This is of course my first proper 'taste' of the Egyptian winter. We did of course marry in Cairo in the month of December and I have holidayed in Sharm during February (which is generally wamer than this part of Egypt) but this is the first 'long term' stay in the country during the winter season.
What has surprised me – though really it should not have done – is just how cold it seems. Of course its not cold like England is cold. We haven't seen temperatures of only 6 or 7 degrees, or in the minus for that matter, but I guess after finally starting to – to some degree – 'acclimatise' to the hotter weather, this cooler weather can be a bit of a shock.
Life dear old blighty the weather is quite changeable from one day to the next. I forget when now exactly, but I guess it probably was October, we did have some rain – so far a total of 4 days only – and when it does rain boy is it a pain in the wotsit. Mainly because of the design of the houses here – though our new house is being designed to take this into consideration thank God.
Outside, the weather in the sun in sheltered places can get quite hot, easily as hot as a hot day in England, at well over 26 degrees, on other days it can be cloudy and quite chilly, with a cold wind, and can go as low as around 14 degrees. The night times are all chilly, indoors its been as low as 14.2 degrees at night time, and as the houses are built for hot summers there is a lack of any adequate heating, though we do have good thick blankets in bed and we have put the air conditioning on 'heat' which does warm the bedroom up nicely. That said, some nights have been warmer, with the temperature inside up to around 19 degrees C, so very up and down.
We are now approaching the end of January and already, in general, I have seen an increase in both the daytime and night-time temperatures, though having said that yesterday was a bit of a blip – it was warm up until around an hour before sunset then it turned very chilly and was a very cold night. I'm hoping it was a one off. I am told that usually things start to warm up from next month. I will keep you updated ……… Any questions, please post a comment and I will be happy to provide them, or if you just want to chat . . . . . . .
Friday, January 30, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
I NOW HAVE WIRELESS INTERNET - YAY !
Mind you, in the few days that I have had it, the electric supply has been down twice, so in fact I have still had probs accessing the net !!! Fingers crossed it will help me to update here more often though, not that there's anything much to report.
The hubby is calling me now so have to go. Hope to be back soon to put on an update about Noor . . . . .
The hubby is calling me now so have to go. Hope to be back soon to put on an update about Noor . . . . .
Sunday, January 4, 2009
another update - will try 2 do better
Naughty me. Haven't posted on here in oh so long !
I'm gonna be a tad crafty and copy and paste into here a couple of emails I sent a while ago by way of a quick update and hopefully will try to update this blog more regularly from now on – say every couple of weeks minimum hopefully.
Here is the first one sent in November - …… "Life here is generally pretty monotonous, it's not like being on holiday (sadly). There is the usual housework to do, and because its so dry there is a lot of dust, so one has to try to keep on top of the housework otherwise the place very quickly starts to look like it hasn't been touched for weeks (when in fact it might be only a couple of days). I find it impossible nowadays to come onto the PC when Noor is here, as he needs constant 'surveillance' as he has his little fingers everywhere!
The weather here has cooled down from the extreme heat of the summer, but it's still pretty hot outside on sunny days between about 11am and 3pm. After 3pm it starts to cool down, and also we've had some cloudy days when it's been quite pleasant between those hours. The nights are considerably chilly now – though not as cold as the UK of course, but it seems quite a drop from the warmth of the daytime. Its warm bedclothes and a light blanket at the moment, but last night I was still feeling a tad chilly so it might be time to get the heavier blanket out soon.
Noor is coming on well. He is having some 'difficulty' in speaking – his little niece who is a couple of months older than him is saying quite a bit now and has been for quite a few weeks, but Noor still only says the odd word now and again, or practices the same one over and over (like Mama or Daddy) but he uses one manner of speech – namely 'da-da-eh' for almost everything, when he wants you to look at something or something is out of his reach and he wants you to pick it up and give it to him. I remember reading though that when a child is being taught 2 different languages from birth, they usually take a little longer in learning to speak initially, but that once they get the hang of it they soon catch up with other children of their own age. He can also say a couple of Arabic words, or at least we think they are his attempt at Arabic words as they are not 'spot on'. That said, he doesn't always say them when that thing is in sight, so we're not sure if he understands what the words actually mean. Of course he has been walking for a while now, he can also walk backwards, and he likes to run. He also loves to climb up things whenever he can, but of course it's always somewhere dangerous (!).
Reda has been quite keen recently for us to invest in a flat in the nearest city, to do it up and then sell it on at a profit. Though I like the idea, I told him that now was not a good time to do it because of the economic crisis, as the price of property even in is bound to fall. