Step 10: Watch your back

In the centre of Lahore, cars and rickshaws dashing and honking either side, is a large cannon. At night it is lit garishly with a string of fairy lights, a beacon on the central reservation. Zamzama, as it is known, was given its literary mention in the first lines of Rudyard Kipling's Kim:

"He sat in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher - The Wonder House, as the Natives call the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah hold the Punjab; for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror's loot."

Kipling's words were written over a hundred years ago, when the word Pakistan didn't exist, and yet this region has always been the trampling ground for conquerors. Before the Taliban, before the Soviets, before Partition, before the British conquered, before The Great Game against which the novel was set, before the Mughals, before Alexander the Great, there were the Indus people, who lived on the land in 8000BC and rivalled the Egyptians for their strength and modernity. In terms of civilisation, we were barely in nappies.

A reminder of this is that "Wonder House", the Lahore Museum. Towering over Zamzama, it's the pride of the city. In this afternoons beating sun, a group of schoolboys played a makeshift game of tennis on its front lawn while a gang of giggling sari-ed girls hand in their mobile phones as per the rules and slip through security. Inside are the treasures left behind by the conquerors. It's as well to remember that this area of the subcontinent was once Buddhist, it was once pagan, it was once nothing at all. It was - and still is - home to the brown-skinned, the light-skinned, the blue-eyed, the tall, the short, the sharp-featured. Conquerors have left their genes, and their pottery, their language and their architecture.

A couple of impromptu tour guides appeared in the form of a group of teenagers who take a particular interest in the tourist, and after flattering offers of marriage (which we both concluded would never work while I wouldn't convert to Islam) we took some pictures and headed off our separate ways.

The area now known as Pakistan has been the Punjab, India, Afghanistan. But no matter where borders have been in this land, it has served as a gateway from the Indian subcontinent to Europe and the Middle East and vice versa. He who holds Pakistan holds the key. Conquerors have trodden through Balochistan, the Punjab, and up the Kyber pass for centuries.

And so the situation Pakistan finds itself in right now is not much different. in the West, the Taliban fight and seep through the border to the Fronteir Provinces, and in the West, India looms upwards, Pakistan's nuclear nemesis.

"People terrorise us from all directions," a girl from Peshawar told me today, "and they think we are the terrorists." She explained that the village in which she had lived had been hit by drone bombs and several people she knew well had been killed. There was a railway line near her house, she said. Her side of the tracks was Pakistan, and the other was Afghanistan. Afghans would hop over, and come and settle in the surrounding villages. Their children were born there and has Pakistani ID cards. The Afghans had brought good things and bad things, she said, but mostly bad. People said they brought diseases and sickness. And some of them brought the seeds of radicalism. People were not afraid, she said, because they could die any day, of anything. The threat of conquest is alive now as it has been in the area for centuries. This war may be a rally cause as we send "our boys" to die in Helmand. But for the Pakistanis and Afghans living in Peshawar, it's nothing new under the sun.

In any case, the coalition forces in the West may be facing an unwinnable war, but Zamzama stands on firmly Pakistani territory, no longer conqueror's loot but the property of the government, a monument to remind Lahoris - and the smattering of foreign tourists - that for what it's worth, Pakistan is, after centuries of interference, its own nation. And until radicals sit astride it, waving old Soviet kalashnikovs, Pakistanis will have something to be proud of. A century after Kipling, these "Natives", as he would have it, own their own monuments, their own museums and perhaps one day their own political autonomy, free from the outside threat that exists at the edge of their border.

Step 9: Stay out of trouble

Pakistan is a city of confusing incongruities. Last night I found myself sitting on a rooftop in Lahore's red light district, smoking shisha as I sat beside a statue of the Virgin Mary, in the shadow of the great domes of Badshahi mosque, which shone an eggshell blue in the moonlight.

The restaurant, called Cooco's Nest, is run by artist Iqbal Hussain. Himself the bastard offspring of a prostitute, he grew up among the brothels of the red light district. His sister was also in "the profession" and he used to go out and sleep on the pavement when she brought customers home. Cooco's Nest was set up orginally to provide an alternative means of revenue for the local women, who, it is said, cook the food. In any case the array of succulent kebabs, naans, parathas, biryanis and curries is impressive, and the taste heightened by the fact that plates are barely visible in the sporadic, flickering candlelight.

