The HHS (Haret Health Service)

Yes, things tend to be more 'local' here than in our home country!  (Haret being Egyptian for "Alley", remember?)

With this arthritis carry-on, I'm not the usual happy-chappie which all our neighbours have come to know and love. (Well!) But I have to admit that I've been quite surprised by the number of concerned reactions I've noticed to my hobbling around, it's nice to think that they care!

I've no idea why my knees should have started to hurt so much, so suddenly, but the right one in particular is really bad. It's that bad that I decided I would have to make use of the HHS. Dr Yacoub Geris has the ground floor of our building, and he's a gentleman! Although his consultancy fee is 44le, he refunds 40le of it when he is treating neighbours. His assistant, Girges, I've mentioned him to you previously Dear Reader, gets the other 4le. (Poor beggar, I call him all the names under the sun at times.)

Anyway, after a thorough examination, Dr Yacoub prescribed some effervescent granules to destroy the crystals which he was sure were the immediate cause of my pains, and some anti-inflammatory capsules to ease the pain and reduce the inflammation. I did notice that the capsules were, in fact, Diclofenac by another name! Never mind, I thought, they're only for a short term, and should therefore be OK. (I had been taking Ibuprofen for my back, as well, but stopped these.)

By the time of my follow-up visit, I had noticed some pain on the inside corner of my calf, just below the knee. It was familiar, but I couldn't say how? Dr Yacoub explained it away as probably a bit of muscle pain due to not walking properly because of the arthritis. However, as I was struggling to get to sleep with the arthritis pain that night, I remembered where the other pain was from; "Thrombophlebitis of the superficial leg veins", which I had suffered with some ten or so years ago. I did feel better, now that I knew what I was dealing with!

When I told the doctor about this, he insisted that I should have a sonography test, at a local radiological clinic, just to be sure. Of course Freda was ahead of everyone, and had me unable to fly home at Easter because of having DVT! We eventually found the Teba 2000 clinic on Mustafa Street, where the bloke agreed to charge me "Egyptian Price" (100le) on production of my passport. Another journey!!! Mind you, later that day, the ultra-sound was done very professionally, and I was presented with the pictures and a full report within about 5 minutes of the examination being completed. After explaining all the ins and outs of my leg veins, the report corroborated my initial diagnosis, and also stated that there was no DVT! It's funny how several Egyptians will say "Hello Doctor" when they see me in the street; they must realise that I was (in my youth) going to be a doctor, only I never had the patience..........boom boom! (Sorry about that, I just couldn't resist it!)

I took this pic of the computer screen, just so that you would know that I wasn't making all this up!!!

After another bad night with the arthritis pain, I presented myself at Dr Yacoub's surgery again, complete with pictures and report. A prescription was written, and he told me that it was for a course of INJECTIONS!!!!! "Mr Edward will administer them for you" said he. Mr Edward is also know as "Igor", I've told you about him before as well. He's assistant to Dr Al Malach, the surgeon on the first floor of our building. He's also the person whom I've threatened to beat senseless on many occasions, when I've caught him depositing rubbish on the landing on the stairs!  

What a to-do!

Here are the dreaded ampoules and syringes:

He's already given me one injection in the stomach, and I've to go back to him at seven o'clock this evening. I'd better try to be nice to him, I suppose?

If I'm still here at the weekend, I'll try to bring you up to date! Wish me luck?

You'd better get your skates on!

That's taken me back a few years! Do you remember your skates? I certainly remember mine, they were like these:

Very noisy, as they had steel bearings for wheels, and dangerous as they had no brakes (which were known as 'Stoppers' when they did finally arrive, along with the rubber wheels), we must have been mad. I wonder what the elf and safety police would have thought of them. No doubt our parents would be arrested for child abuse, or neglect at least, in this day and age!

Remember this, as well?

Never mind, that's not the point of this Blog, it was just that the Blog title disturbed my memory banks!

To the matter in hand, then. 'You'd better get your skates on'; if you want to join in Luxor's latest "Healing and Relaxation Program" (sadly being conducted by people who cannot spell!) which is being held at the Steigenberger Nile Palace Hotel on February 22nd and March 1st. The first session was on the 15th, but it wasn't all that well attended:

Mind you, as we were coming away I did notice our friend Mr Gamal, the Steigenberger Chairman, arriving on scene in his very fetching dark blue patterned track suit!!!!! (I didn't take a snap of him, as I don't want to be banned from his hotel forever!)

Here's the advertising sign in the lobby:

Isn't it funny; Thai Chi. Mispronounce it and it turns into Chai Thi, I think I'd better have a cup just now.
Byeeeee!

