WEDNESDAY 13th MARCH 2024

The alarm didn’t hurt as much this morning, but I can’t say I jumped out of bed at 4am with much excitement. Day 2 is when things start to feel more ritualistic, and habits begin to creep in. Which is great, except the days start getting repetitive. We often use the first week to get settled before we start doing iftars with family and friends or attending events that communities and Mosques put on throughout the month. So, Wednesday was a relatively quiet day with suhoor, prayers, work, iftar and ignoring the water cooler (I picked the desk right next to it).

Something I’ve always been a bit rubbish at doing while fasting at work over the years is not taking my lunch break. Bringing in food or needing to nip out to buy something signals the beginning of your half an hour break and without it, it’s easy just to work through it. Some people celebrating Ramadan often chose to skip lunch and use the time to finish early; others use this time for prayers (depending on which prayer is next in the day) or use the time for spiritual reflection. I asked amongst our friends and quite a few have said they’ll use the break from eating to hone in on a new skill or bring a book to work for a spot of mindfulness to ease off any pangs of hunger or distractions.

I recently jumped on the knitting/crocheting bandwagon, so I might use this new ‘lunch’ break to develop this new skill (does it count as a skill if you can only knit a long strip with no pattern?). I’ve found a few charities asking for little knitted hats for neonatal units, so with a commitment to using my time in a more charitable way this Ramadan I might make use of this opportunity (as long as the babies don’t mind the odd missed stitch).

A friend visiting from Pakistan took pity on our paltry date organisation and kindly gave us a box they’d brought over to use to break our fast with. Our last-minute-Tesco dates were turned into a delicious date, yogurt and honey smoothie we had before going to bed.