All cities have red light districts. Lahore's is slightly different in the sense that it has another quirk to boast: one of the largest communities of hijras in South Asia. I remember seeing hijras begging at stoplights in Delhi - alongside the women that stood there with their scarred, raggedy babies, begging for rupees in tattered saris. The hijras found their own turf, and when they approached your rickshaw or car it was fairly confusing to hear their deep voices and see the grey patches of stubble on their chins. If you refused them, they often chanted some incantation or otherwise stroked and caressed you for the purposes of humiliation (especially men).

Hijras profess to be known as neither male nor female, but a 'third sex'. Some are transgender, some born men, others androgynous. Some do 'reassign their gender' - once the castration process was done without anaesthetic in a public ceremony of rebirth. Today, most are less hysterical, opting as they do for backstreet surgeons.

Traditionally the courtesans or 'dancing girls' at the courts of princes and maharajahs, they are now often the dirty secrets of the 'upstanding' men of society, many of whom are already married, but some of whom have even married their alternative paramours. They refer to themselves as 'wedding performers' but in reality - some of them prostitutes, others dancers, some beggars, or a mixture of all three - they have no employment prospects and are shut away, shunned by society.

But Pakistan is becoming slowly more open to the idea of accepting the 'third sex'. The government are in talks to add a third 'gender' option to the national ID card, and are looking to change law in order to protect the hijras' employment and economic rights.

There was a great article in The Guardian and some spectacular photos that can be found here.

"No one is gay in Pakistan" laughed a friend of mine over tea a couple of days ago. She winked. "But if there were..." She proceeded to tell me that most educated members of society accept homosexual relationships. Not so with women. A heterosexual affair results, at best, in social castration for women. A homosexual affair, for a man, results in little more than the odd whisper and giggle behind society's closed doors. A homosexual relationship for a woman doesn't bear thinking about. Having just been to fashion week, I can attest to the fact that flamboyant gays are alive and well , surviving and thriving in Pakistan.

On the rooftop of Cooco's nest, amidst the catholic statues, Buddhist busts and pagan visages, Pakistan's contradictions reign. We stub out our last cigarettes, pay the bill and head out, past the dimly lit doorways and hidden caverns, through Lahore's underground, and one of Pakistan's most open secrets.

Step 8: Visit some local landmarks

Now that Michelle has gone home, I'm behaving like a proper Pakistani woman and staying in the house all day. It's not generally accepted for women to be seen on the street alone in Lahore. This serves a double function for me as it means that, firstly, I won't get robbed and secondly I won't get mobbed. Generally the latter is not a problem but, unlike India, Pakistan is not the most popular of holiday resorts and thus I am the only white face for miles.

Staying indoors is a joy if you are living in a house like the one in which I'm staying: spacious, airy, full of beautiful artworks and books, with outside mosaiced terraces and a manicured garden. If the trade-off for being holed up is that someone brings me tea and toast in the morning, makes my bed, rings a bell for me to come down to lunch and dinner, and brings me chai every couple of hours then it's one I'm willing to shake on.

It goes without saying that the vast majority of people in the country do not live like this.

But here, the wives of the jet set are taken by their drivers - who are available at all hours of the day and night - to each other's houses or to spas or shops. Or they call each other and arrange to meet at one another's houses so that they venture out in groups, which in a liberal city like Lahore is acceptable. It's a little frustrating relying on the availability of friends, but few here seem to plan their weeks in advance.

I was invited to a photo shoot yesterday at twilight at a haveli in a walled part of Lahore known as the Old City. The mansion was owned by a Pakistani entrepreneur, and was tucked behind the cinema he owns in a little winding street dotted with cigarette and paan stalls and hazardous with rickety bicycles and motorbikes that zoomed by in the darkness.

A haveli is an "enclosed place": a piece of the outside world captured by walls. This one was 300 years old and lit gently by spotlights so that the scarlets and aquamarines of its brickwork, arches and mosaiced courtyards stood stark against the purple sky. Each room was like a little cave, full of trinkets and paintings, Mughal swords and Persian rugs. I felt like I should have had a guidebook and paid 300 rupees to get in. If I was going to be shut in all day, I would be shut in here.

