Note to self

Note to self:

Remember not to wear balconette bra and low cut top if planning on dancing exuberantly to 'The Only Way Is Up' at a disco, unless intentionally trying to display my assets to all on the dance floor.


Oh well, at least they'll remember me at that party.

It's like being at playschool

Maybe I've had too much sun, or perhaps I'm still delirious at the prospect of being back at work, but we've decided that the design for our current Art Gallery project should be based on a tornado.

It was one of those off the cuff suggestions made in jest during a brainstorm that grew arms and legs. This morning I have spent 2 hours farting around with florists wire to create my marvellous swirling vortex. This afternoon I will photograph it in the garden then glue bits of corrugated cardboard, balsa wood and photos of smiling people from magazines onto the image.

I get paid for this too.

It's the Egyptian system

I loved being in Egypt but I could never live there. The more time you spend there the more idiotically frustrating things happen to make you wish you were at home in Blightly where at least they don't spray human sewage on the lawns every morning.

Take this classic example of the 'Egyptian Factor' which occured on our last day.

Nick went to get ice creams. He was gone for over 10 mins. First he went to the ice cream display counter. There weren't any labels on the ice creams, and all the tubs had the lids on, so he had to call the barman over from the other side of the hotel lobby to tell him what flavours they had.

After Nick selected a chocolate cone for me and a strawberry cone for himself the barman had to walk back over to the bar to fetch the cones, which for some reason where not kept by the ice cream but by the cocktail-making equipment. Then he walked back to the ice cream counter to remove the tubs. Tubs in one hand and cones in the other he disappeared off into the kitchens in search of a scoop.

Time passed slowly, presumably as the kitchen staff searched for a suitable implement to dispense the ice cream. The bar man returned with the ice cream cones, and the tubs under one arm.

Nick gave the man a 50LE note for the 20LE cones. The barman didn't have any change. In fact he didn't actually seem to have a till. Nick refused to put the ice creams on the hotel bill, and so the barman had to hunt through his own pockets to find some change. When he didn't find enough he nipped along to the reception desk to ask the man there.

Nick by this point was feeling like he'd stepped into a sitcom and asked the barman why shop-keepers in Egypt never had any change, or even tills? Surely a till was a crucial piece of kit for an establishment that owed it's survival to the exchange of money in return for goods.

'I don't know,' shrugged the barman. 'It's the Egyptian System.'

I'm back, and I'm a Divemaster!

I'm too pooped to tell you everything that's been going on, so here are some snaps to keep you entertained while I unpack and do 5 weeks worth of laundry:

Thistlegorm, 16th April 2009

puking but brown

I brought a little bacterial visitor back from Cairo, in my guts, clamouring to get out. I didn't resist and settled into my hotel bathroom to get intimately aquainted with the toilet bowl.

2 days later I'm back and diving again. We have been with our first ever, real live students today, doing a 'discover scuba diving' course. This is a sort of try-dive thing where you spend an hour or two learning the basics and then we take you in the sea for a swim around to see if you like diving.

Luckily the guy I had to look after was not too bad. He shot to the surface a couple of times but generally got the hang of it pretty quickly. After a while he got a bit tetchy when I kept grabbing him to pull him down, but I'd rather that than see my first ever ward get the bends or ruptured lungs. That wouldn't bode well for my future in diving!

Maybe he was tetchy because, while helping him assemble his scuba kit, I said: 'Here - let me turn you on. no, actually it's better if you turn yourself on. erm...well, you know what I mean. Either way you've got to be able to breathe.'

Tan update. On the plus side I am now officially browner than I've ever been. On the minus side I have an unfortunate wet-suit tan line that makes it appear that I've spent a week lying on my front wearing cycling shorts and ankle socks like a german tourist. In reality I've spent a week wearing neoprene cyling shorts and ankle boots and swimming on my front, so maybe I deserve it.

Oh, the wisdom of the young

Teenage girl: (looking out of the window of our minibus) Oh my god, look at that woman carrying a box on her head. She must think she is in africa or something.
Me: We are in africa.
Teenage Girl: Are we?

later that day...

Teenage girl: (in a sulk) I don't want to go to the mummy museum. I only came to Cairo to see the triangles.

Giza's famous triangles