on Saturday 29th of march (also leebeya's birthday, happy birthday sis) it was my henna.

i got to dress up, i got to dress up, i got to dress up wooo hooo.

i dressed up in a Libyan style dress called the 3abroog, i don't do gold, so silver it was all the way, Bedouin style :)

the day before on Friday, we spent all day preparing the hall, the theme was desert style, tents, etc... so the stage was prepared, and i thank Allah that i have amazing people in my life who dedicated their time to making sure it went smoothly.

although my family are all in Libya and its sad that they couldn't join in the celebration by being here, Allah has blessed me with an extended family here in Manchester of friends mashallah.

anyway i woke up sat morning, actually i hardly slept the night before, i just couldn't sleep... so 8ish i was up bright and early, went downstairs had breakfast, took my time drinking the morning coffee mmmmm.

then i watched die hard 4, I've been meaning to watch that film for some time, so yeh die hard 4 it was, i actually enjoyed it.

then it hit me that i needed to sort my self out as i had to be at the hall for 5:30, but i was calm and collected hamdullilah.

through out the day i would bicker with random different members of the family about every thing under the sun, seriously on topics that i don't even remember but what i do recall is that every one seemed to have there own opinion on matters and every one had their own defense lawyer to back up their arguments lol.

so eventually i get into the car, on a funny note i was still wearing my pjs, hey i needed to be comfortable as i was gonna be wrapped up bakalva style.

anyway i get to the hall and mama bless went straight to the kitchen and prepared the bukhoor, now every one knows how much i love the stuff....

and the place looked so cool, here are the before pic thanks to a great friend who took snaps of every thing..

the stage before with all sorts piled on to it

the props:
the tables where prepared:
the cake table:
and when the cakes came:

chocolate of course:
the food was a mixture of couscous, imbatin, borak, of course imsayr mmmmm:
as for me, it took a while to wrap me up in all my gear but i eventually got there though i wouldn't stop fidgeting, cant show the full pic as I'm not hijabified:
the henna arrives

tradition is to put a piece of gold on the palm of the hand and place the henna on top:

an ending with green tea mmmm
and that was it, it was a fun night hamdullilah, i didn't actually put any henna on that night, a few days later i decided i would henna, i love the stuff.

anyway my dearest bloggers, I'm sat here sat morning typing away, mindful of the fact that in a few hours time i will have to leave home,

i will up date you soo inshallah with how the wedding went.

remember me in your duas.

sallam.

for the past couple of days i have been moving my things from my room to my flat, and at first it was kinda exciting, fun etc..

yesterday i don't know what came over me, i guess it hit me that I'm leaving the house that i grew up in, and the tears would not stop, walahi at one point i was telling my eyes of

me: right stop it now, stop crying, why are you still over flowing with the tears business.

lets just say my fiance walked in to this scene and bless him did not know what to do lol.

i think he must have thought i had gone mad, i thought i was being quite seeing how i didn't want any one to hear me, but i got caught.

anyway once the tears started it wouldn't stop, and i felt so silly, every one was reassuring me that at least I'm living in the same city, that my flat is a 7 minute walk away from my parents house, blah blah blah.

i know all that but no matter what people are telling me i cant help feeling slightly down with the idea of leaving.

i want to be 6 again...

i have an announcement.

i have been very quite about this but i think its time I mention it.

ok so here goes....

I'm getting married in 2 weeks time.

yes I'm being serious.

in exactly 2 weeks time.

the count down has started.

it wasn't a last minute dot.com thing, its been going on since my trip to hajj i just have kept rather quite about it. its just the idea of getting married freaks me out some how and i have only just come round to the fact (though its all my decision and hamdullilah im happy), in my year of engagement i have banned people from saying the w word in my presence, the w word being wedding lol, so i knew that eventually the date of the wedding would approach but i didn't realise how fast, subhannalah time flies.

so yeh on the 3rd of April inshallah i will shed my past life and start a new one, not that I'm gonna change or anything, seriously new brides really peeve me off, like being married means having a stick, actually i wont finish that sentence... anyway they need to lighten up and that people who are not married does not make them inferior anyway the point is i realise that responsibility is attached with marriage life and etc etc but white african will hopefully remain the same in terms of her personality and sense of humour.

now the ranting will begin, i swear i am going to keep an online diary of all the craziness associated with preparing for a wedding.

I'm being told off left, right and centre from every one for not stressing

'inganik barda' (your so laid back)

'walahi ti7tagee shwayt 7arara, ta7rkee' (i swear you need to be more motivated, move it)

'timbalah' (lazy)

see its not that I'm lazy i just think why should i make myself stressed and all panicky, and so what if i haven't sorted out my hair and make up yet, or if my bouquet is not ready, or if or if or if or if, the list goes on.

everything will be ok inshallah.

anyway the journey has been rather interesting to say the least.

it had its ups it had its downs, moments of total confusion, moments of sheer 'my god what am i doing', moments of excitement, moments of exhilaration.

