Touch-Ups and Tidying

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThe car went off this morning for touch-ups. It’s barely a fortnight old, and already it needs a little attention, which I’ve decided not to read too much into. New things often arrive almost perfect. It’s the almost that keeps the service centres in business.

I’ll admit I was more attached to the idea of handing it over than I expected to be. It’s only a car. It has no feelings about being away from home, and it certainly isn’t missing me. Still, the driveway looked a touch underdressed without it, like a mantelpiece with one photo frame removed. I told myself this was perfectly normal. I’m not entirely convinced.

Work, by contrast, was slow. Not empty, just unhurried, the kind of day that moves at the pace of a long lunch without actually offering one. After the rush of earlier in the week, I wasn’t going to complain. There’s a school of thought that says a slow day is a wasted day. I’ve never belonged to it. Slow days are where the backlog quietly gets nibbled at, and where you remember that not every hour needs to prove something.

I was home early, which felt faintly illicit. Shortly after, it rained. Not a polite drizzle, but the proper Klang Valley downpour that arrives without warning and leaves without apology. I can’t pretend I minded. There’s a particular smugness in watching heavy rain from indoors when you’ve only just made it in. It’s one of life’s smaller victories, but I collect those.

The truth is I needed the rest. The holiday had been lovely, and the first days back had been full, and somewhere between the two I’d run a little low without quite noticing. The body has a way of sending the bill late. I took the hint, sat down, and let the sound of the rain do most of the work.

Then, inevitably, the evening turned to paperwork. I had planned to rest properly, and I did, for a respectable amount of time, but there’s a pile that has been looking at me reproachfully for a week. Paperwork is the one task that grows in proportion to how firmly you ignore it. I gave in.

I won’t pretend it was enjoyable. It wasn’t. But there’s a certain dull satisfaction in clearing forms and filing things into their rightful places while the rain carries on outside. It’s the administrative equivalent of tidying a drawer. Nobody else will ever notice, and that is precisely why it feels so good to have done it.

By the end of the evening, the stack was noticeably smaller, the rain had eased, and I’d reached that pleasant state of mild tiredness that comes from doing something useful but unremarkable.

The car should be back soon, touched up and presumably looking pleased with itself. Until then, it’s a quieter household, a lighter to-do list, and a day that asked very little and got, I think, a fair return.

Small Parcels, Steady Ground

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThe second day back is always kinder than the first. Nothing about the work had changed overnight, but I had, slightly. The edges were softer. I knew where things were again, and more importantly, I’d stopped expecting a sea view every time I looked up.

The day began with a small, genuinely lovely surprise. Eileen, our pharmacist, had just come back from the UK, and she’d brought me something: a box of chocolates and a Jellycat. I’d like to report that I received both with dignified restraint. I did not. There’s something disarming about being handed a soft toy as a grown adult in the middle of a working morning. You can’t hold it seriously. It simply won’t allow it.

I’ve always maintained that the best gifts are the ones that tell you someone thought of you while they were busy doing something else entirely. Bringing back chocolates from abroad is a kindness. Choosing a Jellycat suggests she has me figured out rather more accurately than I’d like to admit. The chocolates, I suspect, will not survive the week. The Jellycat has already found a place where it can keep an eye on things.

After that, the day settled into being long. Not dramatic, not difficult, just long, in the patient way that some days are. I’ve noticed that long days feel shorter when they start with a kindness. It’s not scientific, but I’d defend it.

By evening, Anita took the wheel and drove us to NSC. I was happy to be a passenger, a role I’ve come to appreciate more with age. You get to look out of the window and hold opinions about other people’s lane discipline without having to do anything about it.

We did some shopping, which I’ll describe as purposeful rather than necessary. There’s a difference, and Anita understands it better than I do. I mostly carried things and offered views that were neither requested nor acted upon. It’s an arrangement that has worked for a good many years.

Then the car needed a top-up, and we charged at the TNB headquarters just across the road. I’m still adjusting to this business of planning around plugs, and I’ll confess I went into owning an EV half expecting to find it a chore. Tonight it simply wasn’t. The charger was right there, the area felt well lit and safe, and it was a short stroll from where we’d been anyway. If every charging stop were this convenient, I’d have very little left to grumble about, which would be a loss in its own way.

There’s a small irony in charging an electric car at the electricity company’s own front door. It felt rather like buying bread from the baker’s back step. Fitting, somehow, and slightly too neat.

We drove home with a full battery, a few shopping bags and the sense that the week had found its footing. Two days in, and the holiday already feels like something pleasant that happened to someone I know quite well.

Re-entry, With Minor Turbulence

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThere is no gentle way back from a holiday. You can try to wake up early, eat a sensible breakfast and pretend that yesterday’s mee rebus never happened, but the body knows. It spent three days being told nothing mattered very much, and now it’s being asked to believe otherwise.

The morning made no allowances for any of that. It was busy in the scattered, slightly ungrateful way that first days back tend to be. Nothing was difficult on its own, but everything wanted attention at once, like a queue of people who have each been told they’re next. I spent the first couple of hours chasing loose ends I’d quite forgotten I’d left loose, which is the real cost of going away. The holiday is free. The catching up is not.

I’ll admit to a brief, uncharitable moment around mid-morning when I wondered whether the break had been worth it. That’s the post-holiday trap: you blame the rest for the rush that follows, rather than the rush that was always going to be there. I talked myself out of it, mostly.

And then, as it usually does if you leave it alone long enough, the day began to sort itself out. Things found their places. The noise settled into something closer to a rhythm, and I remembered, somewhat to my surprise, that I quite like the work when it isn’t shouting at me.

The rest of the day was fully booked, start to finish, with no gaps worth the name. I find I don’t mind a full day nearly as much as a fragmented one. A packed schedule at least has the decency to be honest about itself. You know where you stand, which is generally on your feet, and there’s a kind of clarity in not having time to wonder what to do next.

