It's been a week since my last blog. I know this because the last thing I hear every night and the first thing to assail my delicate ears each morning is the sound of Hanan's reproachful voice saying 'You didn't write a blog, today,' in a tone that suggests unforgivable slothfulness on my part. I missed blogging. But I was busy working through January's To Do list (see last blog) and each item was something like 'Write Two TV Shows'. Anyway, I had some time to consider my blogless state as I sat in New Scotland Yard waiting for my fingerprints to be taken. 'What happened?!' I hear you cry. Did Shamim go crazy after watching 40 fan videos all cut to 'Little Feeling' and take a baseball bat to Leonie Casanova? Did she get arrested selling Lisa Ray's hair as paintbrushes? Not at all. I just need an FBI report for Canadian immigration (Because I spent a year studying in Boston. Is studying English Literature in America a criminal offence?) and to do a report, the FBI need prints.
So I presented myself in a box-like room before a terse woman who, I'm guessing, hadn't seen daylight since 1963. No computer. Only a box of rubber bands, a huge selection of rubber stamps and an impressive magnifying glass. It was like Sherlock Holmes had never left. I was processed and the woman took up the magnifying glass and peered disapprovingly at the edges of my fingerprints.
'You've got no deltas,' she said irritably.
I tried not to feel inadequate as I rubbed at my ink-soaked fingertips with a wipe.
'What's a delta?' I asked politely.
She looked at me over the top of her glasses as though I was a rare breed of idiot.
'The mouth of a river,' she said. I swear. The woman at the next table muttered 'Ridges on the sides of your fingers.' They printed me again. Out came the magnifier.
'The FBI will probably send these back,' she warned. 'Your deltas aren't clear.'
'You know,' I suggested. 'You should issue a little handbook to criminals. So they know how to leave their fingerprints correctly.'
Boy, I was popular after that. But I avoided arrest and solitary confinement, and got home in time to make chocolate cakes with Ethan, whose 11th birthday is tomorrow, set a test maths exam for Luca (they both have three hour long exams coming up for new schools) and catch up with work stuff with Hanan. So the next hour went something like:
Ethan: 'Mummy, where's the whisk?'
Luca: 'Mummy, does 24 divided by 2 make 53?'
Hanan: 'Shamim, did you finish the TV show/novel/edit/script?'
But as I watched Ethan making the cakes, all grown up, I realised that I was thinking all the things my mother used to say. Not the stuff about eating bran and always wearing a thermal vest (she only takes her's off for a week in August) but about time passing so quickly. That we grew up so fast. Was it really more than 11 years ago that I sat in the obstetrician's office with Hanan planning Ethan's birth? I could still remember the excitement and the uncertainty, the thrill and the panic. That is, we were thrilled, and the doctor was panicked, especially when Hanan whipped out her Palm Pilot (remember those?) and told the doctor she'd prefer the C-Section on a Thursday.
'Why's that?' the doctor asked.
'So I can be back at work on Monday.'
The doctor had laughed quite hard before she realised that Hanan was being practical, not witty. It was a pleasant little trip down memory lane for me, and when I returned to the present day, misty-eyed, I found myself encrusted with icing, facing a seven-year-old who couldn't understand why 15 was an odd number ('It's not odd, it looks fine, Mummy!') and a wife who had not only clearly mellowed in the last ten years but also had given me all of this. The cakes, the questions, the books, the movies, the sleepless nights with hungry babies, the joy of doing what I love every day. And she doesn't care that I don't have deltas on my fingerprints. What more can a girl ask for?

Shamim Sarif, released on bail after her conviction for attempted sarcasm, with Hanan Kattan, record holder for the fastest Ceasarian ever, with Ethan, maker of fine cakes and Luca, defender of the number 15.