And here the social scene gathered - the dregs of fashion week journos, photographers and models, and the permanent fixtures of Lahore: the social butterflies. Like kids in a sweetshop, photographers grabbed their SLRs and dashed off to explore all corners of the place. Others sat on the rugs or reclined on scarlet couches drinking tea and chain smoking.

The next mansion we went to that evening was of quite a different architectural style. Marbled floors and winding glass staircases, huge modern artworks hanging on the walls, enormous sculptures and vases, a glass wall looking out on a vast manicured lawn, complete with swimming pool, giant granite boulders, and a copse of imported eucalyptus trees coloured ivory in the uplighting. Downstairs was an oak-panelled library complete with wooden globe and antique leather armchairs, which I'm sure had been professionally infused with the smell of academia. Upstairs, a huge white art gallery that wouldn't look out of place in Shoreditch. Bathrooms the size of tennis courts with green room mirrors and showers that could fit a whole football team at once. Great if you like to dance under the faucet. Everywhere, bowls were full of fresh flowers and gas fires burned over pebbles. Indoor water features bubbled, plasma TVs hummed and music tinkled gently in the background as Pakistan's TV stars, politicians, philanthropists, businessmen, designers and journalists clinked glasses, airkissed, and talked about current affairs.

The idea of moving in with the in-laws is anathema to most women. But when you live in a mansion such as this, you could spend a week without even seeing them. The usefulness of having the grandparents around as full-time babysitters is not to be sniffed at, not least when it means that the working women, of which there are increasing numbers, don't have to worry about arranging childcare. Though in some ways women are closeted, in others they are freer than those in London.

There are no clubs in Lahore. Instead, people throw parties in their homes which is perfect for those who want to show off, but also for those who fancy the odd illicit tipple. Pakistan is officially a dry country, and alcohol is taboo for Muslims. Buying alcohol can land you with a stretch in the clinker, and I'm not talking about tumblers and ice. But in a realistic world, there's a thriving black market for wine and whisky among the wealthy and well-connected.

Shut me in this Lahore compound with a library and a well-stocked bar and I'll be just fine.

Step 7: Get invited to all the right parties

Michelle has deserted me for New York. Like a true Lahori scenester she slipped away into the night having just come back from an after-party. She threw her stuff in a suitcase, put on her East-coast friendly clothes and transformed herself back from a good Muslim into a good Manhattanite.

So today I went to a different party. And every second guest, it seemed, was Spongebob Squarepants. I am staying with Nuscie, an NGO worker and part of the fashion week team. I had no sooner arrived in her home when her cook came in holding a mobile phone out to me. I was invited next door for a bite to eat.

I had barely opened the gate when I was greeted with the high pitched squeal of a CD of children's songs. It's at times like these I realised what a saint my mother was for listening to our crackly cassettes over and over in the car. The thing about playing this music, I thought, is that it's not edifying for anybody. It drives the grown ups into a fit of derangement, which in polite company can only be expressed with the furrow of a brow. The children won't dance to it, interested as they are mainly in stuffing grass in each other's mouths and running around the garden for no particular purpose. They are cajoled into dancing by the parents who insist the pain must be worth something.

Today's party was a Spongebob Squarepants themed bash for a toddler. There were Spongebob banners, Spongebob party hats, a giant Spongebob cream cake. I ate a pile of rice and daal off a Spongebob paper plate. Chatting to the host, I asked if his two year old son liked Spongebob Squarepants. He admitted it was his own penchant that swayed the theme.

"Who doesn't like Spongebob?" he asked sheepishly.

I don't have any particular aversion to a googleyed bath accessory in a pair of trousers if that's what aids children's mental and emotional growth. I was taught the alphabet and days of the week by a giant yellow bird, a furry green thing that lived in a rubbish bin and various other puppets with dementedly large eyes.

But the Spongebob party wasn't for the children who ran around merrily tripping over their small saris. It was for the people who dressed them, the conspicuous consumers: the parents. Using your offspring to keep up with the Joneses is an age-old tool, but children's parties of this opulence and expense can only be rivalled by Spongebob's native land, the U.S..

Such an event, held under the shadow of a deodar tree, highlights the strange and complex relationship between Pakistan and the U.S. The government struggle to demonstrate their allegiance to America while placating the Taliban. Many detest the US for their rough treatment and suspicion of the Pakistani government. But for the aspirational classes, they are the culture to emulate.

