The Week Reassembles Itself

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThe holiday is over, and the roads know it. For a fortnight the traffic had thinned to something almost civilised, the sort of flow that lets you arrive places early and slightly suspicious of your good fortune. That was always going to be temporary. This morning the cars returned in full, nose to tail, and the city slipped back into its familiar grumble as though the quiet had never happened. School runs, work runs, everyone reclaiming their lane with the determination of people who have remembered, all at once, that there is somewhere they are meant to be.

I had remembered too. The morning came at me quickly, one thing folding into the next before I'd properly caught up with myself. There's a particular texture to the first day after a break — the inbox heavier than you left it, the small tasks multiplied in your absence, the sense of having to reintroduce yourself to your own routine. None of it unpleasant, exactly. Just brisk. The week reassembling itself, piece by piece, while you stand in the middle holding the instructions upside down.

By the time I sat down to a late breakfast, the morning had largely won. I ate slowly, which felt like a small rebellion, and only afterwards realised I had meant to film some of it. The camera sat there, unbothered, on the table. There's a quiet comedy in keeping a vlog and then living an entire morning without once thinking to record it — the day simply got on with being a day, and I got on with living it, and the documentary impulse arrived too late to be of any use. I let it go. Not every morning needs an audience.

The afternoon had other plans. An emergency arrived in the way they tend to, without warning and with no regard for whatever you had pencilled in afterwards. These things rearrange your hours quietly but completely; you go in expecting one shape to the day and come out the other side with another. There was a dinner talk I'd intended to attend, something I'd been mildly looking forward to, and it simply fell away. By the time things had settled, the evening had moved on without me, and the talk was a thing other people were describing rather than a thing I'd seen.

I don't resent it. There's a clear order to these matters, and a missed dinner talk sits very low on any list worth keeping. Still, there's a small wistfulness in the gap where the evening should have been — the plan that quietly dissolved, the chair somewhere with my name not on it.

So the week begins as weeks do: with traffic, with good intentions half-kept, with the camera idle and the schedule rewritten by something that wouldn't wait. Tomorrow I'll remember to film the breakfast. Probably. The roads, at least, will be exactly where I left them.

Running on Yesterday's Fumes

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThursday's late finish was still making itself known this morning. The alarm did its job, but my body filed a formal objection. There's a particular kind of tiredness that sits behind the eyes — not dramatic, not debilitating, just present enough to remind you that sleep is not a suggestion. Coffee helped, as it always does, though I suspect coffee gets more credit than it deserves on mornings like these.

Once I was in and moving, rounds went smoothly. The body has a way of overriding the mind's complaints when there's work to be done, a kind of professional autopilot that kicks in and carries you through until you forget you were tired in the first place. The list cooperated, the team was sharp, and everything moved with that quiet competence that makes the early hours worthwhile.

Clinic brought a couple of new patients, which always shifts the texture of a session. There's a different energy to a first meeting — more ground to cover, more listening required, the careful business of building a picture from scratch. You're assembling a person from fragments: their history, their concerns, the things they say and the things they leave out. It takes a particular kind of attention, and today I had just enough of it left in the tank.

After lunch the pace picked up properly. The kind of busy that doesn't leave room for clock-watching, which is either a blessing or a conspiracy depending on your perspective. Tasks stacked up, decisions needed making, and the afternoon compressed itself into something that felt both endless and surprisingly quick. That's the paradox of a full day — you can't believe how long it's been and yet somehow it's already time to leave.

I made it home for dinner, which after Thursday's late return felt like a minor restoration of order. Anita and I sat down together, the meal unhurried, the conversation easy. There's a particular comfort in a Friday evening meal — the week's weight beginning to lift, the weekend not yet requiring any plans or decisions. Just food and talk and the gentle unwinding of five days' worth of accumulated tension.

Afterwards, we settled in for another episode of For All Mankind. The season is building towards its finale next week, and the writers are doing that thing where every scene feels loaded with consequence. Characters you've spent years watching are being moved into positions that feel increasingly precarious. It's the kind of television that makes you sit forward slightly without realising you've done it. Next week will either be magnificent or devastating, possibly both.

An early night, then, because tomorrow demands an early start. The kind of Friday where you're already thinking about Saturday's alarm even as you're brushing your teeth. But that's fine. The week delivered what it needed to, and now it's stepping aside. Gratefully received.

Long Queue

I was not sure why but the traffic had been crazy this morning. As I took a peak out the window while having my shower, I was surprised. The traffic led all the way down Bukit Pantai, and the start of the queue was way up the hill.

There may have been an accident somewhere further down and it did not look good. I waited for half an hour and it did not get any better. So, I decided to get some work done while waiting. Luckily I don’t have any clinics this morning. It was all ward stuff.

Fingers crossed, hopefully things would improve soon ...

The Ramadhan Traffic

One thing I had always worried during Ramadhan was making the trip back home in time.

After a long day, the last thing you wanted to see was heavy traffic. And during Ramadhan, more often than not, this had been the case. A journey which normally took 20 minutes could end up an hour.

From the start of Ramadhan, I could see the problem right from my own balcony. Only on weekdays. But the traffic would start from the bottom of Jalan Lembah Pantai/NPE junction right up Bukit Pantai. Coming home from work, I could easily spend half an hour inching towards my apartment from the NPE exit. Excruciating!

So, on the days where I would be late, I would have to return close to berbuka time. Usually the traffic eased off by 6.45 and became non-existant by 7.15. Not fun though ....

Windy Start

It had been cold in the house all night despite the air conditioning being on the low setting. It turned out that the weather was gloomy outside. When I walked out onto my balcony I thought that a huge storm was coming.

The problem with early morning deluge in town was the traffic. You could tell that the traffic was going to be bad from looking out your window. True enough, traffic was crawling .... Good Morning KL!