I've laughed, I've cried buckets in fact, I've ran around the room and i have sat down in the corners, its been simply crazy.

my mother bless her has sorted most of the things from like 8 months ago seriously, she is well organised, i on the other hand have a care free kind of less stressful look on things which seriously annoys my mother.

i love how we can have full blown arguments about the colour of confetti.

anyway i have come to the conclusion that when a girl gets married its not really her wedding, its her mothers wedding, so my turn will come when i marry my daughter of, see that's how things work...

and don't get me started with invitation list, see this is how the conversation starts:

mama: nasayt ni3zim fulana blah blah (i forgot to invite so and so)

me: mama please, i don't even get on with this woman

mama: la kayf, ma3gulah mani3zimhash? maho fee sanah, garn blah blah jitnee fil 7awsh it zoor feeyah, lazim ni3zimha (what, how can i not invite her, in the year so and so in the century blah blah she came to visit me, i have to invite her)

me: mama ok ilee itshufee (ok mum whatever you want)

mama: bahee, sa7batik mitakda tibee kilhum ijoo? (ok your friends, are you sure you want all of them to come)

me: mama of course, i would rather my friends than some of the people your inviting who cant seem to stop gossiping about every aspect of peoples lives, so yeh all my friends are coming.

mama: ok habibty i didn't mean anything I'm just considering the numbers, remember the place doesn't take more than 350 guests.

me: ok, so lets knock of a couple of your friends starting with blah blah blah

mama: la 3ayb, miskeena shin daritlik (no that's rude, what has she done to you)

me: mama that's not the point

mama: bil3aks it7ibik wajid oo deema tasal 3alyik (on the contrary she really likes you and shes always asking about you)

me: ok mama ok.

and that's how its goes day in day out.

and don't even get me started with the invitation cards, when i went to Bangladesh last year i decided i would get my wedding cards from over there as they are cheaper and they have more of a variety.

so that's what i did, but i didn't get them printed as i didn't know the wedding date and the venue and all that business, plus it needed to be printed in both English and Arabic so i brought them back empty inside.

it was such a hassle finding a printer that would do it for us, either they needed no less than 6,000 to print, imagine 6,000 invites lol, or they couldn't do it in Arabic, so the cards got ready last week Tuesday, slightly late, but like i told my mother better late than never, she just gave me a look as if to say 'don't open that mouth of yours'.

ok I've ranted denough for now, till the next entry.

the other day i ventured into town to do some shopping, i cant stand shopping when its busy, i remember as a child my mum used to complain that she gets a headache from shopping, i would look at her with shock and think 'my god, how is that even possible', now i am echoing my mothers words.

i just want to either have a remote like that stupid film 'click' and just put people on pause, so that i could have less of a hassle time shopping, one time i went shopping and i had the biggest urge to shout out in a really loud voice (which by the way i have the ability to scream really loud) 'GO HOME PEOPLE', but i stop myself, as the lady next to me is shouting out that Jesus is her saviour and that we are all doomed and no one is blinking an eye lid, so if i was to shout then guaranteed people will NOT look my way.

anyway the point is i had gone to shop, and by the time i had finished it was approaching rush hour, and i had something like 6-7 bags in my hand, i managed to find a seat on the bus, when my phone rang, it was my mother telling me off for not doing something i was supposed to have done (more on that on another blog entry) so after apologising and trying to explain, i told her i was coming home and i would speak to her later.

then my phone rang again, and i become lost in a conversation of listening and contributing, i barely noticed the fact that my bus stop was approaching, so i said to the lady next to me in a panicky voice 'i gotta get off'

she just carried on looking straight ahead !!!

me: excuse me i gotta get of'

no response, for crying out lady my stop is approaching.

me: um excuse me, lady, i seriously need to get off,

she then looks at me and says 'i thought you where on the phone'

which i was but who says 'excuse me lady i need to get of' to a friend on the phone???? she gave me a dirty look, stood up and muttered under her breath.

i was desperately pressing the stop button, the bus driver stopped, i started walking towards the exist, and typical me, fell flat on my face on the bus with so many eyes looking at me lol.

the funny thing was i was still having a conversation on the phone, and the person i was talking to was oblivious to the fact that i was lying down flat on my face on the bus.

by the time i stood up, collected the 10 million things that had fallen out of the many bags i was carrying, a few minutes had gone by, not a single person asked if i was ok or helped me :(

the bus driver was tapping his finger on the steering wheel clearly sending out messages of 'you are keeping me waiting' to me.

i swear people when i got of the bus, every single person on that bus was looking out the window at me, i had the urge to do something but good Muslim girls don't swear. instead i smiled and carried on talking on the phone.

now wasn't that an adventure.....

i wish i could play the darbuka.

my brother hamza can play 100 times better than me.

we have 4 darabeek (is that how you say darbuka jama3?) for all the good it can do, they just sit there staring at me, mocking me, pointing at me, knowing full well that i want to play as good as how the musicians on Arabic t.v play.

seriously have you ever watched them, there fingers move at the speed of lightening, its not human no matter what any one says, they are from a land in another galaxy called darbuka land and they are transported here to play in concerts, trust me that's how it works.

i have tried to play at the speed that they play and the result is a swollen hand and a noise that is enough to wake the dead.

i remember one time at a friends wedding, i was given the darbuka (why? as of yet know one knows) and i decided that i will try my luck, the result was my hand going through the darbuka, i had ripped it some how!!!!!! i swear it was some one playing an evil joke.

my face went so red i could have easily camouflaged myself against the red carpet, and all i could do was apologise and blame it on the fact that it was poor quality not that made any one forget, my god i seem to always commit some sort of trauma at weddings.

so yeh i want to play like a professional.

my mother is one of those drivers who is extremely confident with her driving but only if she knows where she is going.

