My mother

When I face a door that won't open, I think of you. I see myself in younger shoes, looking at you, childishly embarrased at your unwillingness to accept that the door is closed, looking for another way in. Shouting through the door to anyone on the other side - it makes me cringe because I feel lame, calling through a door that clearly will not open. As if it were me calling. And then the door opens. And someone friendly is smiling and welcoming us in and showing us the way.

So now I too, stand at closed doors and shout, rather than turn away. But not before I've thought of you.

Sound on the air

As ever, music comforts and embraces my life like a soundtrack. A thundercloud of change looms overhead, and I smell the dark air apprehensively. Half thankfully. My drum is not broken - it is overflowing with a deep bass noise. Static. Like a resting pause on the bars. The next beat will come on time, and the overture will turn like a river into me.

Figs are not exotic

They are in my childhood, in my grandmother's garden. They are home-grown and common to my taste. Who are these people, born and bred on an isolated island who call this a ' foreign fruit'? How silly, that minds from an area the size of a single province in my land can globally and collectively label something they do not know as strange. Weird. Unpleasant, even, if all you know is apples, berries and pears.

You must be powerful, if you have managed to colonise the world with your arrogance. Powerful in your confidence. Why do we, the exotic other, trade in the sweet, majestic wonder of our colourful culture so easily for your grey rain ideals? Your tedious marketing tactics; your rigid, formulated brickwork ideals; What is it, I wonder, that stands out from your precipitated, monochrome mud-saturated country that makes us deny our electric thunderstorm wonder of a country to come here, looking for opportunity, of all things?