Nearly

Tanvir Naomi BushDisability, Visual Impairment 3 Comments

I met a friend today from another life. I hadn’t seen her in over 15 years and there she was in the café with a new addition, her 4-year-old son, George. She looked exactly the same..well better actually then she had back then. Tall and willowy, she had the same humour and gentleness and it was quite wonderful to see her but with her she bought a slew of names and memories that quite overwhelmed me. All those people we were at university with…all the friends we knew together in the early 90’s…including my ex fiancé who is still a close friend to her and her husband. He is alive. He even learnt French. He got married…he got divorced. For some reason this all makes me feel a little anxious. I loved him very much and he hurt me very much and it was all a long, long time ago and buried …and now.. …he learnt French???? Holy shit…. Life is bananas.

Saturday night and Sunday morning

Tanvir Naomi BushDisability, Visual Impairment 1 Comment

There was a woman in the pub toilet with a moustache. It was a huge black hairy one and behind it she was apparently Australian and called Audrey. At the same pub bar were women with legwarmers and spandex and a lot of men in long curly black wigs. They were supposed to resemble something from the glam rock scene but incongruously looked more like they were a debauched entity of the court of King Charles 1.

Jambo

Tanvir Naomi BushDisability, Photography, Visual Impairment 1 Comment

Firstly I apologise for misspelling ‘fairy’ in the previous post. Dyslexics rule KO..
Secondly, I apologise for the week of silence. I was hiding out in south Mombassa and didn’t want to bang on about the sea being bright turquoise-blue and the water so warm you could hardly feel it when you slipped into the pool; about the sand being silky and white and how there were, each glorious, sunlit morning, enormous plates of fresh mangos, paw paws and pineapples to go with your bacon and eggs. I didn’t want to upset you with stories of fantastical, multi-coloured fish and corals, gentle whispering palms and huge skies that made the Bounty adverts look like Cillet Bang ads…..nope, I didn’t think it would be very nice of me to whitter on about the smell of almond oils from the spa rooms, the hibiscus flowers arranged on the pillows each evening or the far off sweet smell of rain on the wind. I just thought it wouldn’t be kind.

Discombobulation

Tanvir Naomi BushDisability, Visual Impairment 1 Comment

I am feeling discombobulated. This is partly because I am trying to watch old CSI (forensic porn for pathologists), write a presentation for a job interview on Wednesday and ignore a creepy cold that has scratched the back of my throat and is now sitting on my chest deciding whether or not to go in for the kill. Also partly, I fear, my default setting actually is ‘discombobulation’.

Giving Thanks

Tanvir Naomi BushVisual Impairment 2 Comments

A hangover of this weight and magnitude is not easy to find. It needs to be sought with courage, commitment, care and dedication…it involves a great deal of work and nurturing, an undertaking not to be taken lightly. This one was come upon in an entirely approiate manner involving a dozen loons, a turkey and an onslaught of pies. Yes you guessed it..a thanksgiving thrash and a half.

Lost in Translation

Tanvir Naomi BushDisability, Radio, Visual Impairment Leave a Comment

I got a cab back from the station today because I was bit knackered and it was raining ..anyway I knew I was in for a long ride home when the driver sweetly asked me to join him in the front. I sighed as I clambered in knowing that this was going to be a man who liked to talk and indeed he did but not in English. No indeed, like many cabbies around the world he spoke that strange language ‘football’. I don’t speak football but I have picked up the basics and all I had to do was respond with the occasional ‘yeah…hopeless left foot’ and ‘Jose’s definitely a possibility’’, and the chap was happy. There was one sticky moment when, during a pause,I realised he had actually asked a question, but, and this is for any of you out there who don’t speak football, I remembered the one line that always gets a gentle sigh of appreciation. It is, and I have NO idea what it means, ‘well whatever they say, they don’t make ‘em like Arson anymore….’ . I like saying ‘Arson’ in public and it sends football speakers off into a dreamlike state and that lovely thing longed for in a taxi…silence.