Queen of the Nile’s Weblog

We’ve just had two mates join us for the weekend from London – and it reminded me again that we are actually living the most fantastic adventure! They arrived on Thursday morning, and spent the day missioning around Zamalek (the island in the middle of the Nile), and then headed to Khan el Khalili (the most enormous market – which is famous for the amount of haggling you have to do).

As soon as I finished work on Thursday evening, we jumped on a felucca and had sundowners and snacks while sailing down the Nile. This was the start of a rather enormous night, which included dinner at Sequoia (an open air restaurant perched on the edge of the Nile with big white couches, specializing in sushi and sheesha), drinks and dancing at Mojito’s (an open air bar on the 32^nd floor of the Hilton Hotel with a view over the roof tops of the city and the Nile) and ended up on our balcony at home. This is where it ended for me, but the boys walked down to the Nile and watched the sun rise from the banks, and then decided that breakfast at the Four Seasons would be a fabulous idea (I hate to think what they looked like!).

We went quad-biking in the desert the next day – but quad-biking with a difference: no rules (no helmets, no liability release forms, no speed / direction limitations) – and we were quad biking through the desert past the step Pyramids (the oldest Pyramids in Egypt). Unbelievable – the best hangover cure in the world. (We also drove past 2 missiles that were poised and ready for firing in this fenced off area – one has to wonder what else is hiding in these deserts!)

The rest of our weekend included a pool party at a friend’s house in Katameya (the golf course similar to Dainfern on steroids), a trip to the Citadel and a tour of Coptic Cairo. All in all, we got to do some really awesome things, and it just reminded me that even 6 months into our adventure we haven’t even scratched the surface of what Egypt has to offer!

This week we have a fashion show to attend (everyone is very excited about the fact that there is a dress code: casual chic!) and then we head to the Red Sea for a weekend of scuba diving (there are about 20 of us who have hired a live-aboard for someone’s birthday – bring on the cake and champagne!)

So yes, we have a social life (have tapped into the expat world of British Gas, Vodafone and embassy officials). Luke is playing soccer this evening at the British Embassy (which is next door to our house) and we are heading to the Queen’s birthday ball in June (black tie – sooo excited to whip out my ball dress!)

On the work front – we continue to bash our heads against brick walls, and spend a lot of time breathing deeply (to prevent seriously injuring various colleagues). So that is not so cool – but again, this is all part of the experience, and it comes with the territory. Moving on has certainly crossed our minds, but for now we are staying put…

Between Luke and I, we have a lot of family and friends to visit when we pop to the UK for 5 days… So it ended up being one of those trips where we needed a holiday to recover from our holiday…

We jumped on a plane and headed to Heathrow on 29 April, where we promptly missed our bus to Southampton (do not trust Egypt Air – actually do trust that they will run at least 2 hours late, no matter where they fly to). So at midnight, we had to mission around and hire a car and figure out directions to mum’s house in Hamble. This was actually surprisingly easy – it’s amazing how accustomed you get to things being incredibly difficult in Cairo (I didn’t even suffer one sense of humour failure – surprising, considering the highway that we had mapped out on a large piece of paper with the help of a very patient dude at Avis, had been closed, and then Luke decided to show me “an amazing British institution”  (a petrol station) en route – which meant we got in at about 2am).

We arrived to a beautiful house over looking Hamble river filled with 4 people on about bottle of wine number 5. No problem – we joined in, and managed to get enough wine down our gullets to ensure a headache the next day…

Hamble is the most beautiful little village – completely dedicated to yachting (I had the best chocolate brownie at the yacht club cafe – a little room filled with yachties covered in water-proof everything, as it was bucketing down, and they insisted on pretending that they didn’t notice). I managed to get my hair done and have a facial without having to get in the car! 

Mum lives next door to some famous football players from Portsmouth (sorry, wish I could tell you their names, but I’m just not that into it), and thought it was quite funny that Mike regularly craps on them for parking outside his front door!

Luke disappeared to visit some of his family the next day, and I went with mum and Mike to be officially introduced to Tom. Tom (or Tim, as some like to call him for no particular reason other than to wind various people up) is Stu’s horse – who is really cute! Stu popped him around some cross country jumps, and then stuck him back into his pink and grey lorry (it even has a double bed, kitchenette and dining room table) and took him home.

Then we popped off to check out Badminton - which is amazing! We watched some of the dressage, and walked the cross country course – which is just beautiful! I have never seen such fairy tale grounds before in my life – Vergelegen looks like my back yard in comparison! Absolutely breath taking, and really quite exciting to be shown around by someone in the know (not sure how Stu does it, but everyone that looked sort of official would say hi…) I also managed to purchase the most beautiful pair of woolly leather boots / wellies – and can’t wait to go somewhere cold enough for me to wear them!

Then we dashed to a pub for dinner with…. wait for it – Luke’s dad, stepmum, two half brothers, my brother, mum and mike…. So much easier to lump everyone together – and it was fairly festive.

I spent the night with Luke’s family. We went go-carting the next day (I whipped Luke’s ass – he will deny that), and then proceeded to play with Luke’s brother’s ferrets with them while Luke went to a meeting.

And then (phew, I’m getting tired just writing this down) we headed to London – picked up Dave en route in Oxford, and arrived at Brussels’ house in time to be very fashionably late for dinner with a whole crew of mates!

We ended up having the most enormous night (we both let our hair down properly – hadn’t done anything like that for a while, and it was just too much fun to be around mates again!). We were a very sorry sight heading to the airport the next day (don’t drive in London – it is not advisable if you love the person you are going to fight with when you get lost), and perhaps even sorrier when we arrived at work the next day!

But what fun!

I am battling to get back into the swing of things, and so many things can change so quickly when you are not watching…

Dad and Margs came to visit – we spent 4 days being tour guides in Cairo (well, 2 days and 2 evenings being tour guides). It’s quite strange having to do that – I wasn’t sure what to show them – there’s just so much out there. We ended up sending them to the Egyptian Museum, where they managed to pick up a good tour guide by chance, and then sent them to the Pyramids for the day with a tour guide that was recommended to us (note a day at the Pyramids is not for those scared of heat and dust!)

The rest of the time we went to our favourite restuarants, had a picnic sailing down the Nile, and played some golf.

Then we were treated by Dad to a week at the Four Seasons in Sharm el Sheikh – sheer bliss! It is a green oasis of an hotel in the middle of a vast desert, with views from the rooms through palm trees onto a sea that is such a startling blue that it doesn’t look like a sea at all.

We spent our time scuba diving and lounging at the pool and eating and drinking and sleeping.  

I never thought I actaully liked scuba diving (thought the effort of getting to the bottom of the ocean far outweighed the enjoyment once down there), but I have never experienced such hassle free diving with such a large reward at the end of the rainbow (rays, amazing gulleys of colourful corral on either side, stone fish, lion fish, glass fish - all things that look cool to an amateur diver)

It also helps that at the Four Seasons they make diving so hassle free – all you have to do is walk to the beach and present yourself so that someone can pull your wetsuit on for you and gently lower you onto the bottom of the ocean.

We spent a day as the Ras Mohammed national park on board the Four Seasons boat (I will remember her name – I will, I will). It was the most opulent day ever – and I loved it!

But generally a brilliant week, with lots of down time to relax and take stock of things…

(I can’t remember exactly what I meant by saying that things change so quickly – probably something along the lines of the fact that I came back to a new boss… Apologies, this post was started a while ago, and never published – and now I am playing catch up again!)