Halfway, and Slightly Behind

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoAnd here we are in July, which means the year has quietly folded itself in half while I wasn't paying attention. I could have sworn 2026 arrived only yesterday, still creaking with resolutions and good intentions, and yet somehow six months have slipped past like coins through a hole in a coat pocket. There's a particular vertigo to reaching the midpoint of a year — the sense that the ledger is now half-spent and the columns don't quite balance. Time to get things moving faster, I keep telling myself, though telling oneself is rarely the same as doing.

It was, ironically, a slow day that gave me the room to think all this. There's a certain kind of quiet that doesn't soothe so much as prompt — the mind, given a little slack, immediately wanders off to audit itself. Not unpleasant, exactly. Just a reminder that stillness and ease are not always the same thing.

The middle of the day was given over to a lunch meeting with a pharmaceutical rep, that peculiar genre of appointment where the food is generally better than the conversation demands and the pitch arrives somewhere between the mains and the coffee. Pleasant enough, and mercifully unhurried.

The afternoon clinic, however, had other ideas. What began as a manageable list stretched well past its expected borders, helped along by a couple of emergency admissions that arrived without appointment or apology, as emergencies tend to. There's no arguing with the genuinely urgent — you simply rearrange yourself around it and get on. So I finished considerably later than planned, the afternoon having quietly consumed the early evening before I noticed it was gone.

Still, I made it back in time for dinner, which after a day like that feels like a small negotiated victory. There's a great deal to be said for arriving home while the table still means something.

Then came the evening's great moral test. My Oura ring — that small, well-meaning tyrant on my finger — has been increasingly pointed in its counsel, nudging me nightly toward the radical proposition of proper sleep. It has a case. It usually does. Unfortunately, England were kicking off at midnight, and no wearable device yet invented can compete with the pull of a knockout tie at an unreasonable hour.

They made me suffer for it, too. DR Congo led early and held that lead with alarming conviction, until Harry Kane finally remembered his job description and scored twice in the closing stretch to drag England through, 2-1. A nervy, unconvincing sort of win — the kind that gets you into the next round and precisely nowhere in the estimation of anyone watching. Mexico await, apparently. I'll worry about that later.

For now, I've made my choice, and the ring will note it disapprovingly in the morning. Tomorrow I shall suffer — bleary, under-slept, and entirely without regret. Some bargains are worth the interest. This, I suspect, was one of them, though I reserve the right to revise that opinion at around six a.m.

The Drive Home

I was dreading the drive home for the past few days. When the day finally arrived, I decided the route to take with the help of one of my cousins. It would be through the new Lebuhraya Pantai Timur via Kuala Terengganu.

The drive was smooth once we entered the highway, but getting to the highway entrance was another story all together. We set off from Kota Bharu after dropping my father-in-law at the airport. We left at around 11, but only entered the highway just before 4 pm. The drive was horrendous. It seemed that there was traffic lights every half a kilometer and getting though the lights easily took 20 minutes each.

The powerbank was charged!We stopped for lunch at Jerteh as we were starving. Traffic was heavy both ways but luckily the boys were behaving themselves. It was just the sheer number of cars, there were no accidents and to be honest, they could do with less traffic lights.

Once we entered the highway, it was smooth going until we entered the Karak toll just after Bentong. The traffic piled up again and we decided to take the Janda Baik road, again reentering the highway at Genting Sempah. We finally arrived at Gombak at 8.30 pm.

I slept as soon as I unpacked at the apartment. It was blissful sleep until I woke up thie morning to send Idlan to school.

Driving Home

It was hard to say goodbye to Smokehouse when we were finally done. The boys were relieved obviously now that they were heading back to civilisation, but my in-laws would have preferred to stay an extra day. The combination of cool weather, nice room and great service made them wanted to room again and there were already talks about our next stay before we departed.

We left just after noon, deciding against staying for lunch since we had a heavy breakfast. We would later stop at Kuala Kubu Baru for a quick stop, and we did just that. I used the Hulu Yam route again, bypassing Rawang and Serendah, cutting the journey by about 30 km. We reached Gombak by 3.15, and then continued on to the apartment via Great Eastern Mall to do a bit of groceries and take-out for dinner.

We were worried that our MPV would play up, but luckily everything went smoothly. I might take a few days off in early January after the Xmas and New Year break, just before the school reopened for the boys. Maybe it would be to PD.

New Toll Arrangement

The queue at the toll booth on my way to work yesterday was longer than usual. The fact that I had a couple of clinic s that day - the morning at Park City and the afternoon back in Subang - meant that I was in a slight rush in the morning.

It turned out that the NPE - New Pantai Expressway - had gotten rid of cash paying booth. All the road user had to use electronic payment - Touch and Go - to pass through. Those who hasn't, would have to purchase them at some of the lanes. Hence the long queue.

I didn't have any problem since I had always been using the SmarTag. But I was caught in the wait.

The situation got a bit better this morning, probably because everybody had wise update to the fact. The added advantage for such system was the top-up booth were opened 24 hours. Made the job of topping-up the card that much easier.

The Gap

Since a second route was open to drive down Fraser's Hill - via Kuala Lipis Road, there were no longer the need to queue at The Gap, waiting for your turn to drive up the hill. The old route was too narrow, allowing only a single file of traffic to either drive up or down. The route would be opened according to the time of day, meaning you would go out at the hour and then the route would be the opposite and half the hour for those driving down. If you arrived at the wrong time, you would have to wait at The Gap, a settlement about 7 km from the top until your turn was up.

Without the wait, The Gap settlement had disbanded. There were ruins everywhere of what used to be stalls and cafe. The business at the Fraser's Hill town was also affected since those coming down did not have to wait for their turn either, meaning they could just drive down anytime.

We stopped at The Gap on the way up since my Dad wanted to use the toilet. Those were new buildings, but unfortunately, there were no water ..... And there were no other shops there with facilities. In fact, there were no other shops. From my reading, it used to be a thriving community there before ....

Time had certainly moved on and with it, driving up and down the hill was much easier. As I mentioned, it only took me just over a couple of hours to get from Gombak to the hotel. Maybe one day, I would just drive up with Anita for a bit of a drink, then come back the same day ....