For one, they need the business. I did manage to meet some adults at the party, in the form of two designers who run a label called Muse which creates Parisian-style designs (think Zara) with Pakistani-inspired embroidery. They said they had no intention of dominating the Pakistani market. Despite events like Pakistan fashion week, the industry here is too nascent to be of any interest. They advertise their clothes here, they say, because there is no hope of impressing foreign buyers if their garments fail to sell in their own country. But their hope is to crack the Western market because (despite the kind of disposable income lavished on the Spongebob party) that's where the cash, as well as the Kudos really is. Pakistan has come a long way, but not yet far enough to keep its artistic talents from aspiring beyond the border first.

From my window now I can see the last guests leaving: a bunch of men load a giant elephant and a racing car ride onto the back of a lorry. Spongebob is littered all over the floor. I bet they'll be eating that yellow cake for weeks.

Spongebob Squarepants: American ambassador to Pakistan.

Step 6: Keep your friends close

"This is Pakistan!" shouted a partygoer as the dancefloor was plunged into darkness. The speakers that had been thumping out the Black Eyed Peas fell still, the strobe lights that had been refracted through chandelier glass to all corners of the room vanished. A cheer erupted from the blackness, then fell quiet while someone scuttled off to power the generator. Power cuts are a part of daily life in Pakistan, though I'm told they are a great deal less frequent than they were a couple of years ago.

In the murky chaos, a large Pakistani man approaches.

"Where are you from?" he asks. It's a question that commonly precedes hello here when you're white. I explained I was from London. "London!" he hooted. "I live in London!" He proceeded to tell me exactly where on the Edgware Road his flat was situated. He then spoke to Michelle. "New York!" he cried. "I went to college in New York!"

It's the same reaction we've had from many of Pakistan's upper crust. If they haven't lived where you've lived, they have an auntie, or a son there. If they haven't been to your university (and they probably have) they have a student friend. So many Punjabi accents are flecked with an American twang or English intonation. Many of their owners have never left Pakistan.

There are some Pakistanis, I am told, who "enrich" their accents to adopt airs and graces. But a far better explanation, and one that frightens many here, is that the educated classes are leaving in their droves. Doctors, dentists, lawyers, politicians, writers, thinkers, artists - many are fleeing a country which has disappointed them. They are left with an untrustworthy government, a leader they are sure has his hands in the coffers, failing education and healthcare, and terrorism. Since Pakistan was formed as a nation over sixty years ago, they have been living behind barricades and in constant fear of their lives. It's a situation that can become all too normal, as a conversation I heard in the car a couple of days ago illlustrates:

"Aren't they living in Dubai now?"
"Oh no, they came back in the end."
"Why?"
"Well, of course, they have a livelihood here. It's your life or your livelihood, and you have to choose. But you also can't have a life without a livelihood..."
"Didn't he get kidnapped?"
"Oh, don't be silly child, not kidnapped. He was only held at gunpoint."

Almost one in 50 Pakistanis - 3.25 million - are expatriates living abroad, mostly in the US, UK and the United Arab Emirates. Around 1,800,000 leave Pakistan every year. Most are poor migrant workers, but not all: considering that a good chunk of these are from the educated classes - a tiny layer of the total population - Pakistan has something of a brain drain situation.

There's little faith in the country's reputation abroad, a situation which the jet-setting club are all too aware of. I've been interviewed this week by three different Asian TV networks, CNN India being one of them, and they all ask the same question: why do foreigners equate Pakistan with terrorism? They already know the answer, but I'm the horse's mouth.

Prominent Pakistani journalist and politician Ayaz Amir recently wrote the following.

"Adversity and facing up to it are part of the human condition. But the consistent ability to make simple problems worse and invent new problems all the time is a distinction that sets us apart from many other countries in what used to be called the Third World"

The same attitudes are evident lower down the social scale. One survey of working class Pakistani expats in Dubai yielded the following results:

Social Capital: What ordinary folk think
	(98 immigrants Dubai)
Proud of being Pakistani				16
Pakistanis at Fault				72
Work together				22
No trust				69
Faith in state				12
Faith in leadership				7
Pakistani education valuable				19

Pakistan is a country with self-esteem problems. From the questions asked me this week, it seems convenient to blame the foreign media creating a terrorist narrative. In truth, Pakistanis are the most generous and hospitable people I have met on my travels. But the blame for their country's immediate connotations does not just lie abroad: it seems from the statistics that many Pakistanis agree too.