Who remembers Dave Berry, from the 60's?

"Little things, that you do, make me glad I'm in love with you." Yes, that was him, I thought he always came across as rather creepy, with a face which looked, even way back then then, as if a cosmetic surgeon had been serving his apprenticeship on him, poor beggar! Here he is on YouTube.



Well, I love some of the 'Little Things' which our Dell laptop does in conjunction with its Etislat USB modem. But I also hate it with a vengeance!!!!!!

I decided, the other day, to try to get our Lexmark printer to load onto the laptop. I'd tried before, but was left with a message saying that although it was loaded it might not work as it had troubleshooting issues, or something to that effect, and it wouldn't actually work at all. But you know when you just know that today is the day?

It turned out that today (well, the 'other' day!) it really was. I must admit that it was a bit more of a clart (Colloquialsm: "clart" (or clart-on) in this case the word "trial" could be the more commonly used) than I had expected. It kept me occupied for quite a while, but I eventually managed, so we can now scan things into the laptop again, although we cannot yet print, as we've no (Number 17!) black ink cartridge for some unknown reason, so I couldn't even try to get it re-filled!

Even the new 'spare' one has disappeared! 

Mind you, I dare say that if I took it down to the souk, I'd find someone who would knock me up a cartridge out of an old Coke can and squeeze a couple of Biros into it, just to get me going!!!! (I well remember, when we first came to Luxor, seeing a one and a half metre satellite dish made of soldered together Pepsi cans! Yes, really!)

Anyway, today's moan is really about Internet speeds!

As you all know, I'm just an HGV mechanic and Class One HGV and PSV Operator and driver (as well as latterly becoming a plumber, tiler, carpenter, A/C engineer, decorator, personal shopper, interior designer and part time guide and hotelier) so I've yet to even begin to understand the intricacies of computing and the Internet. But I'm sure that among you highly valued readers, there will be at least one of you who is technically clued up!

Here's the situation: All the laptops I've had here in Luxor have been connected to the 'net' via a 'dongle' of one sort or another. Being a straightforward sort of bloke, I began by believing whatever the techies at Vodafone told me, "it was the old- fashioned laptop slowing down the speed" or the blame lay with "the steel reinforcing in the concrete of the building". To cut a very long story short, and after going through three laptops in six years, I've now realised that the staff at Vodafone in Luxor all seem to be unrepentant and compulsive liars, and those at Etisalat (whose USB modem I'm now using) aren't all that much better!

Often, to pass the time as I'm waiting for a particular page to load, I'll watch the Etisalat dongle's statistics page. It's very interesting to see the trace line bumping along the bottom of the page, on or about the 5 kbps mark! (Did you know that human blood boils at less than 5 kbps? Well, you do now! I'll educate you yet.)

During loading the printer onto the laptop, I had to actually download (see, I'm getting the hang of the terminology, aren't I) a driver (?) from the Lexmark web-site. I was absolutely astonished at the speed it was downloading at. Here, have a butchers at this: (Sorry, that's another colloquialism, "Butchers" = "Butcher's Hook" = a look, or at least a cursory glance.)

                      

Yes, it's running at over 1000 kbps! So, can there be a problem with my laptop? When it finished downloading from that particular site, it went back to normal, see:

And then, back to taking up to a full minute to load a TripAdvisor, or whatever, page! It's also slower at certain times of the day. In all fairness, though, I have to report that my 7.2 mbps Etisalat dongle usually (maybe 70% of the time) delivers between 30 and 60 kbps, which I can live with, but when it's slow I feel like chucking it over the roof terrace parapet!

So! Is there an 'Oracle' out there, someone who can confidently pronounce upon my problematic situation? Are the Egyptian mobile companies just conning us dimwitted customers, or could it be an intermittent problem with the laptop, or could it be that there just aren't enough CO2 atoms in the unpopulated Egyptian desert atmosphere to carry the signal from here to there?

As if I didn't have enough to currently cope with, it now seems that Freda is trying to vegetarianise me! Just because I'm colour-blind, she thinks she can get away with slipping tomatoes into my mushroom and onion quiche! (Alfred had no smoked ham!)

Next thing you know, she'll have me walking out with a pastel coloured sweater draped fashionably over my shoulders and drinking Camomile tea, well she's got another think coming!!!!!!!

Then press the 'hash' key??????????

I suppose that it's to do with me being an 'Oldie', but I thought that 'hash' was something to eat which was made of corned-beef, onion and potatoes! HASH? Lo and behold, they mean 'the key with the cross-hatching symbol', you know, criss-cross lines; the method beloved of artists, whose medium is the pen and ink, to create areas of shade or darker colour. The picture below (found via 'Wikipedia') shows hatching and cross-hatching. 

