Cheese, and the Long Memory of Physiotherapy

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThe morning arrived bright and unbothered, the sort of Monday sun that flatters everything it touches and asks nothing in return. I met it with breakfast — a substantial one, the kind that suggests either ambition or denial. My body, meanwhile, had its own commentary to offer. Two days on from physio, the right shoulder has settled into that peculiar afterglow physiotherapists call progress and the rest of us call being slightly worse than before. I moved through the early hours like a man freshly assembled from instructions he hadn't quite read, every joint stiff and faintly resentful, the muscles still litigating Saturday's session.

Rounds, mercifully, were gentle. There are days when the ward seems to conspire against you, and there are days like this — orderly, unhurried, the kind that lets you actually look at people rather than merely process them. Not too busy. I've learned not to say that out loud near anyone superstitious, but it held. We moved through it without incident, and I had the rare luxury of arriving at lunch neither late nor frayed.

Lunch was with the pharma lot — pleasant, well-fed, the usual choreography of small talk and slightly oversized portions. These occasions have a rhythm to them now, a sort of cordial theatre, and I've made peace with my role in it. The food was good. The company was easy. One asks little more of a working lunch.

The afternoon clinic, against all reasonable expectation, matched the morning's restraint. Light. Almost suspiciously so. I kept waiting for the day to reveal its trick, the queue that doubles, the complication that unravels an hour — but it never came. By mid-afternoon I found myself, improbably, finished early, blinking at the unfamiliar gift of unspent time.

And there was a literal gift too. One of my patients, with the quiet generosity that still catches me off guard, sent me home with cheese. Not a token wedge, either — a proper haul, enough to give a man pause and a fridge a structural challenge. Idlan, who treats cheese the way some people treat religion, received the news with something close to reverence. He has theories about cheese. He shared several. I let him.

The evening folded itself around the World Cup, which is currently sprawled across North America in all its expanded, slightly bewildering glory — forty-eight teams, three countries, and a fixture list that mostly unfolds while we're asleep out here. So it's catching-up rather than live drama: highlights consumed after the fact, results half-known before the footage rolls, the small melancholy of watching a goal you've already been spoiled on. Still, there's a comfort in it. The tournament hums along in the background like a long, familiar song, and I let it carry the last of the day.

A light day. Stiff in the shoulders, heavy with cheese, asking very little of me. I'll take it.

The Second Verse of a Familiar Song

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoTwo holidays in a row is the sort of luck that ought to feel indulgent, though the wards remain stubbornly indifferent to such generosity. So once again I rose early, while the rest of the household enjoyed the particular smugness of having nowhere to be, and went to do the morning round — still covering for the two colleagues whose meeting in China had stretched comfortably across the long weekend.

I have no complaints. The rounds were smooth, almost suspiciously so, the kind of morning where everything is where it should be and nobody springs any surprises. There is a quiet satisfaction in that, the professional equivalent of finding the milk hasn't turned. By the time I left, the day still had most of itself ahead, which is the chief reward of an early start one didn't ask for.

Lunch was the day's small adventure. We went to Banglo 289, tucked within Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad — a building I have admired from the outside for the better part of my life without ever expecting to eat inside it. I arrived with the modest expectations one brings to any restaurant trading partly on its address, and was promptly proven wrong. The ambience was genuinely lovely, the sort of room that makes you sit a little straighter, and the food more than held its end of the bargain. Better than expected is faint praise on paper, but in practice it is one of life's more pleasant verdicts.

The afternoon was given over to a nap, which I will defend to anyone. There is no finer use of a holiday than the deliberate, unhurried sleep that comes after a good lunch, the kind where you wake unsure of the hour and entirely at peace about it. I surfaced slowly, the light gone amber, the day having quietly carried on without me.

Dinner was Irfan's call, and Irfan wanted Thai, which meant Busaba at Bangsar Shopping Centre. There is something reassuring about a young person who knows precisely what he wants and is not shy about saying so, particularly when the answer involves tom yum. The food did its job, the conversation drifted pleasantly, and we let the evening take its own pace, in no hurry to be anywhere.

Then home, and rest. Two holidays bookended by morning rounds is a peculiar rhythm, but there is a logic to it — the work anchoring the days that might otherwise float off entirely. Tomorrow the calendar reasserts itself and the ordinary week resumes. I find I don't mind. There is comfort in the return of structure, in knowing that the rounds will go on, the colleagues will fly back, and the small machinery of normal life will pick up where it left off.

For now, though, an early night. A good meal, a better nap, and Thai food chosen by someone with strong opinions. As holidays go, it asked for very little and gave back rather a lot.

The Day That Wouldn't Be Pinned Down

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An early start, with one clear objective in mind: be back by noon. A simple enough ambition, the kind you set yourself with reasonable confidence at six in the morning, before the day has had a chance to make its own plans.

The day, of course, had its own plans.

A few unwell patients delayed things just enough to nudge the schedule sideways. Nothing dramatic — just the gentle reminder that medicine doesn't keep to anyone's diary but its own. By the time I extracted myself, "back by noon" had quietly mutated into "back at some point", which is a downgrade I've learned to accept with reasonable grace.

