Tag: blogging

Just writing

And the month has gone!

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Eid is expected to be tomorrow. This means the month of Ramadan is 29 days this year. Yesterday, while we were having Iftar, my son said; ” Ramadan has gone so fast this year.” I thought I was the only one to notice that but we all did. Really the month has gone so fast. I cannot believe that 28 days ago, I wrote about my plan to post every day during this month. I tried but I couldn’t. Anyway,  I’m happy I’ve started writing more posts than before.

I mentioned in one of my posts that I was determined to make no experiments; no new recipes to try. I kept my word. However, there was a tiny problem; I usually forgot if I added salt or not and I cannot taste the food; I’m fasting. If there wasn’t enough salt, we would add some, no problem though the food wouldn’t taste as nice. The major problem happened when I added too much and it did happen, a couple of times. One of them when we have guests but their hands didn’t reach that plate. Thanks God, I prayed and wanted to take it away before they would think about it.

By the way, I didn’t cook the food in this photo. It was on my son’s birthday and we had our iftar out that night. It was Yummy Yummy.

Eid Mubarak,

Wishing you all the best,

Nahla

 

 

 

Just writing

Simplicity

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I found this photo in a post on facebook about happiness and simple life. At the beginning, I didn’t know why I liked the photo more than the post. My eyes kept scrutinising everything; the old pieces of furniture,  the cracks and scratches on the wall and the floor, the little chicks picking the grains, that old broom, the clear sky, the children playing, the infant taking the first step, the mother leaning, the granny kneeling and their faces radiant with joy

Now I know why I liked it more because it reminded me of my grandfather’s house. It was a very big house in the village but it was so old too. All of us, his grandchildren, we were so many, always asked him to renew the place,  just add a modern touch to that old building, we would always suggest. But he would never do; he liked his house the way it was. Honestly, though we would prefer that our grandfather would have a modern house, we really enjoyed every moment of our holiday together there.

I’ve heard that nowadays some people prefer to spend their holidays in simple country houses. This means that simplicity is recommended as a modern recreation option. I’m not sure if my children would agree? My daughter would do, I know, especially if there are those peeping little animals around. The boys definitely, absolutely,  certainly would never; but if Wi-Fi is available, miracles could happen.

Wishing you all the best,

Nahla

 

Just writing

The Pyramids

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Have you ever visited the pyramids?

I have but a long time ago. My boys went there once but I’m sure they would not remember that trip because they were so young but my daughter hasn’t yet.

A long time ago, going to the pyramids was one of the main school trips and of course, it was always during the winter. They are beautiful; three pyramids; stand together not far or so close. The stones used in the building are amazing; they were collected or cut from a quarry, transported in boats sailing over the Nile, pushed over the dampened sand in huge sledges which were dragged by horses, camels and well-fed builders. At last, those stones were hauled through ramps over ramps over ramps until the building was done. How those ramps were exactly constructed is still one of the ancient Egyptian mysteries!

Do you think the Pharaohs had built these Pyramids to be one of the seven world wonders? Or to enter Guinness World records? Definitely NO.

These pyramids were built to be tombs; sacred, powerful and maybe cursed too.  The Pharaohs believed in immortality. Their corpses and food were mummified. Their jewellery, money and other special items were locked in their tombs too. Their Statues were sculpted and placed in magnificent temples. Paintings of their images and life were carved on the walls of tombs and temples. Why did they think of those complicated procedures? They did all that because they believed in life after death.  They believed their souls would come back to their dead bodies and they would rule and live but in a different way; not as a supreme ruler but as a god. This is why the heart was the only organ to be left in the dead body. This is also why they locked all their valuable and precious things in their tombs. It is also said that Pharaohs cast special spells to protect their tombs.

I don’t like to get inside the pyramids; so dark and humid; besides it is not well ventilated especially with so many people.  And the most important thing is not to get the Pharaoh’s curse (joking). This was many years ago; maybe things inside have changed.