Not that it's of any real consequence, mind you, but I don't agree with all this messing about with English. If you want to describe something which is new, or at least innovative, then make up your own words rather than try to change the meaning of words already in use, and understood to mean something entirely different to that to which you're referring!!!! There's enough of THAT sort of thing around already, thank you.

Sorry about that, it has nothing whatsoever to do with tonight's Blog other than I was thinking of it as a bit of a hash, in that it's a mix-up of several different things, like a corned-beef hash, in fact! RANT OVER.

Now then, "Hello, my name's Edward and I'm a smoker!" That's how the alcoholics do it at 'Alcoholics Anonymous', isn't it? As many of you know, I promised Freda that I'd chuck smoking when we moved to Luxor and I have, to all intents and purposes. It's just that people keep offering me a cigarette, and seeing as I still enjoy the odd one or two, I usually take them! So, I also accepted a real Cuban cigar when it was offered.

Yes, that's right 'ROMEO Y JULIETA' and underneath it says Habana Cuba.
According to our friends at Wiki, they're made by the state owned company, and are hand-rolled. (Although I shouldn't think that they're still rolled on the thighs of dusky maidens!) It seems that they cost over $6 each, rather more pricey than the Castellas which I used to smoke when I was a youth. It'll do for the Winter Palace one evening. (As the saying in Geordieland goes: "It's nee gud bein poor and luckin poor!")

Poor people often have to 'make do and mend', and we've been practising it for years! I love to root around in second-hand shops and jumble sales and the like, other people's rubbish fascinates me. So, we are frequent visitors to the Second-Hand-Man up off New TV Street, as I'm sure I've told you before, Dear Reader. (Do keep up!)

This week, he had a selection of newly acquired goodies for us to peruse. Of course Madame Farida is the haggler, not me. When she got about 25 or 30 feet away from the shop entrance, the man was calling her back with the promise that he'd take her offer after all! Actually, he squeezed another 20le out of her for the delivery, but that was OK. Here are our two latest bargains:

The table is destined for the Guest Apartment, after being rubbed down and re-varnished, while the mirror has gone up in our bedroom, replacing a smaller one. We really like them both!

Something we DON'T like, is being over-run with dickie birds! While we were sitting on the small terrace at the Nile Palace, we couldn't escape them:

Neither could we cannot escape them at home! They won't leave Freda's Hibiscus alone.

The last one, with the yellow breast, is really beautiful; and I'm not a Twitcher by any standards. Just across the way a little, one of our neighbours has recently started to keep pigeons:

It mystifies me, just how he keeps them safe from the local cats. But they mustn't like the way he looks after them! (More of which in a minute!)

We have an 'up-lighter' on the roof terrace with a 500 Watt bulb, it's quite bright! The halogen bulbs are Chinese, of course, and don't last all that long, but they're cheap, so we cannot really complain. It went off the other day, after Freda had complained about having to shoo away two of our neighbour's pigeons, who were perched on the lamp. They also perch on top of the A/C unit, and drop their droppings there! (But I have a cunning plan for that.)

I went to change the bulb, and look at what I found............

That's right, the cheeky little feathered beggars were building a nest in our lamp as they were obviously wanting to run away from our cruel neighbour!  I was astonished at their choice of nest-building material, it was nearly all bits of binding wire, with a safety pin thrown in for good measure!

Anyway, I've evicted them!

This next picture might appeal to the small number of folk who are familiar with the names 'Eric Olthwaite' and 'Howard Moleson' (him of 'a new Spear and Jackson' fame). It's of a 'Lovely Shovel' which we just happened to find in the middle of the road on Sharia Karnak, near to the 'Egyptian Exchange'.

Finally, we (Luxor, that is) have been inundated with tourists this past couple of weeks, the only drawback being that they have been nearly all Egyptian tourists, who won't spend a penny where a halfpenny will do! I took the following snap at the Nile Palace, just to prove to you that some Muslim women can and do go into the swimming pool fully clothed.

Mind you, they were certainly enjoying their swimming. It just goes to show, doesn't it? 

"Rufus Roo Beats The Baggage Charge"

That's the slogan of the Rufus Roo competition, where some lucky Blighter is going to win FOUR of these very handy waistcoats! (And, like the National Lottery; "You've got to be in it to win it!")

