I was a bit embarrassed, to be quite honest, when I saw the comment on my last effort, from Tarja in Finland. Of course even the loyalist of readers won't keep clicking-on when there's nothing new to read or look at, and who can blame them?
Mind you, us becoming almost recluses at Our Luxor doesn't help! I'm spending my time either on the laptop, looking at melodeons on eBay and Gumtree, or playing my melodeon on the roof terrace, whilst Freda reads or dozes. Mind, that's not strictly true, as we also still spend an inordinate amount of time cleaning, as ever! (That's three things that there's no escape from, by the way... Death, Taxes, and Egyptian dust!)
Our ventures out mainly consist of meeting the few friends still left here after the conspired at demise of British/Egyptian tourism. Freda rarely joins me on shopping expeditions any more, which has a lot to do with shock of having an idiot clip the wheel of the caleche in which we were riding, with his car! Although she would be more willing to come if we took the 'bus, it's not really as convenient, and it would mean that our caleche man's income would drop even further, as well! What to do, what to do?
Talking of Egyptians......we've been having some painting done, on the stairs, on the roof terrace, in our rooftop hovel, and in the already beautiful Our Luxor apartment! Now there's a surprise for you, the Jenningsies spending money!!!!! It doesn't happen too often, so the Egyptian workers had better make the best of it! (And you, Dear Reader, can revel in the abundance [possibly surfeit] of exclamation marks!!!)
Well, they certainly did. (The painters, that is not the D.R's!) Firstly, the stairs were becoming embarrassingly shabby, so they were first on the "to do" list. At the same time, it would be silly not to give the terrace a quick splash over with some new white and replace the distinctly sun-faded tent-fabric "artwork" (Christened as such by Mad Mara of Mara House fame). We had a recommendation for a painter, who was (unusually?) a cousin of some sort, of a very good and long-time friend. What more could a man want?
"I'll come with him to translate, as his English isn't all that good (no doubt it's still better than my Arabic!) and I want to make sure that there are no mistakes made with your instructions!" "Even better", thought I. I couldn't believe it when the men arrived.......they'd brought their own kettle, and tea, and glasses! This had to be an omen, good fortune had smiled upon us, at last!
Before too long, the cracked brickwork and redundant screw holes etc were all filled with maajun (a pre-mixed filler, pronounced ma ajune) and flattened down with sandpaper,
and a first coat was put on. I was a touch disappointed that they hadn't made much use of the three rolls of masking tape that they'd brought along, but the older of the painters assured me (sincerely, but not in a Tony Blair/Hughie Green type of way) that there'd be no mess after they were finished.
There wasn't in actual fact much mess, except that the stair treads, every one, had paint splashes of both colours liberally spread about, and a tin of paint had been knocked over (but cleaned up after a fashion) and the mosiaco (the white cement and pebble mix of which the stairs are made, pronounced moes-eye-co) was stained. And........the finish on the paint was matt instead of semi-gloss. We'd stipulated the semi-gloss as it washes so much better than the matt, and the stairs do get lots of hand-marks on them.
Anyway, this was the day before we were leaving to go home for our Christmas celebrations with our family, so we left the keys with said friend and hoped than he was able to sort it all out before we returned.
Which he did, of course, but to his satisfaction, not ours; sadly. They had varnished over the lower of the two colours! Never mind, you can't have everything, can you? It's certainly nice and bright and clean looking. I've made a start on scraping the paint off the stairs, and scrubbing the remnants with water and wire wool, they're coming up really nicely, but it's blinking hard on the old hands, I can tell you! Here's one reason why we didn't even contemplate varnish!
Even though it says on the tin "For Outside Use", this is what happens when it gets rained upon, not very satisfactory, is it? Mind you, it does go back to normal when it dries. (???)
In their favour, I have to admit that they turned up when they were due, didn't try to change the price, and the end result (whilst not good) made the place look clean and tidy and was eventually acceptable to a desperate man! What do you think, Dear Reader?