Let me know if you have ever been there.

Wishing you all the best,

Nahla

Just writing

Handwriting or typing

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Typing is much easier, especially when writing a long essay, dissertation or an assignment. It is also easier for editing and word counting and so on. When I was an undergraduate student (hmm many years ago), it was possible to make a handwriting submission for essays. Typing was allowed but was not compulsory. At that time, I did not have my own PC, so I used to have them all handwriting. I discovered the difference when I started my postgraduate studies, and I will never think or recommend handwriting for long writing tasks.

But Handwriting is so special. To give a birthday card, a thank you note or even lecture notes to your friend in handwriting is different. It becomes not only about words but also the person who wrote them. I read once that handwriting, even scribbles have a significance. Your handwriting tells more about your personality. It is also known that our handwriting is unique; even twins have different styles of writing.

Today my son asked me to write a note for his PE teacher because his legs are so stiff after his boxing club. These days everything is computerised. I usually send emails, text or call the school; to write a note sounds a bit weird today. I was in a hurry, morning time! when I found the paper, I could not find the pen, and when I found both I forgot why he can not do it but I wrote it anyway. When my son saw the note, he said;

‘Mama, am I unwell?’ he asked and laughed

‘No,’ I replied and remembered the main reason, ‘ but you can explain more to your teacher.’ I laughed too.

Wishing you all the best,

Nahla

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Just writing

Can we try?

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Inviting others for Iftar (breakfast); friends, relatives, or some acquaintances is a popular tradition in the month of Ramadan. Muslims believe that if one shares or offers a meal with/to others, he/she will be heavenly rewarded.  When I started writing this post, I mainly thought of the manners that both visitors and hosts are supposed to have in order to enjoy their time together. I did not think of those sophisticated rules of etiquettes; what to take as a gift, how to sit, how to eat, what to say and so on. These are great rules but I thought of something very general, sometimes that can be very hard to apply. Can we try not to poke our noses into others’ affairs?

One day, a friend visited me after I gave birth to my daughter. It was her first time to visit me and apparently she liked both the place and the house. After giving her warm congratulations; she started a series of investigations all about how many? how much? how far? All those ”hows” made her 30 minutes visit pass like 5 hours. I pretended that I didn’t know most of the answers and changed the subject to her little son. That was why she left early; ‘ You look tired,’ she said and left.

There was a story in Arabic; I have read recently. It teaches one of the visiting manners. The story was about a Muslim scholar whose best student used regularly to invite him at his house. One day, the scholar’s cousin offered to give him a ride to his student’s. Once they had arrived, the host invited that cousin to join them. They talked and ate and then it was time to leave.

On their way back, the cousin poured all his thoughts;

‘ Your student is a real gentleman; kind and generous. His house is so big, clean and tidy. His attire looks expensive and neat. And the food, it was the best I have ever tasted. His people have high skills of cooking. I’m sure he is very wealthy.’

The scholar did not comment. He was riding his cousin’s donkey and listening while watching the sun setting.

‘But they have bad manners; they let women serve food and drinks. Have you seen that woman who was holding the water jug for us to clean our hands after dinner? I don’t like that,’ his cousin added

The scholar looked at his cousin and said; ‘ I have been regularly visiting that student for ten years. I ate their food, I drank their juice and I washed my hands in their house countless times, and yet I don’t know if I was served by men or women.’

His cousin said no more.

The lesson is; they were invited to have a meal, not to interfere in other’s life.

Wishing you all the best,

Nahla

 

Just writing

No Experiments

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It is nice to try new food and it is even nicer to cook it. Simple recipes are available everywhere, especially on social media. Food has become easy to cook, yummy to eat, and fast to deliver. But on the first day of fasting, it is not a good idea to make any experiments. Not only because there will not be enough time or energy to cook another meal, but it will be very disappointing. Imagine the boys and their father look at the colourful dish, smell its spices, wondering what it can be, then fill the spoon, and taste it. ‘Yuk! it’s the first day, mama’

No, I’m not going to try any new recipes; not today. Traditional food is the best for the first day, something we all like to eat. When my son came back from school, he liked the smell of the food but he asked; ‘ can we have some chips? Extra side, mama’. ‘Of course, not. I won’t add anything,’ I told him. But that’s it, I thought. If I plan to make any new dish, I will make sure I add large chips, just in case.

