change – Nyamazela

Released

Posted on 2 Oct, 202313 Jan, 2025 by nyamazela

Last week Lamar told me he was losing hope that he’d be able to influence the culture… I told Lamar that Oscar Wilde said that the most frightening thing about prison ‘is not that it breaks one’s heart – hearts are made to be broken – but that it turns one’s heart to stone.’ ‘I worry that if I stay in the job I’ll get used to prison and I’ll go numb,’ Lamar said.

The Life Inside: A Memoir of Prison, Family and Learning to be Free by Andy West

On 6th September, 21-year-old Daniel Khalife, a resident on remand in HMP Wandsworth, while working in the prison kitchen, managed to strap himself onto the underside of a delivery van and escape custody. During the 4 day man-hunt for Khalfe the British press drip-fed us with intel and details including footage of said van pulling over at Wandsworth Roundabout (less than 100m from our flat in London), where an eye-witness had seen the prisoner disembark from the van.

I suppose this news may be unremarkable to some. Prison breaks happen. And there’s an American TV series to prove it, right?

But they are infrequent in the UK and only this one happened on my doorstep. It was also the week I escaped. Continue reading Released

A bit of a catch up over a cuppa

Posted on 25 Aug, 202213 Jan, 2025 by nyamazela

British heatwave 19 July 2022 Well, hello, dear ones – good morning, good afternoon or good evening!*

Wherever you are, I hope you have a hot cuppa in hand (I have) with something to dip or a decent glass of wine. I’ve just re-read my November blog – wow, it’s like going back in time. I mean it literally is, but I’m amazed at how much has changed since that last blog post. Continue reading A bit of a catch up over a cuppa

New Seasons and managing change

Posted on 29 Sep, 201527 Oct, 2015 by nyamazela

(Referring to the perfect little ‘handbag’ dogs in Boca Raton, Florida) “They were petite, sophisticated and of discriminating taste. Marley was big, clunky and a sniffer of genitalia.”

“Marley had earned his place in our family. Like a quirky but beloved uncle, he was what he was. He would never be Lassie or Benji or Old Yeller. We accepted him for the dog he was, and loved him all the more for it. “You old geezer,” I said to him on the side of the road that late-winter day, scrubbing his neck. Our goal, the cemetery, was still a steep climb ahead. But just as in life, I was figuring out, the destination was less important than the journey.”

Marley and Me by John Grogan

This book, Marley and Me (and the film,) snuck up on me from behind, and got to me when my guard was down. The film is light hearted, ‘feel good’ and predictable, but when I watched some years ago and again recently, I fell for every line – both my heart and my tear ducts annoyingly reacted exactly on cue.