I just put my washing machine on and was thinking about how I only ever use one setting. Even if my life depended on it I don’t think I could be bothered finding out what the difference between all the settings is. It made me think about how we have so many pointless choices to…
This post is the seventeenth and final in a series which starts HERE. (December 1998) Every morning I strap my baby to my chest and walk around Sousse. Being winter, many of the Casanova types that cause me so much hassle are not around. I walk to the market to buy fresh vegetables and fish and find that having a…
This post is the sixteenth and penultimate in a series which starts HERE. (December 1998) When I pass out in the treatment room, with my baby strapped to my front, the pharmacist catches me before I hit the ground. I am not a regular fainter; this is the only time I’ve been unconscious in my life. It’s the…
This post is the fifteenth in a series which starts HERE. (August 1998) ‘Hey lady! You wanna make a fuck with me?’ I ignore the moronic young lad and his giggling friends and continue on my way in the sweltering heat. My bump is heavy and I feel weary to the bone. Samir is in prison, I’m managing…
This post is the fourteenth in a series which starts HERE. (October 2014) Sousse in the dark is a nightmare. Although I lived there from 1997-99, my memories are hazy and now there is a new one-way system in place, as well as much development. The traffic chaos is the same; crazy lane changing, laden mopeds weaving through…
This post is the thirteenth in a series which starts HERE. (October 2014) After the visit to show my daughter her father’s gravestone (link to that post), we return to find the house filling with relatives and neighbours who want to celebrate my daughter’s sixteenth birthday and welcome her to their village. In addition to various men and…
This post is the twelfth in a series which starts HERE. (August 1997) Samir’s father motions for me to follow him into the garden. He goes to a ramshackle shed full of white rabbits and grabs one by the ears. I notice he has a knife in his other hand. One of Samir’s sisters joins us and I…
This post is the eleventh in a series which starts HERE. (June 1997) The normally taut rope between the boat and the parasail goes slack and a heavy Englishman plummets out of the sky. He crashes onto a wooden parasol then hits the sand with a thud and a yell. Shit. Samir, Gilben and I race to see…
This post is the tenth in a series which starts HERE. (June 1997) You can’t always get what you want But if you try sometimes well you might find You get what you need (name that song) So far in this blog, I’ve mostly covered the difficult or unusual events, because the bad stuff is the most dramatic.…
This post is the seventh in a series which starts HERE. (January 1997) In the village, Samir’s family home is crowded with relatives and neighbours. There are older women in tachleilas and headscarves, and younger ones in modern clothes, their heads uncovered. Young men in jeans and Hawaiian-style shirts, their hair slick with gel, chat with older men, some…
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