on the other hand if she does not know her route then all hell will break loose, her confidence gets thrown out the window, and even if she kinda knows the route she will still get panicky and will hold onto the steering wheel as though she is hanging of a cliff and if she loosens her hold then she will fall :0).

lets just say that she has no trust in me what so ever :(

why?

well a couple of times i would be directing her, then i would find my self lost, but no way am i going to tell her that, so i would pretend that i know where i am going completely directing her to the end of the world and back until either i or she recognises a street or building.

she cottoned on to this and from then on does not trust me with directions as she feels that i have no awareness of direction, ooooooooh the hurt and the pain.

the other day i wanted to go to the Lowrey which is shopping complex in salford queys, my mum refuses to drive there as she does not know the route so usually my dad will drop us of and pick us up when where done, on this occasion my dad was busy, so i said to my mum:

me: mama shir rayik kanee jibitlik ill directions word for word (mum what would you say if i brought you the directions word for word?)

mama: min wayn 7atjeebee? (from where are you going to bring it?)

me: theres this website AA.com and they have a route planner, you type in the postcode of the where your journey is starting from and then you type in the post code of where it ends, it then prints of a step by step guide of how to get there.

mama: bahee shin dhaminee (how am i going to be reassured)

me: mama man seriously Ive tried it before, just have little trust in me, can you trust me?

mama: (extremely long pause, where she is looking at me and thinking) bahee. (ok)

me: wooooo hooooooo

mama: yister allah

so she picked me up from work, i had printed of every thing, and i was psyching myself up, telling myself 'don't get frustrated when she gets panicky'.

i get in the car, we set of, every thing is fine, we get to the first round about, i tell her to take the first exit, which she does, the area we are in is still recognisable in her eyes, we go past the sainsburys, all the time she is asking 'wayn tawa (where now), i am telling her 'dighree dighree (straight straight), then i knew that a round about was coming so i said to her:

me: mama ba3id ishwayah 7ay jee jazeerat dawaran 9after a while a roundabout is going to appear) i want you to take the first exit.

mama: bahee (ok)

after a while she says to me :

mama: waynhee il jazeera? (where is the round about)

me: its coming

mama: taking a look at me from the corner of her eye then saying 'imshee ya kadhabah, manik 3arfah wayn mashyah (you lier you have no idea where your going)

looooooooooooooooooooool

me: walahi mama i do, matkafeesh, kunee shuja3ah (i do know where am going, be brave)

so eventually the roundabout comes, i remind her to take the first exist

me: mama the first exist

mama: bahee wayn (ok where)

me: tab3ee isayrah albiydah (follow that white car)

mama: wayn (where)

me: there can you see its gone into the first exist

mama: ok

she then follows the car and every one lets out a sigh of relief.

after that the directions went smoothly, we found car park, she managed to park and i was waiting for my praise of how excellent a directing person i was.

it didn't come..

so i said :

me: shir rayak fill dirta, mashallah 3alayah, mish giltlik 3indee il gudreeyah, saga3..(what did you think of my skills, i told you i had it in me)

mama: bahee kawys mashallah, ghair inkhamam fil merwa7. (its good, im just worried about getting home)

talk about an anti-climax lol.

i can safely say that i managed to get home with out getting lost

a certain patient came in the other day to see the Practice Nurse, quite a friendly lady when things go the way she wants.

on this particular day she seemed in high spirits, smiling and what not.

she went in to see the Nurse, 10 minutes later she left and the nurse was in fits of laughter.

basically she had told the nurse that her 81st birthday was coming up, and that she was not getting any younger and so had decided to start writing her will as she could die at any stage, but her family think its ridiculous of her as shes got plenty of years left in her and shes ill fating herself by writing a will.

but regardless of what her family are saying she will be writing up a will as she feels there really isn't long to go.

she then went on to say that whatever the case, before she ups and leaves this world she will most definitely be having a one night stand!!!!!

WHAT?

my god, no comment....

I'm sat here at work and a chocolate cup cake is whispering things to me

'eat me, eat me, eat me'

I'm ignoring it.

well trying to at least, but the thing is its like a magnet, every time i walk past it emits certain rays that seem to be taking hold of my eyes.

but i am stubborn and i will not fall victim to its evilness, i will not... its a fighting battle but in the end goodness will prevail, and fruit will be the outcome, no high in fat, cream infested, high content sugar thing is going to affect me.

saying that though i did fall prey to a cookie mmmmmmm.

i think i can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

its a slow walk towards it but the light is constantly there :)

thanks dearest bloggers for your brilliant words of advise, its great just typing away how i feel and its even better reading your supportive words.

when people say that life is a journey, they really are not kidding. a journey on a roller coaster of emotions and its funny how fragile we can be at times and how amazingly strong we can be at other times. the mind is seriously a maze that anyone can get lost in, and it needs filtering now and then. trials and tribulations make us who we are, and a clever person will come out with lessons that have been learnt.

idinyah ma taswah....

it is near to impossible to please every one in your life, no matter how hard you try, some one is bound to feel that you have not tried hard enough and 9 out of 10 times they will let you know of their 'unhappiness' with you.

is there such a thing as unconditional support? obviously no but i would settle for 50%.

how about being sensitive to other peoples life pressures?

how about not complicating matters?

