faatima's cup of tea

This time two years ago I was one of the million little tiny dots walking towards Mina. Thousands of people from all corners of the globe all united with one goal. All I can say is I had The Journey of my life. When people would talk of their Hajj experiences, they would end usually by saying it is something you have to do yourself to fully understand what they mean. Hajj for me normally would be a theory lesson or revising for a test. In reality, as soon as you decide to go for Hajj your tests start, the whole journey is a lesson in itself. Before I went for Hajj I spoke to many people who had been for Hajj before so I could have some idea of what to take etc, luckily for me my husband had been before so I had my own personal Hajj guide. We decided from home that we would Inshallah try to do our Hajj on foot. (from Makkah of course).  Once we were there, a few experienced members of the group asked me if we were "pedalling" or what sounded with a "mix...

I attended a family wedding recently and had a superb time. The wedding was on a Friday so I took the day off and went late on Thursday night to join the rest of the family. ( Before this I had my mum in law over so was talking till late every night so was already tired when I arrived). The family were having a good sing along (Nasheeds of course), but despite much persuasion, I, funnily enough, did not find the urge to test my vocal cords in public! I did, however, enjoy listening to everyone else and manage to keep the giggles at bay for half an hour or so. It's not that anyone was singing bad, quite the contrary really, they had really good singing voices! I, on the other hand, could barely talk properly after midnight. As always, before a wedding, I had some sort of clothing crisis. So that had me literally running around Leicester,  half an hour before the wedding was due to start, looking for matching scarves etc. Suffice to say, I did end up wearing the ...