Well, well, you could have knocked me down with a feather"
As I'm sure you all know, Dear Reader, we love to have our tea and (de-caff) Nescafe at the Nile Palace. Today, the surprise was that we were given two delicious Dilmah tea bags and two sachets of Nescafe de-caff coffee, and for the usual price. Now, if that isn't a good deal, I'll eat my tarbouche!
I even asked Mr Mohamed Ragab (The F & B Manager) if it was all in order and not just a special deal of some sort, to which he replied that this was the new standard deal. Very good!
During these balmy days, we like to sit on the NP terrace, overlooking the pool and the Nile and West Bank, it's lovely. Mind you, I cannot but feel unease at the Muslim girls using the pool when they seem to be fully clothed, if that's the case, it cannot be very hygienic, can it? But perhaps they aren't outdoor clothes after all, and are specifically for swimming (or just playing) in the pool, who knows?
When we are here, it's the only time that we really get to just sit and watch the river gliding past. It's very high at the moment, could it be the start of the inundation? You can see (in the picture) that some of the normally dry land has been covered:
It's funny, my eyes must have beheld this vista hundreds of times, but I'd never noticed these parasols before today:
Four of them are surely too many for a private garden, so what commercial premises are they?
Just a smidgeon farther upstream, I noticed, what looks like, a Sheiks Tomb, again, for the first time.
It being a good day for walking, and me being an old man who is deemed to need to walk to stay alive, we walked along Little Britain Street as we made our way to the bakery on Medina Street and on to Kheir Zaman on TV Street.
We came across some roadworks near the Police Hotel (The Elamir). I didn't take much notice of them at first, just wanted to get away from the noise of the windy-picks (or pneumatic drills, if you're posh!) which, in themselves, are quite unusual in Luxor. As I passed, I noticed that the two blokes using the windy picks were wearing protective flip-flops, along with their other safety equipment, and thought that you'd also like to see them.
There seems to have been a national shortage of "Mandolin" chocolate biscuits, of late. They're made by Cadbury, and are actually single fingers of Twix bars. However, single Twixes cost 2le for the small one, and Mandolins are 1le for a large one! No contest!!!! When we finally got to the KZ supermarket, and trailed around picking up the groceries, we eventually came to the chocolate and biscuit gondola and found unopened boxes of mandolins! New stock, apparently. We got two boxes; His and Hers:
Just something which might appeal to one or two of you:
That's right, it's an old Mercedes Benz. I'm not "up" on Mercs, so I can only guess at the year; late 40's or early 50's, I would imagine. I believe that the owner bought it with the intention of putting it right and back on the road, but it looks as if it's slowly dieing, to me! The same fellah has an early 50's Rover parked around the corner, which I seem to remember posting a picture of some time ago, it too is bound for a similar fate, I fear.
Unlike this old, and well-loved, beauty:
Another Merc, mid to late 50's, or possibly early 60's? I don't know, but I like it.
This one obviously has door-lock problems, but Egyptians don't like to be beaten, do they? Ingenuity is priceless, eh?
As I'm sure you all know, Dear Reader, we love to have our tea and (de-caff) Nescafe at the Nile Palace. Today, the surprise was that we were given two delicious Dilmah tea bags and two sachets of Nescafe de-caff coffee, and for the usual price. Now, if that isn't a good deal, I'll eat my tarbouche!
I even asked Mr Mohamed Ragab (The F & B Manager) if it was all in order and not just a special deal of some sort, to which he replied that this was the new standard deal. Very good!
During these balmy days, we like to sit on the NP terrace, overlooking the pool and the Nile and West Bank, it's lovely. Mind you, I cannot but feel unease at the Muslim girls using the pool when they seem to be fully clothed, if that's the case, it cannot be very hygienic, can it? But perhaps they aren't outdoor clothes after all, and are specifically for swimming (or just playing) in the pool, who knows?
Just a smidgeon farther upstream, I noticed, what looks like, a Sheiks Tomb, again, for the first time.
We came across some roadworks near the Police Hotel (The Elamir). I didn't take much notice of them at first, just wanted to get away from the noise of the windy-picks (or pneumatic drills, if you're posh!) which, in themselves, are quite unusual in Luxor. As I passed, I noticed that the two blokes using the windy picks were wearing protective flip-flops, along with their other safety equipment, and thought that you'd also like to see them.
Just something which might appeal to one or two of you:
Unlike this old, and well-loved, beauty:
This one obviously has door-lock problems, but Egyptians don't like to be beaten, do they? Ingenuity is priceless, eh?
The old Merc you show a picture of would not by any chance be down the side street by the Golden Palace hotel.I once saw a similar Merc down that street and also about 5 years ago there was a very very old Rover.I remember saying to myself that if anyone was to get that Rover back to the UK it would be worth a lot of money.When I last made inquiries about the Rover I was told that it was now on the West Bank.
ReplyDeleteAlways love to read your updated blogs which are very interesting.
Hope you and good wife are well.Regards Gordon,Chester.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHow nice to hear from you, Gordon.
ReplyDeleteYes, that's where it's standing (at Hod-Hod Soliman's) but the Rover is definitely just nearby. I cannot quite remember which model the Rover is, although I'm pretty sure that it's one of the earlier ones of that shape, even possibly a Rover 60, which is the slightly under-powered 4 cylinder version. More likely, though, a 75, methinks. If I get a chance to have another gander at it, I'll try to find out.
If my memory serves me well, the older of these models were real rust-buckets (chassis-wise) so might just be few and far between back in the UK by now.
I suspect that either of the Merc's would be of more monetary value than the Rover, although to a real Rover aficionado that statement would be classed as sacrilegious!
Many thanks for your reply.With regards the Rover that I saw quite sometime ago now down the side street by the Golden Palace,if memory serves me right it was a Rover 90.As you say these cars were considered rust buckets but as soon as I spotted the Rover I thought with a climate found in Luxor there would not be much rust and would in the UK sell for big money.
ReplyDeleteA very good morning to you Edward and your good wife Freda.After my second reply to you about the Rover I then had niggling thoughts as to what model the Rover was that I saw all those years ago.
ReplyDeleteAt least as I am rapidly approaching a decrepit state bodily it kept my brain alive and active.
When I first spotted the car for the life of me do not recollect if I took a photo of said car.Not being prepared to search through many packs of photo's I thought to myself,Right put your thinking cap on and try to recollect if there were any features about this car that stood out.Then I remembered it had 3 headlights which I had never seen on any other car.
So have just been on Wikipedia website checking the history of Rover cars and it is in fact a model you mention,a Rover 75.This model was produced between 1949 and 1952 when the 3rd headlight was dropped.
That means that the car I saw would be between 66 to 63 years old.
Regards Gordon.
Google (or Wiki anyway) is your friend, lol. Yes, 3 headlights, I'd forgotten about that. Mind you, any of that model range, from the 60 right through to the (was it?) 110, were a lovely car, complete with the 'suicide' rear doors. I actually prefer the doors hinging from the rear , but they're a thing of the past now, sadly. When we go to the odd classic car show during the summer, I still have twinges of regret over all the great old models which I (literally) chopped up in the 60's, and, of course, selling our last classic; the Series 2 Oxford, with which we won several rallies and displayed at shows for about 12 years. Ah, the good old days!!!!
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