Of course you, Dear Reader, will have already read the recent Our Luxor blog about our own airport adventure where such an accessory would have been a huge boon, but where, in the event, my old Barbour jacket had to suffice. Well, there's a bit of a story to my actual finding out just how versatile this 'Big Pocket' thing really is. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin!

After the rain last week, we were pretty well stressed out. With all the cleaning etc and the inescapable fact that I was going to have to paint the roof terrace walls, I wasn't the happiest of Bunnies, I can tell you! Then, to top it off, right in the middle of all this trauma, we received a panicked telephone call from a lady with a Geordie accent! It was the famous (or should that read 'infamous'?) lady from the Trip Advisor Luxor forum: newcastlemiss003. This was Tuesday, and about 5:30pm; she only wanted to come and stay with us the following day!

What could we do, when a fellow mangler of the 'Queen's English' was found to be in need? In for a penny; in for a pound, "Of course you can, and welcome!" Mind you, just then, we had no idea of what we were letting ourselves in for!!!!

Freda and I set to, and whizzed through the guest apartment like a proverbial 'dose of salts'. (That's a bit of a colloquialism, meaning very quickly, and originating from the expected speed of the consequences of taking a 'dose' of Epsom Salts, an erstwhile popular remedy for the constipation!) The apartment was soon habitable.

newcastlemiss003 is a regular visitor to our strange adopted hometown, she's obviously as daft as we are! Being of a generous nature, and as soft as claggy toffee, she brings oodles of gifts for the Sunshine Children's Home in Luxor, as well as stuff for some of her Egyptian friends. This largesse comes with its own setbacks, however; she either doesn't bring all the stuff she needs for herself, or she'd have to pay the dreaded 'excess baggage' charges! Not anymore, Matey!

The addition to her wardrobe of the (admittedly not very stylish) Rufus Roo BIG POCKET Travel Jacket, has solved that particular problem. Here's a shot of the children's clothes she managed to fit into the pockets of her Rufus Roo:

Rather impressive, I'm sure you'll agree. As for me, I'll have to make do with my trusty Barbour, although I'm not sure that I could really wear it to come here during the summer months, lol.

Here's another picture, this time showing the actual jacket being modelled by newcastlemiss003 herself:

It's amazing just how small it rolls up to, it would easily fit into a trouser pocket. Although I'd hate to be without my excellent Barbour in the depths of the Windy Nook winters, I've got to admit that for summer jaunts to warmer climes, the Rufus Roo (at 30 odd quid) beats the £200 Barbour as a wearable suitcase!!!!

Little newcastlemiss003 has certainly opened my eyes to its possibilities, as it really did live up to the slogan of "Rufus Roo Beats The Baggage Charge" for her.

Ah-ha, Oh-no...............

Who remembers the Serendipity Singers, and was that song, of 1964, their only claim to international stardom? (If you're under about 55, you'll have absolutely no idea whatsoever of what I'm talking about! If you're going to keep on reading, then perhaps you'd better click onto this: YouTube clip )

The only thing that frightens me about living here in Luxor is the ever present threat of rain!! Now then, I know that that will sound ludicrous to many of you lot, but we do get rain here; sometimes (mostly, actually) it rains for about a minute and by the time you realise that you've felt raindrops and not bird poop, it's stopped again. Nevertheless, sometimes it does really rain! Like rain in England, or even like rain in Wales, for heavens sake! That's when I leap out of bed in blind panic!

Let me explain a little further. Our small rooftop hovel doesn't have a 'permanent' roof; it's not allowed to have one as it's only classed as a 'temporary structure'. So, when we had it converted from the original chicken and goat penthouse, we stipulated a wooden roof; after all, this is Egypt man, no rain! As I've said on here before, ignorance is bliss.

When the rain actually did come down like stair-rods, we were flooded out. It was like walking around in a very large shower/wet-room affair. Much of the accumulated dust from the roof, and the inner roof space, was washed down the interior walls, and the whole place had to be repainted. You know how I dread the thought of wall painting, so you can sympathise with my newfound dread of the rain as well.

As I was typing away at yesterday's blog, the rain was coming and going. It wasn't heavy enough to permeate through the heat-warped timbers, layers of Sahara sand and expanded polystyrene insulation, but I was afeared of going to bed in case it got worse. It did get worse, and Freda and I raced about, either covering things with waterproof sheets or transferring them to the guest apartment, which luckily was not occupied.

Polythene sun-block curtains can come in handy during rainstorms, no matter what anyone says:

 That's the bottom end of our bed!

                                         And that's the floor on my side!

Thankfully, the interior walls haven't taken too much hurt this time, although those outside will have to be repainted. (Actually, they were due anyway.)

