Since I was a teenager in Malaysia I have searched for a particular plant, one in which when you touched its frond like leaves, they promptly closed up. Where ever I was in the world I would touch frond like leaves to check if they closed. They never did.

My husband would look at me fondly and pat my hand as if to say

‘You are a poor old thing and a little mad.’

Life takes turns that are completely unexpected. Connections within connections unfold to provide experiences that have not been thought of.

It came about like this- my husband spent six months working in Hong Kong and whilst there made a Chinese woman friend who subsequently became a family friend visiting us in the UK and continued to visit after my husband died.

On her last visit earlier this year, she asked if she could bring a friend which of course she could. Her friend and I had something in common- grief. She had just lost her mother and I had just lost my husband.

Remarkably, after three days I happened to mention that I had spent my teenage years in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, leaving in 1959 aged 18. She spontaneously said,

‘I will take you back there.’

And so, she did.

I have just returned from an extraordinary journey, starting with five days in Hong Kong at the height of demonstrations ostensibly in the name of democracy where I met members of the Hong Kong intelligentsia, giving contrasting views on their current situation. Each person passionate about their view. It seems to be having the same affect as Brexit has on Britain. Hong Kong is divided.

Then to Kuala Lumpur. I felt a mixture of emotions as the plane landed to reveal a landscape of streaming towers outlined against a haze of pollution caused by Indonesian forest fires. Schools had been closed to allow children to remain indoors and not be subjected to the damaging air.

Where were the blue skies of my youth?

We had some delicious noodles in a market. I remembered my former address and our guide was determined to find it. It was not far away. Surprisingly, it was not a tower block but a house. Not my original house, but a rather better one. I stood on the earth that had been my garden and remembered the pain of childhood and the kindness of servants.

We travelled north to the old hill station the Cameron Highlands built by the British in Tudor style!

We stayed in a colonial Tudor hotel complete with ceiling fans. I returned to being an awkward teenager embarrassed by western privilege.

I talked to our driver about the plant I remembered that when you touched it the leaves closed. He stopped the car and searched the verges and there it was. I touched the leaves and they snapped shut. Life had come around a full circle. I wanted to tell my husband that I was not really mad. This plant did exist and then had the uncanny feeling that somehow, he had arranged the whole thing post death.

We went into some remaining jungle with a guide who was passionate about his bit of jungle, pointing to trees that were sickly due to pollution.

My memory of the jungle was a cacophony of sound in the canopy. The sound had diminished. This small experience has highlighted human harm to the planet in such a personal way. It arrows into me.

The lethal haze was also in the mountains.

Then to Penang, the haze was denser with the inevitable towers of concrete, but beneath were a hotch -potch of winding streets with small businesses reminiscent of the past. In the end people are the same. They need to make a living.

The highlight was to take the South East Asian Express train from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok. A very posh train but it arrived over an hour late just like Southern rail!

We boarded at 1am We were given an upgraded cabin and a bottle of champagne! The train was comfortable with jolly good food. It was relaxing. There was an area at the back where you could stand in the open and feel the hot air and be immersed in the lush countryside as tiny ramshackle villages flashed by. This bit, I really enjoyed.

In the end I connected with a plant and possibly with my dead husband.