I was almost contemplating doing the rest of the painting myself, even though I hate it and am increasingly uneasy about clambering up and down sellems-heshup (Stairs-wooden....step-ladders to you and me!) when we met for tea with some English friends. "I've just the man for you!" the husband said, and sure enough, he had.........really!
Although our new painter speaks almost no English at all, his work was excellent! Our neighbour (an English speaking Antiquities Guide) did the translating for us and everything went swimmingly. Muharib, that's the painter's name, went on to paint the guest bedroom after we were satisfied with the job he'd done on our's upstairs. I think the darker colour finishes the room off quite nicely!
We're ever so pleased that we've found him. Now all I have to do is to persuade him to come to England to do some work there!!!! Insh'Allah!
On occasion, they have a travelling market visits Luxor, and recently ws such an occasion! Of course, we usually have a butchers (Colloquialism, actually Cockney rhyming slang: Butchers = Butchers Hook = Look) and this was no different. Most of the stuff was handicrafts of one sort or another, and none really caught my eye.....until.......I noticed one of those folding Arabic (of the desert wandering type, I would imagine) chairs. Ooooooooh, I wanted one! Badly! In actual fact, I've lusted after one of these ever since I first clapped eyes on them, many years ago. Curved and inlaid dark painted wood, a feast for the eyes! Anyway, I managed to persuade Freda that one would sit very nicely in our guest apartment, and after the saleslady had even let me plonk my 17(+?) stone frame on it, she did offer a tempting discount. We bought it, oh incredulous Dear Reader!
Of course, I had no idea of where it would go, but I was confident that Freda's interior designer eye would find somewhere suitable. But it didn't. Friends, I had to go and buy another one to match, as one alone just didn't look right. Here they are, at last, and I love them!
Mind you, us becoming almost recluses at Our Luxor doesn't help! I'm spending my time either on the laptop, looking at melodeons on eBay and Gumtree, or playing my melodeon on the roof terrace, whilst Freda reads or dozes. Mind, that's not strictly true, as we also still spend an inordinate amount of time cleaning, as ever! (That's three things that there's no escape from, by the way... Death, Taxes, and Egyptian dust!)
Our ventures out mainly consist of meeting the few friends still left here after the conspired at demise of British/Egyptian tourism. Freda rarely joins me on shopping expeditions any more, which has a lot to do with shock of having an idiot clip the wheel of the caleche in which we were riding, with his car! Although she would be more willing to come if we took the 'bus, it's not really as convenient, and it would mean that our caleche man's income would drop even further, as well! What to do, what to do?
Talking of Egyptians......we've been having some painting done, on the stairs, on the roof terrace, in our rooftop hovel, and in the already beautiful Our Luxor apartment! Now there's a surprise for you, the Jenningsies spending money!!!!! It doesn't happen too often, so the Egyptian workers had better make the best of it! (And you, Dear Reader, can revel in the abundance [possibly surfeit] of exclamation marks!!!)
Well, they certainly did. (The painters, that is not the D.R's!) Firstly, the stairs were becoming embarrassingly shabby, so they were first on the "to do" list. At the same time, it would be silly not to give the terrace a quick splash over with some new white and replace the distinctly sun-faded tent-fabric "artwork" (Christened as such by Mad Mara of Mara House fame). We had a recommendation for a painter, who was (unusually?) a cousin of some sort, of a very good and long-time friend. What more could a man want?
"I'll come with him to translate, as his English isn't all that good (no doubt it's still better than my Arabic!) and I want to make sure that there are no mistakes made with your instructions!" "Even better", thought I. I couldn't believe it when the men arrived.......they'd brought their own kettle, and tea, and glasses! This had to be an omen, good fortune had smiled upon us, at last!