                        Can you see the puddles on the roof across the road?

We've spent today cleaning up, obviously, and the washing machine hasn't stopped. Tonight we're sleeping downstairs, it's only till we get our own place spick and span again, and we expect to be back in our own bed tomorrow night (or even during the day, if I get my way, you know that I need little naps now and then). 

Travel DIY?

That's the title of a post on the TripAdvisor Luxor Forum today. I thought that I'd offer the person some light DIY, just to keep his hand in, so to speak, but it wasn't about DIY at all!

I've been a bit busy with my own DIY over the past couple of days, I'll show you later on. Meanwhile, here's a picture that I've wanted to take for some time, only the opportunity hasn't arisen before now:

Suppose that walking on the top of a ladder is sort of similar to stilt-walking, but I think I'll just give it a miss, thank you very much! I well remember the stilts that we had as children, great fun, even if we did pick up a few bruised knees now and then.

These next two aren't exactly DIY. This building, just down on Gold Street, has had men working on it, on and off, for several weeks now. I really am stumped as to what sort of end result they will accomplish with barely enough floor space to have a staircase in it, and being three storeys high! The steel and chicken-wire framework will hold some fancy plasterwork, eventually. Time will reveal all, I suppose.

I didn't tell you about Mohamed Marble, did I? Well, he's the 'stone man' who eventually provided the Aswan granite for the guest apartment kitchen surfaces, a nice, genuine bloke! Well, we've been wanting to do something with the top surface of the cupboard which we use for the guest's breakfast buffet 'cause when the crisp white linen table cloth is removed; it really is quite an eyesore:

We tried the second-hand man up on New TV Street, a while ago, but the stone he had wasn't the right size and I thought it was too expensive for old stuff anyway. How right I was proven to be! Mohamed Marble came up trumps, 115le for the stone (it's the cheapest type, mind you) and 35le for delivery. I complained about the cost of the delivery, but he made a bit of a face and a gesture indicating our 83 stairs, and I relented! (Too soft to make claggy toffee!) In the event, I left Mohamed and the carrier at the street door, as I went and prepared the way for them up onto the roof. After a few minutes, I was wondering where they had gotten to, so started back down. I found Mohamed, two flights down, desperately trying to fill his lungs with enough air to get the oxygen back into the blood which was racing around his overly large body. The carrier had refused to help him up the stairs, and he had carried it himself! I offered to help him up those last two flights, but he wouldn't have it, he'd been paid to deliver, and deliver he would! (Even if it killed him, apparently.)

This new marble top for the breakfast buffet cupboard was only a part of the latest project! Freda has been getting increasingly tired of seeing the ugly satellite dish, which is just over the wall near to the breakfast buffet, so she wanted it screened off, somehow.

Ever compliant, I stepped up to the challenge; "Can we fix it? Yes we can!" (No, nothing to do with 'Jim'll Fix It', certainly not with the latest revelations.) Another sheet of the Islamic patterned stuff, I think! As you know, there's no B&Q or Wicks here, and if you want wood, then you need to find a carpenter who has a tree to cut up, or go to young Mina over the railway and buy his overpriced stuff, which is full of shakes anyway! Good old Abdu, at Karnak, saved the day, yet again. In three days, he managed to squeeze in the production of 15 pieces of varying length timber, to my specification, with which to construct my design.

I started with it at about 4am on Thursday morning? It being the anniversary of the birthday of Muhammad, the Muslims were celebrating in their usual fashion; considerately playing music at full volume while chanting verses, also at full loudspeaker volume, from the Quran ALL NIGHT LONG!

The mitre box I brought from B&Q at Dunston was a real boon, as I had quite a few mitred corners to construct. Like a real DIYer, I nearly had my fore-finger off four times!

As you might notice from the position of the nicks on my finger; I got increasingly faster at getting it out of the way of the sawblade each time it jumped out of the mitre box! My word! That Nu-Skin is grand stuff.

Anyway, here's the first glimpse of my latest efforts, I got it this far by about 11pm on Thursday:

I've purposely left the wood in its natural state, no colour or varnish. Like the air-conditioner covers, I'll let the timber darken naturally, for a year or so, before varnishing; and that's another little job which I accomplished earlier this week, as well, they look lovely! I think I've earned a day off.

Dummler's Dinner?

This short post was prompted by the comment, on the last posting, from Steve Small. (I know it has nothing to do with Luxor, but I'm feeling a little nostalgic!)

