Back in Luxor nearly two weeks , now.

And not much to show for it either!

You know, of course Dear Reader, that I'm regularly driven to distraction by the vicissitudes apparent in our daily lives here in lovely Luxor? Well.........the other day, I just took a minute to get a snap of one of God's little creatures, who seemed perfectly happy to just sit there, on our washing line, not having a care in the world. It made me think!

That dragonfly (is that what it is?) will never know the rage which certain Egyptian "workmen" (and I use the word VERY loosely) can engender in a simple, peace loving Englishman!

You'll remember the "tilers"? I came across a couple of pictures which I had taken of them before I realised just how utterly useless they really were. Here they are; exposing them to the small world of my Dear Readers may be cathartic for me!

They aren't very far from my mind at present, as I've spent time every day since our return in the guest bathroom busying myself in re-grouting the tiles. "Straightforward", I can hear you saying, "what's the old curmudgeon complaining about now?" Ahhh, but you don't know what I know, Mr Clever Dick!

Ever heard of tile spacers?

That's them, little plastic jobbies which fit in between the tiles, so that they're evenly spaced and nice to look at, not to mention that they make grouting easier too. Well......(again, I'm beginning to sound like an old gossip!) Egyptian tilers don't use spacers of any description, they just bang them up against each other and then rub cement into the joints (which are sometimes almost non-existent!

Our cement grouting has turned a very dark shade of grey, which looks just awful! So, I've brought some white grout from Englandland to try to improve the look of it. What a job, I'm sick of it! All the joints are covered over with the new stuff, but it's very thin, seeing as the old stuff is as hard as bell-metal and won't rake out, and I've yet to clean it all up so that it looks tidy, I hope I don't rub through the thin layer, or I'll go crackers!!! Then there's the broken tiles to try and sort out one way or another, and to re-grout the floor with some black grout which I've also brought from our other home.

Other than my trials, there's not much to report on in Luxor at the moment. We've still been having power cuts, usually twice a day for about an hour to an hour and a a half. We try to arrange it so that we can either go to bed or go out when it goes off. Thankfully the temperature is coming down from what it was, so it's not really as bad as it was.

On our little trips out, I noticed the framework which is in place for the next set of solar panels to grace our public buildings:

This set can be seen from Ibn Khaled El Walid Street, just past the Iberotel travelling towards Awameya, and on the left. Let's hope that these ones will be fitted and commissioned by professionals, and that the wiring will be properly insulated from the extreme heat of the Egyptian sun.

I noticed, and snapped, a sad sight in the tourist bazaar as I strolled through there the other day on my way to the baker's:

This was once the Oum Kolthoum Coffeeshop, right in the middle of the souk, a favourite place for guides to bring their groups for a shisha and a coke (and a large lump of commission). We used to like to watch it and the busy market from the terrace of the Jamboree Restaurant, which is just above here. A great many of the shops and stalls in the bazaar are now closed altogether, it's depressing walking through there!

But.......I heard, from my tame travel agent, that there were 32 cruise boats working on the Nile the other week! And...... they were all at at least 60% of capacity! Now that has to be better news, eh?

We'll see what the winter season brings, and keep our fingers crossed!