I'm being stretched from all directions and i can hear the sound of something about to rip.

can you stitch your own limbs back?

you really never think of yourself as emotional until life triggers your emotions to spill out and then your left with the feeling of revealing too much.

and all it can take is the soft spoken words that is 'are you ok?'

and you find the tears rolling down the cheeks, and god forbid if your wearing mascarra... (reminds me of magda rumi's song, al matar al aswad feeee 3ayneeeeeee).

and once you begin crying then the weeks, months of holding in the tears are to be released after the initial first tear drop.

tears are a gift because a 'good cry' really does make you feel better.

tears are words that the heart cant express - well in my case it is.

some one once said that they loved walking in the rain because then no one knows that shes crying.

one things for certain is that our eyes do need to be washed by our tears (not all the time) so that life can be seen alot clearer

ive never been one for crying infront of others including loved ones, i feel vunrable to be seen crying, like im some how exposing a weakness in me, so that if i ever do loose the control of holding in my tears, it usually because i have lost control of my emotions.

but the light at the end of the tunnel continues to shine.

and dua is seriously a powerful tool.

The other day I was lining up at one of the many subways in dear old Manchester.

The man serving me was Asian, and before asking me what type of bread I wanted he asked instead 'are you Iranian?'

'Excuse me' I replied, I didn’t catch what he had said.

'Are you Iranian?' speaking slightly louder.

Iranian oh, no I’m not' all the time thinking I want the Italian bread, Italian bread Italian bread.

'So what are you' he said

I nearly said Italian lol

'I’m Libyan' all the while contemplating on whether I should be having this conversation with this dude.

'Libyan, oooooooooh, your capital is Beirut'

'Beirut?' ?????? He really confused me, and then it hit me, he thought I meant Lebanon.

'No dude, the capital of Libya is Tripoli, Libya is in the north of Africa'

'What?'

Seriously I was beginning to walk away...

My brother then says to him, 'bro you know gaddafi'

To which I turned around to my brother and told him of, it irates me when people associate Libya with that man.

To which the man says 'gaddafi?'

To which my brother replies' you know gadafi stadium in Lahore'

The man then says ' I hate Pakistan'

????????????????

I couldn’t help laughing out loud.

Then asking what fillings we wanted, tuna, he continued to talk and came out with an extremely weird conspiracy theory that I had never heard of.

'You know gaddafi killed Bhutto?

???????????????

'He killed Bhutto? And where did you hear that from?'

noooooooo not this Bhutto, the one in 1978'

???????????

yep that makes sense.

Well what could I say apart from 'oh I see'

He then switches topics and asks about a book I was holding. 'What you reading?'

I was holding ibn kathirs book titled 'stories of the prophets', so I told him what it was to which he replies 'yes yes, I like the story of ali'

????????

ali? I was going to say that ail (ra) was not a prophet, but from where I was standing it looked easier to argue the Bhutto case.

I love Manchester.

it has been a while since my last post, i dont even know where the time flies to be honest.

my lack of blogging has also been due to technical difficulties i.e no internet at home (every one say aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw in sympathy).

being deprived of the internet makes you feel like your missing out on something big.

anyway dearest bloggers nothing much to report, but i will share with you the experince of eating hot chestnuts, sweet potato straight from the oven with red tea with roasted peanuts mmmmmm. basiclly what i have been having this winter.

i swear people you cant beat the taste of origional libyan tea, yeh maaaaaaaaaan.

mmmm roasted nuts with libyan tea, simply beautiful... and of course put them all together and you get an amazing winter treat

also ive been teaching my brother the art of hugging a tree:

BLAH BLAH BLAH.....
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i do actually have alot to say but i dont have the energy....

ever been in a situation (my god just typing those words a realisation hit me, i start many of my blog entries with 'ever been in a situation) where you find yourself laughing at yourself just for the sheer fact at how stupid you where?


the other day i arrived at work early in the morning, took out my keys, its so routine that i don't have to think about it any more, or so i thought..


i literally stood there for 10 minutes trying to open the main door with my keys, the stupid key wouldn't even go in, i kept looking at the key, examining it, then trying to place it into the key hole, but for some weird reason it wouldn't fit, at this point i was getting frustrated and to top it all of i was wet.


i then came to the realisation that some one must have changed the locks, no other explanation.. so i stood there cursing every one i could think of who might have been involved in changing the locks.


i started to rummage around in my bag, looking for my mobile so i can call the manager, when i felt something at the bottom of my bag, low and behold it was a bunch of keys...


my god it was my work keys, i looked down at my hand and it struck me what the problem was, i was holding my house key, i was trying to open work with my house key!!!!!!!!!!


it doesn't even resemble my work key, and not only that my work keys come in a bunch attached to a key ring, my house key is a singular key, how in the world did i confuse between them??????


walahi guys i stood there laughing at myself for what seemed forever.


seriously why!!!

sometimes it seems that life hands out a case of 'everything going wrong' and just when you think life hates you, it turns itself around and gives you a tremendous hug ;)

the other day i was sat at work eating a bowl of cornflakes (bran flakes actually), it was 9 am, and i was cherishing the moment of silence cause i new that ahead of me would be a day of constant 'blah blah blah blah blah'.

anyway so I'm sat eating breakfast and contemplating on writting to gordon brown and kindly asking him to scrap Mondays from the weekdays, when a patient walks in and interrupts my line of thought.

