On the weekend I went to help my African friend paint his flat before his wife moves in with him.

As soon as I mentioned it at home, my son wanted to come along and help.

So we got the spare paint from and rollers and brushes from the garage, and set off. I could tell my son was excited, he had a hint of a smile. He was trying not to show it, but I knew....

We got to the flat, had coffee, watched the back end of a Sunday morning show discussing assisted suicide, discussed the topic for a minute over a coffee and began working.

My friend covered the floor with dustsheets while me and my son put masking tape around the light switches, plug sockets, smoke alarm and entry phone.

The me and my son began painting the edges while my friend paited the middle bits. We'd been painting for about an hour when my friends brother turned up with his 4 year old son.

So my son decided to keep this 4 year old out the way of the adults painting by taking him into the living room and entertaining him there. They played for a bit, had a fight, put paint in each others hair, but all in all, I think they both had  a good time.

When we finished the hallway, we done the bathroom and kitchen and left the living room and bedroom for another day (maybe Wednesday after work).

"In my country, when painters come to paint the house, we give them tea and bread" (a special African bread) My friend said as he put the kettle on. We sat down, quite exhausted after painting for three hours straight.

My son didn't like the African bead, so I finished off his bread roll.

"I'll get you some English bread" said my friend and got two slices of Kingsmill thick white buttered toast for my son.

I was looking at the toast thinking 'it's been a long time since I've had proper white bread' We normally get the white looking healthey 50/50 stuff. Althought the white bread is not as healthy, it looked really tasty.

We had a haircut on the way on home and when we got home I read Asr namaz and the shaytaan tried distracting me by making me think about how long it's been since I've had white bread.

Silly really - but I made dua that I get some white bread soon and went to sleep (had a really bad headache)

The rest of my Sunday evening was spent in and out of sleep. I got up for a bit to eat roti with Chicken Gobbi.

Today, I opened my sandwich that my wife had made for me and guess what.....