Landed

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThere's a particular kind of morning where you're only half paying attention to your own day because most of your attention is somewhere over the Indian Ocean. That was this one. Irfan's flight was due into London by noon Malaysia time, and between patients there was a fair bit of quiet phone-checking going on — the flight tracker open in one tab, doing the thing flight trackers do, which is tell you almost nothing useful right up until the moment it tells you everything.

No delay, in the end, which felt like more than it probably deserved to. He landed on time, got himself an Uber straight to the apartment without any drama, and that was that — the sort of arrival that's almost disappointing in its lack of incident, except that a lack of incident is exactly what you're hoping for when someone you're fond of is landing in a city eight time zones away for the first time on his own. Uneventful is underrated. Uneventful is the goal.

Work carried on regardless, because it does. Clinic was smooth, mercifully so, the kind of morning that doesn't ask much of you right when you don't have much extra to give. I went through it a little distracted, checking the phone between patients more than I'd normally admit to, but it moved along without any real friction, which I'll take as the day cooperating for once.

Home early after that, properly tired in the way accumulated worry tends to leave you once the worry's been resolved — not the sharp kind of tired, more the sort that settles in once you're finally allowed to relax. And relax, more or less, is what the rest of the day was for. Knowing he'd arrived safely did more for the afternoon than anything on the schedule could have.

Dinner came early, unhurried, eaten with the particular lightness of a day that had turned out better than the quiet nerves of the morning had suggested it might. The evening after that asked for nothing much — just the sort of settling-in that comes naturally once the thing you'd been half-holding your breath for has actually happened, and happened well.

So: a flight tracked, a landing uneventful, a clinic survived on partial attention, and an evening spent simply glad of it. Not every day needs more than that. This one didn't.

Departures

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoSome days have one job, and everything else is just filler around it. Today was that sort — the packing, the last errands, the slow accumulation of things that had to happen before the one thing that actually mattered. Irfan's off to London tonight, and the whole day arranged itself around that fact whether it meant to or not.

The packing itself got sorted during the day, which spared everyone the particular chaos of last-minute zip-wrestling an hour before leaving for the airport. I went about the morning's work as usual — rounds, the ordinary shape of a working day — though with half an eye on the clock in a way that doesn't normally happen on a Friday. Some days you're present for the whole of them. Today I was present for most of it and quietly counting down through the rest.

Home earlier than usual, because there was somewhere to be and traffic to be respected. The drive to KLIA was slow, the way it generally is at that hour, everyone else apparently also headed somewhere important, or at least driving as though they were. Still, we reached with time to spare, which meant no scrambling, no last looks at the departure board through breathless urgency — just the ordinary business of getting there properly, for once.

Dinner was the four of us, which doesn't happen as often as it should, and certainly not often enough to take for granted. There was a particular texture to it — nothing said out loud about it being a send-off dinner, but everyone quietly aware that it was. Good conversation, the sort that fills a table without needing to address the thing everyone's actually thinking about.

Then it was time, and he went in. The flight was delayed slightly, which is either a small mercy or a mild cruelty depending on how you're inclined to view extra waiting on a night like that — a bit more time in the airport, a bit less finality to the goodbye, though the goodbye had already happened by then in all the ways that count.

Home after, to a house with one fewer occupant for the foreseeable future. Anita wants his room left exactly as it is over the weekend — nothing tidied, nothing rearranged, no rush to make the absence official just yet. I understand it completely. There's a difference between a room that's simply empty and a room that's been cleared out, and she's not ready for the second one. Neither, if I'm honest, am I.

So: a day built entirely around one departure, handled properly, without fuss, and landing somewhere quieter than usual by the time it was done. He's on his way. The house will get used to it. Not tonight, though.

A Fortnight, Give or Take

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoWoke still rather blue. Not dramatically so — nothing that would trouble anyone looking at me — but the low weather from earlier in the week hadn't quite moved on. It was still there at the edges of the morning, the way a headache sometimes lingers as a rumour of itself.

London again, mostly. I've established by now that this is simply what my head does at this point in the year, and knowing the mechanism doesn't seem to switch it off. Some part of me has been packing a bag for weeks and keeps wandering into the hall to find it isn't there. I'd like to report a mature reckoning with this. In truth I just kept thinking about the particular grey of a Marylebone afternoon and being mildly annoyed at myself for it.

And Irfan goes in a fortnight, give or take, which is the other thing circling. It doesn't help that the number keeps sounding the same however many days pass — two weeks has a way of remaining two weeks right up until it's three days. I'm not making a production of it. He's going where he's meant to go and everyone concerned is quite sensible about the whole business. But there's a countdown running somewhere behind the ordinary hours, and it makes you notice things you'd otherwise walk past. Him in the kitchen. The particular noise of him coming in.

So it was a slow start, and I decided not to fight it. Might as well. There is a certain wisdom in recognising the days when your own resistance is the most expensive thing on offer. The morning went at whatever pace it fancied and I followed along behind it, and the world declined to collapse in the meantime.

In the evening Anita and I went to the Gardens for dinner. Nothing planned or particularly considered — just the two of us getting out of the house, which turns out to be a more reliable treatment than anything I could have engineered. The Gardens does its usual thing: polished, calm, a bit hushed, everyone moving at the speed of people who have decided the evening is not urgent. We ate, we talked about not very much, and the not very much was the point.