'what you eating there sinder?' (i love how my name has so many different versions).

me: 'breakfast'

patient: 'oh, what is it?'

me: i had the urge to say camel hair for some reason, 'its bran flakes'

patient: 'oh, do you like bran flakes?'

me: 'yep i certainly do, it fills me up and gets me ready for work'

patient: 'ok'

and that was that...

next day i leave work, I'm walking towards oxford road, and i can clearly hear some one beeping continuously while I'm walking, but being an Arab girl, I've been brought up not to turn around when hearing the beep of a car, so the car continued to beep and i continued to walk until the car literally parked in front of me, it was the same patient.

patient: 'hey sinder, i was beeping you'

me: 'oh was you, sorry i didn't realise'

patient: ' where you of to?'

me: 'the beach... only kidding I'm going to the hospital to visit a friend'

patient: 'oh, you going to come back to work?'

me: 'nope, Ive finished for the day, praise the lorrrrd'

patient: 'oh'

me: i wanted to walk away, 'why is there something you need?'

patient: 'ummmm no i was going to pop in later but i will leave it for Thursday when your next in'

me: 'ok then, well you have a good day now'

and that was that...

next day i come into work, and the patient had brought me a little gift...

3 boxes of bran flakes looooooooool

how adorable is that?

basically she used to work for Kellogg's (the makers of cereal) and she still has contacts and gets given offers, so when she had seen me eat it for breakfast she decided to get me some more.

bless her, i swear people, she made my day :))))))))

don't you think that the Libyan traditional dress is so cute, its simply lovely.

amazingly enough when i was a kid i hated it, couldn't stand the look of it, the ladies dress that is, the mens was cool, but for some reason i couldn't stand the ladies 3arbee / irday.

i never realised that there where sooooo many different types, and they differ depending on what area your from as well, cool!!!

i only started liking them recently, not all types i have to be honest, some give the illusion of an over dressed peacock.

but some are totally funky, especially the Bedouin one (ph i am one at heart lol), my ultimate fav has to be the 3abroog with all that silver funky jewelery, yeh man...

i guess my hatred for it stems from the fact that as a 7 year old child, for one of the eids, my mums friend dressed me up in the whole 3arbee gear, including the helmet of gold,as well as the frontal gold sheild (loads of gold involved), then we went to the local mosque for a eid party, how traumatising, picture me in the whole gear, sat in a mosque in Scotland, surrounded by children from different ethnic backgrounds all asking me what i was wearing.

i couldn't even participate in the games because i couldn't walk, i had to be assisted as i had been wrapped like dolma. walahi if i had a scanner i would scan the pic, i looked like i was not impressed in the least lol.

after that episode of my life, the word 3arbee sent shivers down my spine. but i have gotten over that after much counselling ;)

seriously though, the past 2 years I've been to quite a few weddings and some of the brides looked majorly funky in there 3arbees, so yeh I've been converted, but in all honesty i would rather take pictures than to wear it myself. take for instance the picture above, it was so funny to watch her trying to walk, bless...

i remember one time at uni, we had culture week, and i decided that i would feature Libya as one of the cultures, so i booked an area and for a whole week i offered shahee 7amar, arabic cofee, ghraybah and ka3ak, as well as a gallery of photos and art work, and of course historical info including a section dedicated to the shaheed umar mukhtar and my friend bless her came in one day wearing a pink 3arbee and stood all day with me wearing it lol, lets just say we got a crowd going :)

my first trip to Libya was in 2002, my brother and i had gone through the Tunisian border, so my uncle had picked us up from Tunis and we drove to Tripoli, when we entered Tripoli it was eid morning and people where leaving there homes to go to the eid prayer, and cause it was cold some of the men where wearing jard, and the image of sun rise with an old man wearing jard and an old woman wearing irday was one of the most beautiful scenes i saw when i was in Libya.

wow that was quite a rant...

i have been craving roasted chestnuts for like the past year!!!

i simply adore them mmmm.

and yesterday a good friend of mine came back from Turkey and handed me a bag full of chestnuts that are ready to be roasted yipeeeee.

when i went to turkey in 2005 the weather was still chilly so the chestnut men where everywhere, i didn't need to hunt them down, this was the first chest nut man i saw and i literally ran to him bought so much of him and then requested to take his photo, for some reason the man thought i had issues, why would he think that!!!

at the moment i am rubbing my hands in glee, gastil gastil gastil, i could sing a song about chestnuts.

you know what else is amazing for winter season, batata 7elwa (sweet potato) put it in the even, let in cook, simply gorgeous.

and then to add to that the most amazing drink sa7lab, yeh man...

ever been in a stituation where you thought you heard something but it turns out you miss heard what the person said?

you see i seem to make a habit of miss-hearing people but i blame it on peoples pronounciation, although my friends will say otherwise but dont listen to them :)

the other day i was chatting to my mums friend, she is one funky dudette, she is one of those mothers friends who you can have a laugh with, see mothers tend to have different types of friends, some are of the type who speak down to you, extremley patronising and will not be convinced that your capable of doing anything on your own, i.e treat you like your still 3.

other types are the kind that speak to you or give you some sort of attention when they need something from you, other than that they wont blink an eye lid at you. then you have the second mother, and then some are the funky variaty, the whole been there done that and permenantly wore the t-shirt, the type you could seriously enjoy yourself with.

so i was having a general chit chat with her, talking about the wedding we went to, her taking the mick about me falling, then we started talking about what we wore, she was asking where i had bought my dress, she then asked my opinion of what she wore, to which i replied 'mashallah, tala3ti zay il ghazalah' - you looked lovely mashallah.

she smilled and then i thought she said 'mitakda matla3tish zay il feelah' - you sure i didnt look like an elephant'

to which i replied '7ashak feelah, musta7eel' no way elephant, never.

her facial expression alerted me to the fact that i had said something she wasnt expecting and before i could ask she said: 'feelah? feelah? anee magiltash feelah'

oh my god some body ask the earth to swallow me whole please, what do you say...

all i could say was 'sam7eenee khwelah, shin giltee?' -pardon me aunty, what did you say?'

to which she replied 'giltlick libsee makanish ikhee' - i said my dress wasnt horrible?

