Back to the Swing of Things

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoBack to work today, and back to work in the way that always feels slightly disorienting after time away — the body clocks in before the mind fully agrees to it. Small mercy: no clinic on the schedule, which meant the day could ease in rather than demand anything of me straight off the bat.

Slept decently the night before, which helped enormously. There's a particular kind of tiredness that comes from travel — not physical exhaustion exactly, more a low hum of dislocation, body still catching up with where it's supposed to be. A proper night's sleep sorts most of that out, and this one did.

The day itself was mostly paperwork, which is never the part anyone romanticises about being back, but there's a certain satisfaction in it too — the quiet, unglamorous business of clearing a backlog, ticking through the things that piled up while attention was elsewhere. It has a rhythm of its own once you settle into it, less exciting than travel, admittedly, but not without its own small pleasures. Managed to get through the lot in reasonable time, which felt like a minor triumph, the sort you don't mention to anyone because it wouldn't sound like much out loud, but that matters privately all the same.

Evening arrived with nothing more demanding than catching up on Silo, which has become one of those shows that rewards patience — slow-burning, atmospheric, the sort of thing best watched without distraction. A good way to let a first day back settle, screen glowing, mind finally allowed to idle after a day of being useful.

And that was largely it — nothing dramatic, nothing worth embellishing beyond what actually happened. Just the ordinary machinery of getting back into the swing of things, which is its own quiet accomplishment after a run of days spent somewhere else entirely. Routine has a bad reputation it doesn't entirely deserve. There's something to be said for a day that asks only the usual of you, and gets it.

Rain, Rice, and the Road to Sungai Petani

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoSlept like something that had earned it — properly, blessedly deep, the sort of sleep that makes you suspicious of yourself the next morning. No idea what triggered it. Possibly just the accumulated debt of the last few weeks finally being called in.

Woke to rain. Not the dramatic tropical kind that arrives, makes its point, and leaves, but the patient, all-morning variety that seems to have settled in for the long haul, more houseguest than weather event. Breakfast came with it as a soundtrack — that particular hush that rain puts over a room, cutlery a little quieter, conversation a little slower. There's something almost indulgent about eating while it pours outside and you're not required to be anywhere near it.

We weren't, for a while. The morning had no urgency built into it, so we let it have none. Coffee, the rain doing its thing beyond the glass, that unhurried stretch of time before a journey where you're technically getting ready but mostly just sitting with the idea of getting ready. Eventually the day insisted, and we set off for Sungai Petani.

The drive had that grey, washed-out quality rain gives to a landscape — paddy fields blurring past in shades of green that all rain seems to bring out, whether you asked for it or not. We were headed to see Teh, and it was the kind of visit that needed no agenda beyond itself. They looked well — genuinely, which is always a small relief you don't realise you were carrying until it lands. Conversation did what it does with people you're fond of and don't see often enough: picked up as though the gap hadn't happened, filled in what had, and left plenty unsaid because it didn't need saying.

Back at the hotel, the boys had opted to stay in — their own quiet rebellion against the itinerary, and fair enough. Evening arrived with canapés first, the sort of small, deliberate bites designed to make you suspicious of your own appetite for the buffet that inevitably followed. It did follow, and it was generous in the way hotel buffets are generous — too many good options, none of which you can do proper justice to, all of which you try anyway.

After that, nothing much. Which was rather the point. We settled into the hotel for the evening, no plans beyond being comfortable, the rain presumably still going about its business somewhere outside. Some days are built for motion. This one was built for its opposite — sleep, breakfast, a familiar face, a full plate, and a room that asked nothing further of us. I'll take that arrangement most weeks, if offered.

Friday, A Short Flight and a Quiet Room

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThe day began where the previous one had left off — one more ward round, one more morning clinic, the last outstanding threads of the week gathered up and tied off before I could allow myself to think about being anywhere else. Handover done properly, patient sorted, nothing left dangling for whoever picked up after me. There's a particular relief in leaving things tidy behind you, the sort that lets you actually enjoy the leaving.

From there, straight to the airport, driving myself rather than being driven, which always changes the character of a departure slightly — less ceremony, more errand. Lunch was had at the lounge, unhurried in the way airport lounges manage to feel even when the rest of the terminal is anything but, a small pocket of calm before the business of flying.

The flight itself was smooth, no complaints, the kind of short hop that barely gives you time to settle before it's asking you to prepare for landing. Midflight, satay appeared, which felt like a small and unexpected kindness — proper satay, not the sort of apologetic snack one braces for on a domestic route. I wasn't expecting much and got rather more than that, which is always the better way round.

Checked into the Renai Hotel on arrival, into a square suite that had the particular tidiness of a room built more for function than flourish — nothing wrong with that, especially after a day already full enough of its own texture. There's something quietly appealing about a hotel room with clean lines and no pretensions, a blank enough canvas that you can simply exist in it without it asking anything of you.