In the meantime, someone hit the generator and the music powered up again. And believe me, conflict or no, Pakistani clubbers can dance until dawn and beyond.

Step 5: Find somewhere nice to stay

One of the best things about making new friends in a town where everyone is "just passing through" is that you get to nose around the inside of a lot of hotels. So when we arranged to go antiques shopping with a journalist I'd met the night before, I jumped at the offer to pick him up from the place he was staying.

The car wound its way through the same mini-army barracks stationed at the gate of every compound, and past some of the grandest private houses in the city. Each had a perimeter to make you gulp and a guard outside who would turn your skin inside out to search for explosives before pressing the button to let you in.

There was no guard outside this house. It took more than a button to open the gates as in a slapstick performance Khorram struggled to push both open for long enough to allow the car to zoom through. Inside was some sight: a huge art deco building on two stories, with steps on all sides leading up to an open veranda. A large stucco balcony stretched around the first floor. Its windows were huge. It was like Mandalay built by the British Raj but styled by Frank Lloyd Wright. It was magnificent.

Yet not one pane of glass remained - some were entirely covered by rotting yellow newspaper stuck on with sellotape. The white walls and columns were crumbling and grey; the mosaiced paths were chipped and potholed.

Around the building were three or four acres of garden, all of it scraggy where it once might have been manicured. The lawns seemed vaguely intentional and geometric, though the dry grass had long ago grown over any borders. The remains of a vegetable patch could be seen towards the servants' quarters, which also looked to be an empty shell, but it was difficult to tell. A woman in a red sari sat and stared vaguely at us from a distance. Along the drive were the stubs of wrought iron lamps which - once leading the way trumphantly for visiting diginitaries, perhaps - were now headless, useless and rusty.

Khorram stubbed a cigarette out and l us through a side door (the front door hadn't opened for years). Inside, a vague half-light was provided by whichever shattered windows weren't boarded up. An unmade bed, some grand and rotting chairs, clearly missing from the rest of a once-ornate set, were scattered around the rooms. Ceiling fans which hadn't moved in decades hung mournfully from the ceiling. A winding staircase, each step looser than the next, led upwards to another set of dialpidated rooms, with washed-out murals on the walls. On the landing was a huge Afghan rug, rolled up into a useless, dusty grey obstruction. The only sign of habitation were the biscuits, congealed parathas and cigarette stubs on various tables scattered around, and Khorram's suitcase, the contents of which were exploded all over the floor.

It was like a Pakistani palace art squat.

Khorram explained that he had been invited there by the son of His Highness Mir Ali Murad Khan II, the last prince of Kairpur, an area in Sindh, South East Pakistan, but once a state of its own with Mir Khan at its head. During partition, Khairpur had voted to join Pakistan, but in 1957, as the country grew, the new Pakistani government reneged on its promises not to interefere with the province's education system or industry. Slowly, Mir Khan watched his hard-built infrastructure deteriorate along with his crumbling soveriegnty and fortune. He retreated further and further into his two loves: ecological conservation and his Muslim faith. After running the government's wildlife advisory board, he retired to his 'royal bungalow' in Sindh and now sees few guests from the outside world. Properties such as the one in which we were standing are virtually forgotten.

This one, according to Khorram, is sometimes visited by Mir Khan II's son. A lone servant is still technically hired here, though he has mostly ceased to turn up as the master is never home. There is hardly a need to keep the home fires burning.

The house itself is similar to the way another journalist described Pakistan when we met for tea a couple of days ago. "Everyone wants a united country," she said. "But I don't understand how it can happen. Everybody is leaving." Even now, over sixty years after partition, many Pakistanis feel as if they
have watched their Indian neighbours change, develop and join the world stage economically, politically and culturally, while they have not developed beyond militarised streets and a sectarian rifts that cripple the country's ability to progress.

Many of the middle classes, ashamed of the state of the land beyond their own front doorsteps and, indeed, afraid for their lives, are simply leaving. Pakistan's brain drain is an increasing concern. There is a real fear that the princely home hidden in Lahore might not be the only grand property left for dead.