Wishing you all the best,

Nahla

 

 

Just writing

My daughter’s guest

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On Friday, at school home time, my daughter ran to me with a big smile. We had a guest. This guest was her class teddy. At the end of every week, her teacher picked randomly a name which is supposed to be the luckiest to have teddy over the weekend. It’s a wonderful idea because it encourages children to write about and express their feelings as well as sharing the fun with their friends. Every week they cannot wait to know whose turn it will be. They cannot wait to have this special teddy in their house, to take photos, to write about their adventures and finally to stick and arrange everything in the teddy’s schoolbook.

So on Friday, it was my daughter’s turn. Her adventure started as soon as we left the school. She talked with her teddy about our daily walking journey to and back from school. She believed teddy was so excited because last time when we had him, we took the bus, so this time was different. As soon as we arrived, she took her guest on a tour around the new house, especially her room and introduced him to the new toys he hadn’t seen last time.

On Saturday, it was raining when we went shopping and my daughter said teddy would be very bored; he doesn’t like shopping. ‘He will this time,’ I told her, ‘because I will buy him a special chocolate.’ Teddy wasn’t bored anymore. He flew in the air; my daughter jumped to catch him and hugged him. ‘There’s a surprise for you,’ she whispered to her guest who all of a sudden changed his mind and decided that it would be fun to go shopping.

Sunday was the best; sunny and warm and we went to the seafront. There, Teddy had an ice cream. There, he collected stones. There he waved to the big ferry. What else, there he giggled when one of the little boys ran to the water to wash his chocolate ice cream cone. He gasped when his tiny feet touched the chilly salty water. But finally, he was tired and fell asleep. But on the way home, he got up and begged his friend to take him to the park. He wanted to go on the swing. And so we went there. My daughter set him next to her on the swing and took up to the sky. She looked after him so well and he didn’t fall.

It was really fun to have teddy. I think it’s a brilliant idea that can create a wonderful story out of a simple toy.

Wishing you all the best,

Nahla

 

Have fun teddy!

 

 

Just writing

One more!

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Today at breakfast, my daughter said; ‘I’m full, mama.’ There wasn’t much left and I asked her to try one more to finish her plate. ‘I’m full, mama,’ she repeated.

I did not force her because she ate well and sometimes you cannot add any more. I don’t know how people in food competitions could eat that much just to win or to register a high score. It’s really awful to eat more than you can afford. It is known that animals eat when they are hungry; they eat to survive although these days I doubt it. I think they’ve changed too. Have you seen how seagulls snatch, or better to say steal, people’s sandwiches, chips and crisps? When I was young I learned that seagulls fish close to the surface. They also eat earthworms, snails and slugs. But when I moved to cities by sea or rivers, I noticed how these birds have not only adapted well to live with man but also learned his greedy eating habit.

Many years ago, one of my friends went to a social gathering with people of her country at well-known Arabic restaurant. She visited me after they had finished and described the different varieties of starters, main dishes and desserts; hummus, tabula, green salad, stuffed vine leaves, kebab, baklava, rice pudding … yummy! The list made my mouth water. But she did not look well. She tried to lay down on the sofa but she couldn’t. She told me that she ate so much and her husband gave her more. Then, she couldn’t hold it anymore; she ran to the bathroom and vomited up all the food she had eaten that night.

Wasn’t it better if she said she cannot eat anymore?