I'd thought, briefly, about heading out — Kota Bharu has its own particular evening rhythm, and there's always some pull towards seeing a place rather than just passing through it. But the day had been long enough in its own right, ward round to clinic to drive to flight to check-in, and the idea of putting on real shoes again lost out fairly quickly to the idea of not. Ordered in instead, ate without ceremony, and let the evening close itself down at its own pace.

No regrets about staying in. Some trips are made for exploring, and some are simply made for getting somewhere, doing what needs doing, and getting some proper rest in between. This one, at least tonight, was firmly the latter. Early night, then — tomorrow will ask its own questions, and I'd rather meet them having actually slept than having merely wandered a strange city on principle.

For now, square suite, quiet room, and the particular contentment of a day that went exactly as long as it needed to and no longer

Thursday, Old Ground Revisited

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoAn early start today, the sort that gets ahead of the traffic rather than negotiating with it, which made a pleasant change after the week's earlier skirmishes with the roads. There was a procedure scheduled for mid-morning, the kind of thing that demands a particular sort of focus — narrow, contained, no room for the mind to wander off and check on the rest of the day.

Lunch afterwards was quick, more habit than event, followed by an equally brisk ward round, the two of them dispatched together with the efficiency of someone who had somewhere else rather pressing to be. That somewhere was Wangsa Maju, a trip out to the lawyers to collect some documents, the sort of errand that sounds simple in the abstract and always takes slightly longer in practice.

I parked at Wangsa Walk Mall, which gave the whole outing an unexpected undertow of nostalgia. Old stomping ground, that — back when the boys were small and school runs still governed the shape of the week. Anita used to while away the hours there with the other mothers, waiting out the school day in the sort of unhurried company that seems, in retrospect, to belong to an entirely different pace of life. The mall hadn't changed much, structurally speaking, but it was busy in a way that felt newer, more purposeful, less like a waiting room and more like a destination in its own right. Strange, how a place can hold its shape and still feel like it's moved on without you.

I didn't linger longer than the errand required, documents collected and back on the road before the afternoon could get any ideas about traffic. Home came with an early dinner, the evening arranged around getting ahead of tomorrow rather than settling into tonight — packing for an overnight trip to Kota Bharu, leaving straight after work, which gave the whole evening a faint air of preparation rather than rest.

There's a particular rhythm to packing for somewhere brief, everything pared down to essentials, nothing indulgent, the sort of packing that's really just a list with clothes attached. It didn't take long, though the act of doing it always seems to sharpen the awareness that tomorrow will be a longer day than most, work first and then straight into travel, with whatever rest is going wedged in somewhere between the two.

Looking back at the day, it had a good shape to it — brisk where it needed to be, unexpectedly reflective in the middle, practical at the end. Wangsa Walk Mall wasn't on the agenda when the day began, and yet it ended up being the part that lingered longest, the way old places sometimes insist on being noticed even when you've only popped in for paperwork.

Bag's packed, documents collected, procedure and rounds behind me. Kota Bharu tomorrow. For tonight, that's quite enough.

Wednesday, Efficient If Not Exactly Leisurely

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThe morning started smoothly enough, right up until the traffic remembered itself and decided to be heavier than the forecast in my head had allowed for. Nothing catastrophic, just enough of a crawl to eat into the margin I'd optimistically built in, the kind of margin that exists mainly to be quietly consumed by circumstances beyond one's control.

Clinic started on time regardless, which felt like a small triumph given the drive in, and there's something satisfying about a day that begins as intended even when the run-up to it didn't cooperate. Still finding my footing with the new clinic times, if I'm honest — the shape of the day has shifted just enough that old instincts about when things should happen keep gently misfiring, like reaching for a light switch that's moved to the other wall.

Lunch was the briefest of affairs, more refuelling than eating, the sort of meal that exists purely to keep the engine turning rather than to be enjoyed for its own sake. No complaints about it particularly, just an acknowledgement that some days the pause you'd like to take gets compressed into something more functional.

The day finished late, later than I'd have chosen, but there was an efficiency to it that made the lateness feel earned rather than wasted. Everything moved, nothing stalled, and by the time the last of the list was cleared there was at least the satisfaction of having got through it without the day sprawling into inefficiency on top of length.

Home by sunset again, which two days into this new arrangement is starting to feel less like luck and more like something I might actually be able to rely on — cautiously, without tempting fate too openly. Straight for dinner on arrival, much as the day before, no interval between coming through the door and sitting down to eat. Some evenings don't call for ceremony, just food and a chair.

Tired by the end of it, properly so, the kind of tiredness that sits in the shoulders as much as anywhere else. Two days into the new schedule and the adjustment is clearly still under way — not unmanageable, just not yet automatic. I suspect by the end of the week it'll have stopped feeling like an adjustment at all and simply become Wednesday, the way these things tend to settle once you stop noticing the seams.

For now, though, it's enough that the day held together, that the lateness came with something to show for it, and that dinner and an early end to the evening are the only items left on the agenda. No further ambitions tonight beyond that.