When Steve and I were younger, there was a period when we dined at Dummler's Cafe every week-day. The Dummlers were a quite famous family, and had been in the cafe trade in Gateshead for many a long year. Their original premises were in central Gateshead, on Sunderland Road, and not a stone's throw from the very busy High Street. When the town centre went through one of its many re-development phases, Dummler's cafe was knocked down, along with the Essoldo and Ritz picture houses, to make way for the burgeoning industries of the 'Dole' and the 'Nash' (National Assistance) which moved into the towering office blocks and which still scar the town today!

By the time we had found this gem of an eating establishment, it had been relocated to Deckham, which is about a half mile due North from the original. It was now on Old Durham Road, which as the name might suggest to many, was the A1 of former years, the Great North Road which ran from London to Edinburgh. It was now run by the second generation of Dummlers, which consisted of Jimmy and wife Joan, and Jimmy's sister (whose name has, just this second, disappeared from my memory!!). Sometimes they were added to by Jimmy's brother Fred, who sadly eventually committed suicide.

The cafe was a converted downstairs 'Tyneside' flat, the front room and the small back bedroom were diningrooms and the big back room was now the very busy and bustling kitchen, it was marvellous! What fun we had in there.

They had a very wide ranging clientèle, from pensioners and labourers to insurance salesmen and local businessmen. Sometimes there would be up to 8 or 9 in our group when we descended on the place en-masse.

The menu was quiet wide ranging, from lovely Cholesterol sandwiches filled with greasy bacon, to three course lunches (hence Steve's reference to Dummler's Dinners). They had never cooked dumplings as part of the menu, but between the gang of us, we eventually persuaded them to do so. Being vigorous young men, who expended large amounts of energy in our chosen work, we usually had to have 'double' dinners to satisfy our appetites, so with the onset of the dumplings, we would ask for a 'Dummler's Double Dumpling Dinner' much to the amusement of Joan Dummler who usually had the unenviable task of serving us all. I once persuaded her to make me a turnip sandwich, which was delicious, but she went mad when she saw that I'd added it to the hand-written menu, with a price tag of 8 pence!!!! Happy days!

Among the many characters who dined there with any regularity, were Old Fred White and his mate Walter Tindale. These two could keep any audience enthralled for hours with their tales!

Fred had deserted while in the Far East during the war, and had become a very successful gangster in Malaya, or somewhere over there, I cannot quite remember now. After being caught and incarcerated in Lucknow Military Prison for a while, he escaped from a hospital (to where he had been transferred with a self-inflicted cigarette burn on his penis, which he told them he feared was syphilis) and wasn't actually caught again until he was badly injured in a knife fight in Aberdeen, after which he served his sentence on Dartmoor! Over the years, Fred and I spent many a freezing day, huddled over the old pot-bellied stove in my garage, while he recounted tales from different times in his life. By then, of course, he was a very different, old, bloke who was scratching a living cutting up old scrap cars with a large chopping axe!

Likewise with 'Little' Walter, who had been a great horse trader when he was younger, his tales of the goings on at the annual Appleby Horse Fair were sometimes difficult to believe, but I'm sure they were actually true. The gathered throng would be on the floor with laughing, what a character he was! He'd tell us of local characters who also fancied themselves as 'horsey men' and were therefore at the Fair; like Billy 'Sugar' Kelly, the coalman (who was also a regular in Dummler's) who would play his ukelele banjo accompanying Fred 'Boy' Nelson, the fruiterer from Windy Nook, singing and playing his accordion. I'd have paid money to see that, as I knew them both, and they seemed such an unlikely pairing!

Actually, I remember one day in Dummler's when 'Sugar' leapt up, from the table, exclaiming that he couldn't continue with his meal as he suddenly felt sick, because he'd caught sight of the arrival of one Robert Kelly, his brother, and a rival coal merchant; they hated each other with a vengeance!

One of the old pensioners used to go in there three times every day; once for his soup, then a bit later for his main course, and then later again for his pudding! The place was a haven for so many characters, the likes of which we'll never see again, I'm sorry to say.

Later on, Steve took a job as a barman at a local hostelry called 'The Plough' at Deckham, where many of these local coal/horseymen and other general wastrels drank. As each one's turn to pay for the drinks came around, a huge wad of notes would be theatrically pulled from the trouser pocket, so that all and sundry could see the wealth of whosoever's turn it was! They were worse show-offs than schoolboys.

Ah well, back to the present, I suppose! Freda has discovered a new 'project' for me to engage with, so I'd better look willing. You'll get to find out all about it. eventually. TTFN.

What's for dinner Mam?