Before too long, the cracked brickwork and redundant screw holes etc were all filled with maajun (a pre-mixed filler, pronounced ma ajune) and flattened down with sandpaper,
and a first coat was put on. I was a touch disappointed that they hadn't made much use of the three rolls of masking tape that they'd brought along, but the older of the painters assured me (sincerely, but not in a Tony Blair/Hughie Green type of way) that there'd be no mess after they were finished.
There wasn't in actual fact much mess, except that the stair treads, every one, had paint splashes of both colours liberally spread about, and a tin of paint had been knocked over (but cleaned up after a fashion) and the mosiaco (the white cement and pebble mix of which the stairs are made, pronounced moes-eye-co) was stained. And........the finish on the paint was matt instead of semi-gloss. We'd stipulated the semi-gloss as it washes so much better than the matt, and the stairs do get lots of hand-marks on them.
Anyway, this was the day before we were leaving to go home for our Christmas celebrations with our family, so we left the keys with said friend and hoped than he was able to sort it all out before we returned.
Which he did, of course, but to his satisfaction, not ours; sadly. They had varnished over the lower of the two colours! Never mind, you can't have everything, can you? It's certainly nice and bright and clean looking. I've made a start on scraping the paint off the stairs, and scrubbing the remnants with water and wire wool, they're coming up really nicely, but it's blinking hard on the old hands, I can tell you! Here's one reason why we didn't even contemplate varnish!
Even though it says on the tin "For Outside Use", this is what happens when it gets rained upon, not very satisfactory, is it? Mind you, it does go back to normal when it dries. (???)
In their favour, I have to admit that they turned up when they were due, didn't try to change the price, and the end result (whilst not good) made the place look clean and tidy and was eventually acceptable to a desperate man! What do you think, Dear Reader?
I was almost contemplating doing the rest of the painting myself, even though I hate it and am increasingly uneasy about clambering up and down sellems-heshup (Stairs-wooden....step-ladders to you and me!) when we met for tea with some English friends. "I've just the man for you!" the husband said, and sure enough, he had.........really!
Although our new painter speaks almost no English at all, his work was excellent! Our neighbour (an English speaking Antiquities Guide) did the translating for us and everything went swimmingly. Muharib, that's the painter's name, went on to paint the guest bedroom after we were satisfied with the job he'd done on our's upstairs. I think the darker colour finishes the room off quite nicely!
We're ever so pleased that we've found him. Now all I have to do is to persuade him to come to England to do some work there!!!! Insh'Allah!
On occasion, they have a travelling market visits Luxor, and recently ws such an occasion! Of course, we usually have a butchers (Colloquialism, actually Cockney rhyming slang: Butchers = Butchers Hook = Look) and this was no different. Most of the stuff was handicrafts of one sort or another, and none really caught my eye.....until.......I noticed one of those folding Arabic (of the desert wandering type, I would imagine) chairs. Ooooooooh, I wanted one! Badly! In actual fact, I've lusted after one of these ever since I first clapped eyes on them, many years ago. Curved and inlaid dark painted wood, a feast for the eyes! Anyway, I managed to persuade Freda that one would sit very nicely in our guest apartment, and after the saleslady had even let me plonk my 17(+?) stone frame on it, she did offer a tempting discount. We bought it, oh incredulous Dear Reader!
Lovely thing!
Of course, I had no idea of where it would go, but I was confident that Freda's interior designer eye would find somewhere suitable. But it didn't. Friends, I had to go and buy another one to match, as one alone just didn't look right. Here they are, at last, and I love them!
As you can see, us old folk have had quite a lot of excitement here at Our Luxor, I just hope that our new batches of guests think it's all been worthwhile!
How was that Targa? Did it grab you at all? lol.
(I know it's been a long time, but you do remember that if you click on a picture, you can get them all up together, and bigger too, don't you?)
I must congratulate you, Edward, on very successful decoration in your already so lovely place. The colours could not be any better, they suit perfectly.
ReplyDeleteThat's most kind, thank you. Mind you, it helps a lot when your wife is an interior design specialist!
ReplyDelete