I've noticed this often enough now to trust it. A flat mood rarely survives a proper meal and decent company. It doesn't get argued away — it just finds itself with nowhere to sit. By the time we were heading back, the thing that had been sitting on my chest since morning had thinned out considerably, without anyone having addressed it directly.

Home, and a bit of television, which neither of us watched with full attention. Then bed, at an entirely reasonable hour.

The blue hasn't gone, exactly. It's more that I've stopped giving it a seat at the table. And there are two weeks yet, which is either not very long at all or perfectly adequate, depending on how you decide to look at it.

I'm choosing adequate. For tonight, at least.

Arrivals and Offerings - Aidil Adha 2026

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThe alarm went off at a hour that barely qualifies as morning, but there was no reluctance in it. Some early starts carry their own momentum, and driving to KLIA to collect Irfan is one of them. The roads were empty in that particular way they only manage on public holidays — the kind of quiet that makes KL feel like it's still deciding whether to wake up.

I reached the airport just after six, expecting a wait. KLIA on Aidil Adha morning has a stillness to it that you'd never believe if you've only seen it during peak season — all that polished marble and soaring architecture with almost nobody in it. As it turned out, the wait was shorter than planned. Irfan's flight landed a full forty-five minutes early, which is the kind of pleasant surprise that airlines so rarely deliver. He appeared through arrivals looking well, and just like that, the thing I'd been quietly looking forward to all week was done. Everyone home.

We were back by eight, the morning still young and full of possibility. The day's main obligation was the Qurban in Bukit Antarabangsa — the ritual sacrifice that sits at the heart of Aidil Adha. There's a particular atmosphere to these gatherings: communal, unhurried, purposeful. People milling about in the morning warmth, children darting between adults, the whole thing proceeding with the quiet organisation of something that happens every year and knows its own rhythm. We were all done by lunchtime, everything handled with satisfying efficiency.

Afterwards, the decision was made — as it often is on these occasions — to have some beef. When the day has already centred around the animal, it feels only right. We passed our share of the Qurban meat along to relatives, which is part of the whole spirit of the thing. The giving is the point, really.

The afternoon pivoted to something altogether more secular: shopping. Anita had a Rimowa trunk in her sights, and who am I to stand between a woman and well-engineered luggage? There's something almost architectural about Rimowa — the ridges, the precision, the satisfying click of the latches. A proper object. Then it was my turn for some clothes, because apparently one cannot live on the same rotation of shirts indefinitely, however strongly one might feel otherwise.

By the time we got home, the day felt genuinely full — the kind of full that comes from variety rather than exhaustion. Airport at dawn, Qurban by mid-morning, retail therapy by afternoon. Three quite different acts, all slotting together into something that felt complete.

Another day off tomorrow, which is a luxury worth savouring. But tonight, like last night, an early one. The body keeps its own counsel on these matters, and mine was making its position very clear.

The Art of Winding Down

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoTuesday had a specific energy to it — the quiet industriousness of someone tidying the house before going on holiday. Not frantic, just purposeful. Everything today carried the faint undertone of get this done properly so tomorrow can be tomorrow.

Clinic took up the morning, the usual rhythm of consultations ticking along at a steady clip. There's a particular satisfaction in morning clinic when it moves well — each appointment finding its natural length, nothing dragging, nothing rushed. The kind of session where you emerge at the other end feeling like the work did itself, even though you know perfectly well it didn't.

After lunch, the ward round had a clear objective: discharge as many patients as possible. There's an unspoken kindness in this before a public holiday — nobody wants to be sitting in a hospital bed over Aidil Adha if they don't need to be, and the ward staff deserve a lighter load too. So we moved through it with cheerful efficiency, ticking off the ones who were ready, making sure everything was in order. It's oddly gratifying work, sending people home. The paperwork is tedious, naturally, but the outcome is worth every duplicated form.

By three o'clock, the clinical side of the day was done. What remained was the administrative tail — the notes, the letters, the various bits of documentation that accumulate like sediment over a working day. I worked through them methodically, the kind of low-intensity task that suits a mind already half-turned towards tomorrow.

The drive home felt lighter than usual. Perhaps it was knowing there was nothing pressing on the other side of tonight. No alarm set to a punishing hour — well, actually, that's not quite true. The alarm would indeed be going off early, but for the best possible reason. Irfan lands tomorrow morning, and I'll be there to meet him. There's a different quality to an early start when it involves collecting someone you've been looking forward to seeing.

The evening was deliberately uneventful. Just the gentle deceleration of a day that had done its job. No grand plans, no elaborate dinner, nothing that required standing up for longer than strictly necessary. Sometimes the most luxurious thing you can do with an evening is absolutely nothing at all.

An early night, then. The kind where you're in bed before the hour feels remotely embarrassing, and entirely at peace with it. Tomorrow the holiday begins properly — Irfan home, Aidil Adha ahead, and two unhurried days stretching out like a cat in a sunbeam.

But that's tomorrow's entry. Tonight is just the pleasant business of stopping.