??????????? where in the world did i hear elephant???????

she then said ' mala can fe balak feelah lama shiftinee' - well then you must have thought elephant when you saw me.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaah

to which i kept muttering on about how that wasnt true and she looked amazing, and how just the other day i mentionedto my mum how she had looked really nice.

but i dont think she was convinced :(

saying that though she did laugh and poke fun at me to my utter embarrasment. why do these things always happen looooool

recently i was asked to be the photographer at a friends wedding, she wanted me to take photos of her henna as well as the zafah (wedding).

i don't have the best of luck when it comes to my cameras, for some bizarre reason things keep happening to my cameras. my first camera was a Nikon, absolutely fantastic camera, my dad borrowed it when he went on holiday to Greece, it ended up in the wrong hands, i.e stolen from my dads back pack.

so of i went and bought another camera, a Fuji fine pix, my Bangladesh shots where made by that camera, in October my mum was heading of to Dubai and requested to borrow my camera, so i handed it over, 10 days later my mum is back safe and sound,as for my camera, well lets just say that it some how landed at the bottom of a fountain in one of Dubai's hotels ????????

my poor mother was traumatised so she bought me a camera as a replacement, a Sony, now I'm particular about my cameras, it takes me a while to buy one as i review it, check out the pros and cons, test it out etc... before finally buying it, i couldn't this time as my mum had made the choice for me, i smiled, took the camera and plugged it into the charger.

between October and now, the camera has been functioning okish, its not what i would have chosen but its functional, so of i headed to the henna, and began to take pictures of the future bride, just before they started the ritual that is henna, my camera went on strike and decided it wanted to commit suicide, thus preventing me from taking any more photos, and unbelievably not a single person in the room had a camera on them!!!! my camera is stuck to me like glue, you never know when it could come in handy.

so unfortunately i wasn't able to take any photos of the henna.

the wedding was 2 days later, i borrowed 2 cameras from friends and went to the wedding hall, the bride entered and i began to take snap shots of her, she was walking slowly to the sound of specific bridal entrance music, people where sat from both sides and she was walking amongst them on a white carpet, i was ahead taking snap shots from all angles, walking backwards, walking walking walking not realising there was a a huge vase with flowers directly behind me as part of the decoration.

no one warned me, what ended up happening was i fell backwards due to stumbling over the vase, the vase topples over, smashes to a thousands pieces, the flowers scatter everywhere, white african is on the floor, camera still in hand, the brides mother is looking horrified, every one is watching, pointing, whispering, my mother is hiding under the table, the bride isn't even aware that anythings happened lol.

i had 2 options either get up, run away and never be seen again in the Manchester community OR get up, smile and continue to take pic, i chose option 2, but i did have the courtesy to apologise to the mother of the bride who responded 'khadit sawha'.

so yeh again i fell, i swear the floor seems to have some sort of attraction for me as I'm constantly falling, although i have to say in my defense i was wearing a long abayah and had heels on.

isn't it so annoying when some one is in a mood and they instantly spoil your own mood because of the intense messed up mood of theres.

you could be having a perfectly fine day up until you sit with a person who is in a foul mood and there mood rubs onto you so by the end of the day you finding yourself being all grumpy due to some one elses mood, how messed up is that!!!

whats worse is when they wont talk about it, theres only so many times you can say: 'is every thing ok?' and when they say fine you just want to bash them over the head with an inflatable iron because clearly there lying because the the whole world and its dog knows that some thing is up.

then later you get accused of not giving a damn!!!! well excuse me, but when i asked you a zillion times whats up? you told me nothing, so it took it to mean that NOTHING was up...

NOOOOOOO im supposed to read between the lines, i didn't realise im supposed to be telepathic, see im one of those people who cant jamil (i dont even know what the english word for this is, but its basically when you go over the top with politeness and asking if a person is ok, help me out bloggers what is the english word for mujamalah?) i might ask a person 3 times but then i feel stupid for continuously asking, so i will just say 'im here if you need me for anything' and thus leaving the ball in there court.

but some people need to be asked a trillion times before they finally break the ice and confess whats eating them up,

you know what really gets me as well is when they admit somethings up but say 'its not you, its just that i have issues at the moment' ok fine we all have issues but the fact that you have chosen to be in my presence i.e met up with me, means that you want to change your mood, you want your mood up lifted, now i am going to try my best to achieve this but please for the love of god its a 2 way thing, help me out with at least a smile, a sort of laugh, but to fold your arms through out and sulk and not say 2 words in an hour is slightly pushing it, what do you want me to do jump up and down and dance the Copacabana?

human moods are such funny things, why do we have them?

i learnt something new today that i would like to share with the blogging world.

its probably the best advice you might receive today, cherish it you never know when it can come handy.

its common sense really...

basically....

if it has ever crossed your mind...

even for a milli second..

to wear high heels when its icy outside...

