I needed something easy to write about while I was feeling a little brain dead and stuck and this felt like an easy list to make. Forty of my favourite books by the age of forty. 1.     The Sealed Nectar by Sheikh Safi-ur-Rahman al-Mubarakpuri – an important and easy to read biography of the beloved […]

We wanted to take the kids out for a day during the autumn half term holidays.  One of the problems we are starting to face, is finding somewhere new that everyone can agree on.  The kids want theme parks, or at the very least “no more castles and old houses”, I hate theme parks and […]

On the third and last day of our stay we tried to find something to do that our older children might enjoy.  The place that seemed to fit the best appeared to be Robin Hill Country Park, an 88-acre theme park located close to the centre of the Island. The tickets were about what you […]

Mohammed M. Mahdi, Mohammed A. Mahdi, and Anthony Duncan are the Soapy Soap Guys, the entrepreneurs behind the artisanal soap business: the Soapy Soap Company. Their brand came about through a desire to create a more natural, functional bar of soap.  They have recently launched their new website: DesignMySoap.com, the world’s first online soap-making studio […]

I just wanted to share some of the words and art that have resonated with me recently and made me think. I hope you enjoy. What have you come across that has inspired, motivated or helped you or made you think? “And The People Stayed Home” By Kitty O’Meara (2020) And the people stayed home. […]

It seems that the word Aunty has become a bit of a bad word in recent times. Being called an Aunty is offensive because it implies you are old and old-fashioned, in a world where being young an attractive is everything. Auntie’s get grouped like a pack of wolves, or hyena’s – upholding toxic traditions […]

When I was approached by the author, Adejoke Ajibade- Bakare to review her book of poetry, I was a little nonplussed. I love books, especially straightforward and fast paced prose, but poetry is another matter. I am never sure if I am missing something, a metaphor of some kind or an allusion to some deeper […]

Sister Alisha at Thoughts Unchecked and Sister Hijabee in DC have honoured me by both kindly awarding me this lovely award and meme in one. It looks like fun, so I will join in: Rules of the Award: List five current obsessions. Pass the award on to five more fabulous blogs. On your post of […]

I and my three sisters are launching our new online shop Feroza today.  We will be selling handmade and kundan style  jewellery, scarves, hijab pins, accessories, handmade cards and tasbeeh. We have been working away for the last few weeks hunting for lovely things for our shop, taking pictures, designing logos and advertising, working on […]

My neighbours second dholki was a formal affair.  The bride is getting married in Pakistan and will have her henna there, so wanted to do something here to celebrate with her friends.  She stayed up late the night before with her friends creating all of the lovely details that went into the event.  You can […]

We have been hearing about the frightening situation of the Rohingya people of Myanmar over the last two years or more, over 146,000 children, women and men have been forced to flee to Bangladesh to escape violence since August 2017, but until recently it has seemed that the ethnic cleansing of these people has been ignored […]

We have such a set pattern for our Eids: I cook in the morning, we get ready, we go to my mums for lunch, the whole family gather. We eat mum’s beautiful food, we joke and laugh, we exchange gifts and spent the afternoon taking photos, mostly of the gaggle of cheeky little girls we […]

I attended the Palestine Expo, an event organised by Friends of Al-Aqsa, this year with Shutterbug Sister, Harlequin Sister and Little Lady.  The situation in Palestine is something that affects Muslims across the Ummah (global Muslim community).  My first memory of what has happened there, as a seven or eight year old, was a news report with an accompanying video […]

Because of the number of new mums and mum-to-be around me, I thought I would put up some of the recipes (or home remedies – desi nuske as we call them) that my family and many people from the subcontinent use around this time.. The most important are the following two and can be adapted […]