One week prior to leaving London for my Christmas holidays I was akin to what geologists say Saudi oil reserves could be in 15 years; drained. Being a work from home freelancer means you have to fight with mountainous energy to maintain a barely adequate social life. Not having the energy to do this I reclined into reclusiveness and decided to make up for human interaction by excessively decorating my room with flowers... (Well, they are a form of life after all, so they’d give me some company).

Being a human being, or as they say in Arabic, an insaan: one who was made to forget, I thought not at all of the reality that these flowers would die whilst I went on holiday for three weeks in a few days time. Living in your own world does not facilitate forethought, if anything, the opposite: incessant reminiscing.

Home I went. Family I met. Love I experienced. Across the generational spectrum, I soaked up the wisdom of my grandparents and enjoyed the adventure of understanding my fun loving teenage cousins. Something that cannot be replaced by a bouquet of flowers.

Returning back to London this week, forgetting I recently had an impulsive affair with eleven bouquets of flowers, I opened my bedroom door and saw this…

I sat, scratched my head and held back a tear. I had neglected something that should have been preserved for as long as possible. The old adage: don’t start what you can’t finish sprang to mind. Looking around the world, I wonder what else I, we, are neglecting that we should be preserving? Are there dead flowers all around?