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Walked down Northumberland road today - had to go see the Opticians at Vision Express. Kenny’s official girlfriend’s bum broke my last pair of glasses - whether by an act of omission or one of commission I know not any more. The entire street was lined with Christmas decorations, and manequinns waltzing to the sounds of well known carols blaring from the speakers on all the shops - Fenwick, M&S and the lot. It is a sharp reminder that its another Christmas away from family. ...

Caught up with Olu again - he and I sat down in the car, engines revving pouring our hearts out on the various issues in our lives. After being so similar for such a long time, our lives cannot be more divergent going forward. He is heading back to Nigeria semi-permanently, I am looking forward to yet another winter here. Life is good though, and the time spent chatting up has thrown up a few new directions. That is what friends are for I suspect.

I have unfinished business in this town. I had always sensed that when the time came to finally cut my ties, I would still have to come here one last time, to cast my eyes over the horizon and remind myself of all the things this town means to me. Today I lug my knapsack to the park and ask for a cab. I point in the general direction I am headed in, the dirty strip of land bordering the ocean that became my chill spot during those long arduous weekends. Unsurprisingly, the fare has doubled from the last time I was here, as it did for every one of the years I spent here. We haggle a little over the price. He retorts that there is no fuel, and that I shouldn’t be a cheap skate, after all I am a big boy. Perhaps I look the part - a knapsack that looks like it has a laptop, I wear glasses, am plugged into an iPod, and am speaking English untainted by the default accent one acquires around these parts. Truth is I might have once been one of them, but I am not now, which is why my trip to the waterside could end up being painful. I am off to eyeball UX5 for the last time. ...

Moments like these, when insomnia induced by deep thought strikes, are when the harsh reality of the things we try to suppress often come to the fore. The overwhelming desire of my heart and my hand is to pick up my phone and call long distance. But my head - ever pragmatic - intervenes, short circuiting the commands and forcing me to think. I wonder if she remembers me, or if indeed there is someone else making her laugh, hearing all her foibles and making her giggle at pointless jokes and wise cracks into the wee hours of the morning.

Excellent piece by John Piper on the subject of handling mid-life crises. An excerpt…. You know, God makes no mistakes. I cannot explain to you why he ordained that the first half of your life would be led in a way that looks like you wasted it. Maybe you just lived for money, and you lost your marriage, and you lost your kids. And now you’re 54 years old, and you are all alone and rich and miserable. ...

When I was younger, I secretly believed my mother could fly. To be honest, those heels could delude anyone into believing they could - add a full flowing boubou and you had a superman woman right there, complete with boots and a cape! She certainly was not ultra light – all us kids, and her aversion to wastage in any and every form meant she was always only just under a healthy weight. For all my reading of Essential Biology I should have known that real mothers could not fly; only fairy god mothers could - but the anecdotal evidence seemed to suggest that mine did, for the sheer number of times she caught me pants down – no pun intended. ...

Apparently a Saudi Arabian woman filed for divorce after her husband stored her name as ‘Guantanamo’ on his cell phone. Wonder what she would do if her name was stored as Oloshi Oloriburuku?

… at the end of the raging storm.… finally a silver lining appears… one victory.. but it is a crucial change of momentum!

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Each morning, my nostrils awake to redolent scents, wafting outward from the Greggs eatery next to my house. Sadly, this particular branch is close enough to allow some of the scents find their way in, but just far enough to befuddle my sense of smell in such a way that I cannot precisely tell which is which. Some days I can almost bet my sweet life that they are arranging hot piping amala there. At other times, I am positive I have heard inhaled the smell of akara, of moi moi and even party jollof rice! Problem though is there is no way any of these can smell like the above; unless there is a Naija chic surreptitiously boiling her own things on the side.. ...