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Sir Farouk does a far more eloquent job than I have ever managed of explaining what we’ve been trying to do for the past six weeks with #the3six5NG project - creating a crowd sourced diary of Nigerian perspectives from 365 people for 365 days. Inspired by the Len Kendall and Daniel Honigman created the3six5, we’d set out to create our own ’local’ the3six5, for Nigeria and Nigerians. I had the honour of kicking things off yesterday with a meditation of sorts on the interactions between birth, new beginnings and the perpetual motion machine that my life has evolved into over the last three years. Others have signed up to share a snippet of their world for all of March 2013. April is filling up. ...

Met FF for a coffee whilst in Lagos. Prior to that I’d felt like she’d checked all my boxes bar the genotype one. Meeting up for a coffee was the physical chemistry ’test’ for me and I felt we passed it in glowing colours. She looked smashing in a pink, floral dress and red shoes and we did have great conversation. Fortuitously, my married friends I&A dropped me off and picked me up and did pick up on her great personality. Problem is I do not know if she likes me like that. I suppose I could ask, but given the small matter of a few miles, and my history of crucially misjudging interest in the past, there’s a cross roads of sorts. Rotating out of Lagos for a few months on the potential new job will help in this regard, I think.

And so I decided I’d had enough of being neither here nor there with TOj, and asked her if she was seeing someone. The good news was that she wasn’t; the somewhat crushing bad was that in her words, there wasn’t even a sliver of interest in yours truly….. #Unravelled

Image Source I catch myself sighing - Laboured breath held, And then expelled Like the unsteady, Weary chug of a steam Locomotive as it drags Its weighty backsides Up a steep incline. My dreams, a hurried, Harried concoction Of fevered, whispered Half phrases and fearsome Visions of a searing inner fire Haunt me, my mind Slowly numbed by the intense, Unforgettable clarity of a growing insanity And the delirium of delusion. The first time I saw you You were a distant- blob of light, bright pink, shimmering red, blazing sun- shine, driving dirty, grey snow into the corner of Kings and Guilds. Between there and here Is something irretrievably broken a gangrenous, festering sore That refuses to heal, its ochre Colour, the colour of dried blood. I catch myself sighing, Laboured breath held And then expelled slowly Like a puff of cigar smoke. But in the distance, Like a storm cloud bringing rain after a drought Is the redemption of the forget-ting

The little kid - he’s barely eleven months - plods after his mother, hanging onto her left leg, and bawling. She has her hair swept back, hidden by the folds of the scarf she has around her head, is bedecked in baggy pants and has that forlorn, tired look only the hassle of splitting her attention between steaming pots of rice, partly boiled chicken and her 11 month old bundle of energy can cause. ...

TOj and I have maintained extensive conversations over the last couple of weeks or so. But in what must surely count for an oddity, the outcome of the conversations is the sense of being neither here nor there. It might be the fact that we have always known each other in a different context that’s added a layer of awkwardness to it all. The big question, looming large at the back of my mind therefore is if it’s time to cut my losses to ensure we remain just friends, or if it’s worth the gamble of finding out how she feels about me.

Worn - Tenth Avenue North ---———————– ♫ Let me see redemption win /Let me know the struggle ends /That you can mend a heart that’s frail and torn /I want to know a song can rise /From the ashes of a broken life /And all that’s dead inside can be reborn /Cause I’m worn ♫

The fantastically named Ashes Remain - and their back story.

Post London, TOj and I have kept in touch - primarily extended conversations about everything; work, life, failed loves and the stereotypes of Nigerian dudes in London as being primarily baby mama creators rather than the marrying kind. Not sure where that leaves me, being the never married, single-since-April-2011 dude who has only being in two relationships all his life. We do have a knack for great conversations between us, it must be said, in addition to all the elements of the future Mrs S spreadsheet that she checks. ...

Back… Tired.. But excited in the main. The flight to Luton was delayed both ways (Note to self avoid Luton/ EasyJet like a plague unless it is absolutely necessary) - the small positive being that I saved a shed load of money over what I would have paid had I gone for the full BA shebang through Heathrow. What Luton did though was put pressure on my return trip, I had to catch the First Capital Connect from Victoria to Luton as early as 3pm to make my flight which meant I ended up having to cut short what turned out to be a surprisingly decent weekend away. ...