Lunch was the sort eaten with one eye on the clock. I won’t describe it, partly out of discretion and partly because there’s nothing to describe. After the weekend’s standard, it would only embarrass everyone involved.

I was back home a little after six. Not late, exactly, but late enough for the light to have given up on the day before I had. There’s a particular feeling to walking through the door after the first day back: not exhaustion, more a pleasant flatness, like a balloon that has decided against floating anywhere in particular.

The evening asked nothing of me, and I gave it exactly that. No plans, no errands, no admirable use of free time. Just sitting, a bit of quiet, and the satisfaction of having got the hardest day of the week out of the way on its first attempt.

There is something to be said for a day that starts badly and ends well. It makes a better story than one that is merely fine throughout. Tomorrow, presumably, will be a normal day. I find I’m rather looking forward to normal.

Homeward, by Way of the Stomach

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThe last morning of a holiday always has a slightly guilty air about it. Nobody announces that it’s over, but everyone is already folding things in their heads, and the view from the balcony starts to look like something you’re being asked to return.

Breakfast first, because I’m not leaving on an empty stomach. The spread was decent. Hotel buffets tend to blur into one long tray of scrambled eggs, and I’ve stopped pretending otherwise. The nasi dagang was the exception, properly good and worth the trip to the counter twice. I went back a second time and I’m not sorry.

Then a final lap of the resort with the 360 camera, which I’d been meaning to do all weekend and had somehow put off until the last possible moment. That’s very much my style. The place is hilly. Not charmingly undulating, actually hilly, the sort of gradient that makes you wonder whether the architect had ever met a guest carrying a breakfast’s worth of rice. The camera, being 360, records everything, including the man holding it pausing to admire views that were mostly an excuse to catch his breath.

Packing went smoothly enough, and we were out before noon. I consider leaving a hotel before noon a genuine achievement. Other people run marathons.

The first stop came quickly: keropok lekor. I had told myself, quite firmly, that I’d hold back for lunch. That resolve lasted roughly as long as it took to smell them frying. A road trip on this side of the country without keropok lekor is simply an inefficient way of getting home.

The proper stop was Temerloh, for lunch at Go’ Bang Maju Tol. Anita had her patin tempoyak, which she’d been quietly looking forward to all morning, and it showed. Tempoyak divides people, and I think that’s rather the point of it. My mee rebus udang was excellent, generous with the prawns and with a gravy that made a convincing case for slowing down. Of the two dishes, mine was the safer choice. I’d argue it was also the right one, though I wouldn’t argue it at the table.

Then into Temerloh town to charge the car. This is still a new ritual for us, and I’m undecided whether I find it tedious or rather civilised. A charging stop forces a pause you’d never otherwise take. On a full stomach, it’s hard to object too strongly to being told to sit still for a while.

The return leg delivered the jam around Karak, as reliably as the weather. There is something almost reassuring about it. If the Karak traffic ever cleared, I’d assume something had gone badly wrong elsewhere.

Home around half six. Bags dropped, shoes off, and the particular silence of a house that has been waiting for you. Nothing much happened for the rest of the evening, which was exactly the plan.

It was a nice break. Not a grand one, nor a life-changing one, just a few days of good food, steep paths and nowhere urgent to be. These days, that’s the sort I’ve come to prefer.

Breakfast Club, East Coast Edition

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoSunday began the way Sundays ought to, slowly and without apology. No alarms, no rounds, no particular reason to be anywhere at any specific minute. The sea outside the villa was already up and about, but it seemed happy to let us lie in.

Eventually we stirred ourselves and drove into Kuantan for breakfast with the MRSM friends. The venue was Nasi Lemak Lerek, conveniently close to the house of one of the group, which is the sort of local knowledge no guidebook can quite replicate. The food was very good, and the company better still. There is a particular ease that comes with friends who knew you before you had any idea who you were going to be. Conversation picks up exactly where it left off, sometimes decades earlier, and nobody needs reminding of the plot.

Most of them were heading back to KL after the meal, so the farewells came with full stomachs. We, rather smugly, had another night in Cherating.

First, though, the car needed charging, a ritual now as natural as checking the weather. Then came the seaside drive back, taken at a leisurely pace with frequent and entirely justified stops. Fruit from a roadside stall, roti paung still warm, putu and keropok lekor. The back seat began to resemble a small travelling market, and the car smelt faintly and wonderfully of fried fish crackers.

Along the way we stopped at Holiday Villa. We used to stay there many times when Idlan and Irfan were toddlers, often with Anita’s parents. Walking around, I was pleased to find it still well maintained, the gardens tidy, the sea exactly where we had left it. Places like that hold memories rather patiently. You return years later and find them waiting, a little older, a little quieter, but intact. Small feet on the sand, grandparents in the shade, the endless negotiation of naps. It was good to be reminded.

Back at our resort, we arrived in time for the F1. A quick late lunch at the café overlooking the sea, then settled in for the race. This year the Bahrain Grand Prix was held in Malaysia, bringing Formula 1 back to Sepang, which felt like a homecoming of sorts. The weather, being Malaysian, insisted on making a contribution, and rain delayed the start. There is a certain poetry in waiting for cars capable of three hundred kilometres an hour to be held up by a cloud.

The race eventually finished, just in time for a walk on the beach. The tide was out, the light was going gold, and the sand was firm underfoot. We did not talk much. There was no need.

Dinner was at the stalls just outside the resort, simple and satisfying, with plastic chairs, good food and the hum of other people’s weekends around us. It was the right ending to a day that had asked very little of us and given back a great deal.

We slept well. Properly, deeply well, the way you only manage near the sea.