DON'T EVER DO IT.....

best advice i can give for today..

don't be a whitelibyanafrican this winter and wear heels,its sure to make you look a fool if you do ;0)

tomorrow will be arafat, this time last year i was with 5 million others performing hajj, i cant believe that a year has passed, subhannallah!!!

i feel a sense of sadness for not going this year, that may sound selfish but believe me once you have tasted hajj then your heart yearns to perform hajj each year.

usually I'm not a t.v watcher, i don't really care for it, Arabic or English channels, but this year each time i walk past the television and if there showing anything to do with hajj then i find myself staring at the screen, and i could stand there for half an hour absorbed with the scenes unfolding on t.v.

oh how i wish i was there.....

inshallah i intend to fast tomorrow.

so much has happened since i came back from hajj, time flies yet so much change can occur, i pray that Allah swt grants us all the chance to perform hajj.

eid mubarak to you all, may you have a blessed eid full of happiness and la7am mmmmmm.

the other day me and tawhida where walking towards the mosque in town having a general chit chat, we turned round the corner, when i noticed that one of the buildings was being renovated, the whole front of the building was purely window, ie glass, so we could see what was happening inside, the builders must have gone home but what they left behind, to me, was what being British is all about :))))

the good old cup of tea!!!

cant live without it, put the kettle on and you receive instant relaxation, i love it...

why oh why is it so hard to wake up in the morning?

the initial process of opening the eyes when the alarm goes of is agony to the eye lids, but whats worse is processing the thoughts to your legs to get them to get out of bed!!!

you begin by sending messages to the legs but half way through your mind decides it doesn't really want to get up so the end result is half the body hanging of the bed with the head still stuck on the pillow aaaaaah.

and why is it time flies by when you don't want it to, the 5 minute snooze is more like a 2 second snooze, one of the most annoying sounds to be heard is the sound of the alarm, pretending to ignore it doesn't work because it gets louder and louder until you have to get up and shut it up.

life would be more easier if getting up in the morning wasn't such a chore...

or if we functioned through our dreams, now that would be cool, sleeping yet dreaming that your wroking, kill 2 birds with one stone, hmmmm now which drug on the market gives this affect.....

why does the weekend fly past at a speed of a squirrel being catapulted into the air? why? and the week goes by slightly slower, but today is Thursday, tomorrow is Friday and the weekend begins again :))))

anyway the issues raised this past weekend was smoking

i was basically walking past a corner shop fiddling with my mp3, when i noticed some one was talking to me, i looked up to see a teenage girl, you know the look, huge hooped ear rings, geled down hair with a pony tail, track suite bottoms, etc...

i hadn't heard what she had said so i said 'excuse me'

to which she replied 'can you buy something for me?' waving a five pound note in my face.

'what would you like me to buy?' i said

'pack of 10 ciggs, please' with a look of desperation on her face.

to which i said 'fraid not, i wont do it'

she walked away upset but within 2 seconds had found another 'adult' to ask, and from the looks of things he didn't mind getting her what she wanted.

see things like this irritate me, the fact that certain so called adults will buy ciggs and alcohol to under aged 'children', with out a care in the world.

the shop keepers are sticking to the law (not all of them) but many adults wont blink an eye lid to buying these products to juveniles. its disgusting behaviour...

the lack of responsibility and the failure of being an example to the youngsters is seriously frightening, the fact that decent role models are quickly diminishing in our societies is a scary thing to ponder on.

role models is an extremely important element, as humans its natural to look up to some one, especially a person that you admire, but if the persons qualities are questionable then admiration can be a dangerous thing that can have drastic affects on others around.

i think next time i see an adult buying such things for children then defiantly i will report them..

I'm feeling better hamdullilah, thanks every one for your kind words and advice.

what i did was i grabbed my camera, put my headphones on and went for a long walk and eventually found myself in one of my fav parks.

i sat down, and gathered my thoughts together, i was alone in the park, and for a few seconds it felt like i was the only person in the world, niceeeeee :)

my eyes where looking around observing small things, concentrating on the nature that surrounded me, and eventually my eyes landed on a lonely tree, and a ray of light was hitting this tree from the top and it looked so beautiful, and for some reason it brought a smile to my face and a sense of relief, and my mood instantly lifted, i tried taking a picture of how it looked:

i would have sat in that park for a longer time but i had to go to my course....

ever been annoyed but you really cant pin point exactly why it is your annoyed?

I'm having that feeling at this moment in time, I'm mega peeved off but when i think about it i don't really know why aaaah frustrating and its making me even more annoyed.

its kinda funny really, but right now I'm not laughing i just want to rip a pillow in half and stuff the feathers down some ones throat.

actually typing that has helped slightly, hmmmm there really is more to blogging....

breath in breath out......

ok so since the last post, i have been pondering about magic carpets and broomsticks, weighing up the options, thinking of the advantages of both and the disadvantages as well.

imagining what it would be like to fly by both, wow just think of the possibilities.

flying to other countries on a carpet or a broomstick, whatever takes your fancy, so cool, advantage of carpet is that if you got tired you can sleep or if you needed to pray then hey presto your already on a carpet go for it lol.

i genuinely am interested to know which you would prefer to travel by:

magic carpet?

or

a broomstick?