Khorram is staying here in the cold and damp while he writes an article on the (formerly) royal family. In the early afternoon as the sun streamed onto the balcony with its blistering paintwork, we stood smoking a cigarette in silence. A lime green cockatoo swooped through a pack of eagles and landed on the bare branch of a nearby tree. It was easy to imagine the house in its former glory - there were enough ragged clues to its previous character. There was not a hint about its future.

Step 4: Don't forget to say your prayers

We blew off tonight's fashion week after party to experience a different kind of worship. The shrine of Baba Shah Jamal is a sacred Sufi site - visited every Thursday night by a throng of devotees.

A motley crew bundled into two cars from the red carpet - a fashion designer, three journalists, a photographer, and a famous Pakistani TV star. We fell out into the mud on a dark side street tucked behind some crumbling buildings, immediately blinded by the neon lights from jalebi stalls. In the distance drum beats grew ever more intense, and the smell of incense mixed with hashish came from each direction in smoky waves. We clambered through the shadowed faces of the crowd, pulling scarves over our heads. We made our way past beggar women sitting on the wet marble steps, their twig thin arms reaching forward in supplication. Leaving our shoes with the attendant (who chucked them in a heap with the others, giving me the distinct feeling that our exit would involve a jumble-sale-style riffle through the enormous pile) we entered the building. Us women crept under a piece of tarpaulin to go through our designated entrance
.
Through the arch was a huge marble precinct with a huge above, covered in neon lights. Around it, pilgrims lit small candles in ceramic bowls. A gaggle of small girls reached up to touch my white hand, presumably as a dare. They quickly lost interest when they recognised our friend the TV star, and sat on the floor staring at her adoringly in silence.

Beneath the dome is the tomb of Baba Shah Jamal. It's a men only zone, but outside a woman prayed fervently. Her forehead every so often touched the grate in front of her, which is covered in small padlocks, placed in order to secure each supplicant's request. A quick peek inside at the men, who were bowing down in reverence in front of the marble slab, covered in a blanket of fresh red carnations.

We headed out, trailed by the TV star's small adoring fans, and then, their mothers and grandmothers to witness the real event.

Women were, once again, to keep their distance and so, standing on the steps we peered down into the courtyard where a crowd of men had gathered, teeming in from all corners, sitting down, walking around the perimeter, smoking hashish and swaying. A blanket of fragrant smoke rose - it was a shared affair. Boy carried trays of long jalebi sweets above their heads, passing them around so that the intoxicated might quell their sugar cravings.

The ceremony features the practice known as Dhol, and it is run by Pappu Sain, a man some know as a performer, and others as a saint. A tall, dark skinned old man, adorned with beads and embued with the authority that invokes silence with the twitch of a finger, he comes here every Thursday to play and dance with his followers.

The evening began as two drummers, brothers Gongu and Mithu Sain, drummed a frenetic beat in perfect time - a feat made even more impressive by the fact that one of them was entirely deaf. It was then that Pappa Sain's followers, who looked like Rasputins dressed in red and white, twirled, in a trance, holding their arms up, jangling heavy bells on their ankles. These were the dervishes. Members of the crowd stumbled, intoxicated, into the ring, but were immediately pushed out: this was for devotees only. My journalist friend from Karachi told me that these men were left at the temple as babies by people whose prayers to the saint were answered.

The crowd did not cheer: soporific, they stood and watched. But there was an electricity in the air which, even from the cheap seats, was palpable. Food was passed around from hand to hand - naan filled with a brown spicy sauce that I tried not to think too hard about as I placed it in my mouth. This is also a place, I was told, where people do not go hungry.

As we left, we s topped at the gift shop, or rather, a ramshackle stall lit by a single candle over the road where (as long as you don't get run over by a donkey cart first) you can purchase as much tin jewellery and holy bits of coloured thread as you like and probably still not pay over 100 rupees (80p). Or you could get a long string of pom poms as a present for a friend back home. They might not make Baba Shah Jamal answer their deepest desires but they might make the downstairs loo look cheerful.

In any case, it wa s home time, and, minding the donkey muck and holding up a friend who'd partaken of a little too much of the good plant, we picked out our shoes and found our way to the car. Though I think we'd used up all our blessings just managing to get home.



For photos that ar e a lot better than mine click here. I blame my pathetic offering on the fact that I am a woman and thus banished to the outer temple.