Room on top!

You'll probably find this difficult to believe, I certainly did!

While we were standing on Sharia Karnak, waiting for the arabaya to ferry us to our favourite watering hole, a convoy of privately hired mini-buses came blasting past. Obviously a wedding party going on somewhere, as they were all full of women and children, with the usual shouting and yelling and hand-clapping.

What my usual lackadaisical self hadn't been ready for, were the three young boys (between 8 and 12, I should think) sitting at the very back of one of the buses, ON THE ROOF RACK!!!!!

I used to carry the camera around in my trousers pocket, but the extra weight kept stretching my braces ('suspenders' for those of you in the USA), which are difficult to replace in Egypt and increasingly expensive in England. I remedied this by shoving it into the breast pocket of my shirt, with the short carry strap fastened around one of the shirt buttons, in case it fell out of the pocket. I've recently changed again! This time to using the 'bum bag' which I first bought for our initial journey to Egypt in 1997. Freda came across it when she was tidying somewhere the other day. So it now carries my camera and my phone. It's quite handy really. Although I cannot see to fasten it, it fits quite snugly under my overhanging belly, and is quite inconspicuous. Problem being, that I forget where the camera is, and by the time I've remembered and struggled (blindly, of course) with zips and stuff to get the stupid thing out; the picture opportunity has been and gone! Story of my life, I suppose. Never mind.

The scene reminded me of old Jim Musgrave, the signwriter who used to work in my garage. He loved to tell us tale of the 'olden days' and one was of the Craghead omnibus when it became a double decker. Open top, of course, and when it came towards the low bridge on it's route somewhere, the conductor would shout up the stairs, "Mind your heads!" and all the upstairs passengers had to dook down, or get their heads knocked off!

I expect the 'bus would have been something like this one at the famous 'Beamish Museum' which is just a few short miles from Craghead. Old Jim died 22 years ago, I wonder what he would have thought of us living in Luxor?

Happy days!