London makes me laugh so much, it really has the weirdest combination of people and they all seem to be based in the underground. i swear London city is one of those places where people watching could be turned into a sport.

i really doubt a person can be bored sitting at a window of a cafe watching the weirdness that is humanity walk by lol, i love it :)

i was in London this weekend and sure enough weirdness seemed to follow me. before even reaching London me and my friend ended up sitting next to a man who was desperate to know whether we spoke Urdu? he wasn't Asian, he was an English man who was learning to speak Urdu as he is intending on flying to Pakistan some time in the future to attend his friends wedding, cool, we replied that unfortunately we didn't speak Urdu although i new a few words and i could count to 4 but i doubt that means that i had grasped the language.

we said we spoke Arabic instead, later he asked what 'Arabian' food was like, i seriously get annoyed with that phrase 'Arabian' what is that? when i was at collage i had a couple of friends who asked me whether i was 'Arabian' and whether i listened to 'Arabian' music, once a guy asked me if i ever visited 'Arabian' lol, yeh all the time mate!!

anyway the guy was pretty funky, a practicing Buddhist who asked us 1001 questions about Islam, we tried answering to the best of our abilities.

when he found out i was Libyan, he told me that his mother had recently come back from visiting Libya and said she had the best time of her life ever!!! well I'm glad she did thank god.

i found out from this dude where you can get ostrich meat, in borough market in London, ostrich burgers, i so need to try them out, I'm being serious I'm craving ostrich meat, a huuuuuuge chicken...

so we get to London eventually, euston station and our friend meets us and off we go to the underground, 3 hijabis sitting next to each other, it must have been a sight cause the dude sat in front of us looked at us and then said 'so what are you, the 3 Grace's?' looooooool to which i laughed at, my friend nodded and then we continue dto chat about the state of Palestine.

couple of seconds later the guy then decided to lean forward and asks:

'do you ladies travel by flying carpet, have you ever travelled on a flying carpet?'

????????

we just stared at him and then my friend pointed at her rucksack and said:

'actually yes, come to think of it i have one in my ruck sack'

to which he rubbed his hand with glee, and announced to the rest of the train, 'these girls travel on flying carpet, they zoooooom around there room on a flying carpet'

laughs hysterically and walks of the train, 2 seconds later a man dressed up as Elvis walks in with a guitar and starts singing 'i said a one for the money, 2 for.....

looooool i love London...

i love it when the leaves change colour and fall to the ground, and that feeling of winter approaching, soooo nice.

the best time for hot drinks, seriously...

just wanted to share some of the photos i took the other day of my favourite thing....

TREES....

seriously for me taking a walk in the park is a de-stressor, and gives me the chance to contemplate on my life, day, hours etc...

a nice hot chocolate later or a chai latte perrrrrrrfect...

i hate rush hour, between the hour of 8-9am and 5:30-6:30pm, its a killer. its not that i even use public transport, i walk to work, what really annoys me, what really peeves me off, is having to cross the road.

picture it in your mind, i walk out my house at 8:10am, everything is cool until i get to the first busy road, every day its a chore trying to get across, i can easily stand there for 20 minutes trying to find an opportunity to cross the road, and as the seconds go by I'm getting more and more annoyed, so that by the time i finally get an opportunity to cross my face is handing out evil looks to every single driver that i pass.

i hate it when the drivers are driving past me knowing that I'm struggling to cross the road and not a single driver gives me the opportunity, they just continue to drive by me, its times like these that i think to myself if i ever become a driver then i will make sure that i will let people cross the road, i will give them the way because i white african have been there, done that and over worn the t-shirt.

it doesn't even take time for me to cross the road, I'm fast, blink of an eye lid, yet 99% of drivers will not give me the right of way, i always say to my friends 'god created human legs before the wheel'.

so in conclusion to this rant on Friday morning, please with a cherry on the top let me cross the road, i will pray for you if you do :))))))))))))))))))))))))))

sometimes i ponder about the relationships we have with people and how we really can take such matters for granted, take friendships for instance, we all have friends, some are more closer than others, we have different degrees of friendships, those people whom we class as being like 'family', then others who we occasionally meet up with, and then others whom we bump into at events but we get along just fine. the bonds of friendship can be as strong as a metal chain.

some one once told me that you know your close friends from the amount of missed calls, received calls and text messages you have on your phone from them lol, he told me that when he was getting married and when it came to inviting his friends, he took his phone and went through it and invited those people whom he was in constant contact with, any one he hadn't heard from in months or years he took of the list, interesting....

sometimes i think is it really worth making close friends with special people when the end result is that they will pack there bags and leave?

the answer is yes of course its worth it, if anything those memories of friendship will be cherished forever, and we are affected by our friendships, our inner growth and change in ourselves can be partly due to the friends we have.

the reason i started this blog entry to begin with is due to the fact that a dear dear friend of mine is leaving me waaaaaaaaaa.

shes packing her bags and moving to Dubai on Tuesday and although this was on the agenda for some time i guess i never truly thought it would happen or come so soon. its always sad when good friends are no longer a walk away, in Muna's case its going to have to be a fly away.

sometimes we may not speak or see our friends for some time but it gives us peace of mind that they are only a phone call away or a bus or drive away, its going to be hard not having Muna in the same city as me, the prophet PBUH once said that the good friend is the one who reminds you of Allah SWT each time you meet them, and truly Muna is that type of friend, she is my mirror.

i pray that her journey is a safe one and that wherever life takes her it hands out goodness and khair to her and may Allah always forever keep her happy.

remember always be appreciative of your friends...