how to see. The invisible becomes visible through our attention, through stillness, through silence. And patience.”   – Terry Tempest Williams November was filled with a bounty of mushrooms and […]

Unplanned Jobs

“There are the places you wish to go, there are the places you desperately wish you never left, there are the places you imagine you should be, and there is the place called here.” – Padraig O Tuama from his beautiful book In the Shelter The Electrician promised us in an e-mail that he will […]

Building a Real Bathroom

“Slow and steady wins the race.”   – Aesop In November last year Michael installed the channels and studs for the bathroom wall, and hung the door. Instantly the space looked and felt different. Having had to make do with a temporary outside bathroom, this first step to build our indoor bathroom felt huge. To accommodate […]

On Showering

“Happiness does not depend on outer things, but on the way we see them.” – Leo Tolstoy With our tickets booked for our June visit to the land, I’ve done some research to see what we can expect temperature wise, especially as none of the future comforts and conveniences are yet in place. It seems […]

Blisters and Cold

Blisters and Cold

“In a very cold night, even houses want to have houses of their own to enter inside them and feel warm!” – Mehmet Murat Ildan My wife , many years ago when we first moved to the UAE, wrote a blog post titled “I love winter”, and in that article she says she never thought […]