We have a relatively simple diet, here in Luxor, which mainly revolves around minced beef, chicken breasts, eggs, cheese, beautiful Egyptian spuds and bread, and various bits and bobs to go with the above.  I think I've previously mentioned the lovely mushrooms from Kheir Zaman, which go just spiffingly with scrambled eggs on toast, among other things. Of course we also sample the popular take-away Egyptian fare, Mr Osman's falafel, hawawashi from Karnak, and kofta from Chez Omar, occasionally. We cannot complain about not getting enough nourishment or anything; I've put on two stones in the last 6 years!

It was my Mother's birthday, a week ago, and I remember one of the few things which used to drive her mad was trying to think of what to get, and cook, for meals. When we were little, I don't think it was much of a problem, as I'm almost sure that our weekly menu didn't hardly change, if at all! Like most fortunate children, I loved my Mother's cooking, except for Sunday dinners when we were forced to eat 'steepy' peas; I hated them!!!!

Even after I started working, and the old man and I would go home every lunchtime for a proper dinner and a substantial pudding, I'm almost sure that we had the same week on week. I can still conjure up the smells and tastes of some of my favourite dishes, mmmmmmmmmm! So, it must have been after Dad died, and she eventually married our good friend and neighbour, Alan, that the menu difficulties started.  

We have asked Adam, if his wife would cook some chicken breasts for us, using her special spices, which so enhance the flavour. Eager to show hospitality and friendship, as usual, he readily agreed......but! But they have no butane gas for cooking, that was two days ago and they still don't have any. A man and wife and four growing sons managing on cold fare, and it's still winter here, mind you. The poor of Luxor have very little choice of what to eat, but as long as they get something; they're reasonably content! Our long-time Egyptian friend, Mr Gomah, once told me that in Egypt, 'the life' was very hard, I just thought that it was one of his interminable moans, at the time, but I'm now realising more and more of exactly what he meant.

Enough of that doom and gloom stuff, I didn't get where I am today by concentrating on all that doom and gloom stuff!!!!! (A bit of a sort of a colloquialism there; The "I didn't get where I am today by..." part is lifted from an ancient British TV sitcom called "The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin", which was hilarious at the time.)

I started the day, today, in thankfulness (again!) that we chose to live right here, on the East Bank of the Nile. This morning, the West Bank had disappeared again!

I got to thinking that it must be akin to living in Brigadoon, being stuck over there and the landscape coming and going at will!

We splashed out this afternoon, and spent 50le on tea and Nescafe at the Old Winter Palace. I know it sounds rather outrageous, but you do get three teabags and three sachets of Nescafe, with as much boiling water as you want, and also some nice little homemade cookie things. Plus, they're a different type of tourist to watch, and in unsurpassed surroundings!

On the way home (walking, so as I might lose some weight by getting more exercise as well as limiting my bread intake) we came across the current 'City Farm' a street or two away from us.

(The small part of a white building visible in the top lefthand corner, is the Susanna Hotel on Sharia Karnak.)

This scene was quite unusual, in that a special manger, full of food, was there for the creatures, as well a bucket of water. They're being fattened for the Prophet's Birthday Feast on 24th of this month. I only hope that there'll be gas aplenty to go around for the cooking, I couldn't fancy cold and uncooked goat meat, thank you very much!

A day in the life........!.

It's blinkin' freezing here! Honestly, all I want to do is stay in bed, as snug as a bug in a rug!!!

Dream on, brother; the world doesn't stop because it's cold. Our current guests wanted breakfast at 07:00 this morning, as they were bound for Abydos and Dendera. We were up at six, even before the balloons had taken off I was wiping along the roof terrace handrails.

Mind you, before they would have reached Qena, I was back under the duvet!!! The table was cleared away and the dishes washed in record time, I think. Never mind, the weather is improving from tomorrow, or so Freda tells me.

I had hoped to invite our guests (an Australian couple) to join us in a visit to the hawawshi man at Karnak, but Freda thought they wouldn't come anyway, so off we went this evening with good old Ahmed the caleche man.

We usually park the caleche next to the central reservation of the dual carriageway. It's actually a very wide dual carriageway, and the vast majority of the traffic only uses one side, thus turning it into a single two-way carriageway. They're queer folk these Egyptians, I tell you!

Anyway, we parked there whilst Ahmed went off to get the hawawshi and Freda's macarona. The local gang were congregating in front of us, actually on the central reservation. It started off with a couple of small laddies, about six or seven I think, and a small fire to warm themselves. As the fire was fed with bits of cardboard and odd pieces of expanded polystyrene and broken palm stick crates etc, other slightly older boys arrived. then a three wheeled motorcycle truck arrived with some bigger boys again. They brought with them some sugar cane to chew, they were obviously going to enjoy a good night around their 'central' heating!