Wishing you all the best,

Nahla

Just writing

Imagine

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Imagine one day, you were sitting peacefully in the bus, watching people getting on and off and waiting for your stop, when an old woman, poorly dressed, walking step by step like a one year old child, dragging carefully her shopping trolley, got slowly on the bus. You decided to move back to give that old woman a space, but instead of taking that place, she went after you and took the seat just in front of yours, and placed her trolley on the way of other passengers, blocking them from going forward or backward. It was unavoidable within this close distance not to smell her coat fully soaked with sweaty smell of cigarette and alcohol, when all of a sudden she turned her head back and stared at your face. ‘Thank you,’ you would expect to hear but instead she whispered, ‘chaaaaaaange.’

Would you give her or would you not?

While writing this post, I remembered this story that I have read long time ago:

Once upon a time, there was an old kind man, he was well-off but not that rich. He was living in a quite village, just few miles away from the city.  One night, on his way to pray at the village mosque, a young lady stopped him and asked for  some money, she need money to feed her children who were starving for days, this was what she said. The old man gave her what he had in his pocket and went to pray. The following night, a young girl stopped him asking for money to get some medicine and food for her old poor father who had been sick-in-bed for days. And again the old man gave her money and went to pray. On the third night, the old man was walking with a friend to the mosque, a guest for a couple of days, when an old woman approached them wailing, telling that her son had left for a month and she had neither money nor food. The friend kept silent while watching the old man giving her what he had.

Did the friend give that woman any money? No.

Did he ask the old man not to give her money? No.

And did the old man ask the friend to give her money? No.

On his last night at his host’s house, the friend and the old man were stopped again by a woman with a different look, telling a new story and asking for money. When she finished, the man asked simply;  ‘where is your house?’ The woman with her eyes wide open looked at the man and suddenly ran away.

‘Didn’t you realise that this was the same woman you gave her money yesterday?’ The friend said, smiling and looking at the old man.

‘No, I didn’t notice that,’ said the old man

‘Last night I could tell at a glance that she was one of those impostors, known in the city of their tricks to get money.’

The contented, placid old man looked at his friend and said:

‘I gave that money for God’s sake whether the one who asked was telling a lie or the truth. May Allah accept it as a sincere deed of charity!’

This is just a story that shows two different attitudes and I believe both are right: The old man and the friend. I’m not sure if I can act like the old man but I’m more like the friend.

Wishing you all the best,

Nahla

Just writing

One of the best

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One of the best things I have started in 2017 was blogging or in other words writing.

Writing has always been my best hobby and though I didn’t keep anything of what I wrote when I was young, I remember very well that writing was not hard, boring or odd for me; simply because I love writing and I write what I love.

At university, I mainly studied English Language and literature but we also used to study Arabic literature and grammar as a main part of the BA programme. One day our Arabic literature lecturer asked us to write a free piece, anything we like, as one of our main tasks and promised that extra marks would be added to the mark we got at our Arabic exam. This wasn’t everything, he also promised that the best five or six (can’t remember the exact number) pieces would be published in his book which we would study that year (of course as appendix). So there were no worries about being marked down or getting a fail, just a page or half, but it had to be done before our next lecture; We all were so pleased and thought that was a brilliant idea, wasn’t it?

I did not care that mine would be one of those chosen pieces; honestly I believed that our lecturer would never read all of our writings; I just wondered what to write but finally I decided to write about my father.

At the beginning of that year, my father passed away, and so I wrote about death, the final fate that we cannot change or escape. I wondered if one has a choice either to die before or after his/her beloved ones, what he/she would choose. I thought of my father and believed that he would have willingly chosen that same time because he loved us.

Before the following lecture, and as promised, the book was available and five pieces were added at the end; mine was one of them. I was totally surprised, delighted and nervous, too nervous indeed; I was surprised because I didn’t make any great effort in that piece, and delighted because my writing was one of the best, and nervous because I became popular, everybody started asking about me, including our lecturer who hadn’t known any of our names before, and I wished I could hide under the desk for the rest of that day.

I have no idea how far my writing will go, but I believe it’s a wonderful gift.

Wishing you all the best,

Nahla