But lunch made up for it. Rebung — finally. Anita has been harping on about this place for weeks, with the particular persistence of someone who knows she's right and is simply waiting for everyone else to catch up. And she was right. The spread was excellent, the kind of buffet that doesn't feel like a buffet but rather a thoughtful tour of Malay cooking done properly. Generous without being showy. I shall, in due course, admit she was right. Perhaps over coffee. Perhaps never.

The peace was short-lived. Mid-meal, more or less, came the call back to the hospital — one of those summonses you can't really argue with, only attend to. So back I went, the afternoon now firmly in charge rather than the other way round. These are the days that quietly remind you who's really running the schedule.

Somewhere between obligations, I managed a haircut at Lucky Garden. A small, civilian act in the middle of a day pulling me in several directions. There's something steadying about sitting in a barber's chair when the rest of the day has been frantic — the slow, methodical work of someone doing one thing carefully while the world outside continues its noise. I emerged tidier, marginally more composed, and ready for the evening's main event.

Which was the College of Physicians Gala Dinner at Dorsett Putrajaya. And here, in the spirit of honest journalling, I shall record that it was not the greatest. Gala dinners are a curious genre — formal enough to require effort, social enough to demand attention, but rarely exceptional in any single department. Tonight's outing leaned firmly into that pattern. The room looked the part. The company was fine. The food and the flow were... let us say adequate. Sometimes the highlight of a gala is simply having attended.

By the time we made it home, the day had stretched itself into something almost unrecognisable from the one I'd planned at dawn. Early start, late finish, with a half-dozen small detours in between. The kind of day that doesn't follow a clean narrative arc but instead zigzags through obligation, pleasure, duty, and a decent meal.

Bed will be welcome. Tomorrow, hopefully, will keep its own promises. Tonight, I'll settle for having kept most of mine.

Tuesday Let the Light In

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Tuesday opened like a gift — one of those mornings where the sun arrives with real conviction, not the tentative half-light that passes for dawn most days, but proper golden warmth that makes you stand at the window a beat longer than necessary. Kuala Lumpur does this occasionally, reminds you that it has a gear beyond humid and overcast. The whole city seemed to sit a little straighter.

That energy carried into the morning. Ward round moved with a briskness that felt earned rather than rushed — the kind of pace where everything connects, questions get answered on the first attempt, and nobody has to chase a missing file down three corridors. There was a spring in it, quite literally. Some mornings the work simply flows, and you learn not to question it, just ride the current.

Clinic started on time, which is always a minor victory worth noting. The list, however, had other ideas — more patients than originally planned, the schedule quietly expanding like a restaurant that keeps accepting bookings after it's technically full. But the rhythm held. When you've started well, the extras feel manageable rather than overwhelming. You absorb them into the day's architecture without the whole thing threatening to collapse.

Lunch, predictably, arrived late. A discussion with pharma ran longer than expected, the way these things do when someone has slides and genuine enthusiasm. By the time I crossed the road to Jyu Raku, I was running on momentum and appetite in roughly equal measure. There's something grounding about a good bowl of ramen when your morning has been wall-to-wall — the steam, the slowness of it, the forced pause. Even a late lunch counts if you sit down properly.

The afternoon rounds were mercifully quick. A tidy sweep, nothing complicated, everything where it should be. The kind of session that rewards a morning's groundwork.

And then — the balcony. The sun was still making its case by the time I got home, and the balcony caught the last of it beautifully. There's a particular pleasure in sitting outside with nothing pressing, watching the light shift from afternoon gold to something softer. The renovation work Anita's been driving has made this space genuinely worth inhabiting, and evenings like this prove the point.

Between the sunshine and the stillness, I got Irfan's flight sorted for later this month — one of those small administrative tasks that sits on the list for days until you finally just do it, and then wonder why you waited. Ten minutes, done. The satisfaction is disproportionate to the effort, but I'll take it.

The rest of the evening asked nothing of me, and I returned the favour. Just quiet hours, the day's warmth still in the air, the week finding its shape. Two days in, and so far the week is behaving impeccably. Long may it last.

A Day Off

Ramadhan starts tomorrow. As customary, I try to take the Eve and the first day of Ramadhan off, basically just to hang around with the family or do some shopping.

I started off the day ferrying the boys to school before touching base to do my ward round. It finished later than expected and I had to rush to join my Mum and Sister at IOI Mall for lunch. Anita was in IJN with her brother who was having an angiogram done today.

At IOI Mall waiting for my mother. I never actually explored this place. Looked huge!The decorations at KLCC being builtI joined Anita and visited her brother after I had my meal. This followed by a spot of shopping at KLCC - I ended up buying more than I originally planned. And that took the whole afternoon, followed by sorting out the boys for early bed as we would be waking up early for sahur tomorrow.

Traffic building up in front of the apartmentWaiting for the sun to set ...Another day off tomorrow, and very likely I would be breaking my fast in Gombak after of course a quick trip to Pasar Ramadhan!