On the way back, I wanted to call and see someone (a man about a dog, perhaps?)  about which I'll tell you on another occasion. But his place is at Zawaggy, across the railway lines. Straightforward you'd imagine, but no, this is Luxor, remember?

We got to the very busy traffic island where the airport road joins Sharia Karnak, and Ahmed just drove straight onto the wrong side of the island, with the traffic haring towards us. Thankfully, no-one was killed today, and we escaped the shouting and yelling drivers as we crossed over the bridge which straddles the Kebash Road, to make our way alongside Sphinxes on the Eastern side.

As we neared the next major junction (beside the Two Brothers Coffeeshop) we came across this strange sight:

It really is one of those "Only in Egypt!" pictures, eh? Heaven only knows what the load comprises! See the boy on the top?












From there, we had to negotiate the road down the side of the new flyover. It's always a tight squeeze, which is made even tighter with the extra stalls selling the usual tat and sugar dollies with which they celebrate the birthday of Muhammad.

Emerging from the crush directly under the highest part of the flyover, just beside the Abu Jude level crossing, we found that the crossing was closed altogether! This meant that we had to follow the railway line along to 'our' crossing on Mustapha Kamel Street.

Two problems arose at this point; number one, was that we'd be going the really long way around, but number two was potentially more serious. We would be passing one of the blokes from whom Ahmed buys his horse feed, and he still owed him 75le out of the 300le debt which he had built up before Christmas! Stout fellow that he is (actually, isn't) Ahmed sailed on, and brazenly asked for two bags of grain while handing over slightly less than their value. The poor beggar was shouting after us as we pulled away! (Mind you, he was laughing as well as all of us.)

With the Abu Jude crossing being closed; 'our' crossing is having to cope with twice as much traffic, so it's pretty busy, as you can imagine. The other side of the crossing is now also a dual carriageway, running at right-angles to the actual crossing, with gaps where the traffic can make 'U' turns in order to access the level crossing, or the continuation of Mustapha Kamel Street, from either carriageway. Following the flow of the traffic to the right would mean travelling a couple of hundred metres to the gap, whereas the gap to the left is only about 50 metres away. Yes, you've guessed it; straight into an oncoming mass of (what looked like) a thousand cars and mini-buses and donkey carts and motor bikes, cracking his whip as he went, and demanding that he had right of way because he was driving a horse! I love Ahmed to death, but he doesn't half frighten me at times.

More by luck than good management, I'm sure, we eventually got to where I wanted to be, and the business was conducted successfully. We had an uneventful journey home, collapsing into our seats when we finally made it up the stairs! Still in one piece, al hamdulillah!!!!!

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm?

Hello, and good morning. (Well, it is here in Luxor, anyway!)

I feel a bit more human, now that I've got a dish of porridge inside me. That wasn't the case an hour ago, though! There I was, at about 06:30, floating in dreamland, when all of a sudden I was rudely awakened by a roaring sound; balloons!!!

Of course, they aren't supposed to cross the Nile, but they do when the wind is right. Nothing particularly unusual then? Apart from the fact that there were at least ten balloons up at the same time.

By the time I'd actually roused myself, pulled on a pair of pants and staggered and stumbled onto the roof terrace, four of them were disappearing over Zawagi somewhere, one looked as if he was going to land on our roof, another was disappearing behind the Susanna Hotel (like he had landed on Sharia Karnak) and another four were flying at different heights and distances away,  but all of then seemed to be heading for "Our Luxor". (Perhaps the pilots wanted to show their clients whereabouts they could find really good independent accommodation, lol!)

The last time I took any notice, there were eight balloon companies operating in Luxor, and after the horrific accident of a few years ago, the powers that be changed the regulations to allow only one balloon from each company to actually be in the air at any given time. So what's happened?

I hope that either there are now more balloon companies or that the Air Traffic Control people have rescinded their restriction. But, in the back of my mind, I cannot help but wonder whether the old backhander culture isn't reasserting itself? After all, who wants to turn business away in these hard times, if a few quid in the right pocket will get you what you need?

Here's a selection of bleary-eyed pictures from earlier on this morning:

And here's another one which demonstrates the need for regulation in Egypt:

Yes, yes, I know it's only a donkey cart wheel! But can you imagine the difference between the poor little creature pulling a cart with roller bearings in the wheels and dragging this along? It must be like pulling a cart with the brakes on!

I suppose it's good news seeing so many balloons up, it must mean that there are tourists about, which is what we all hope for, after all.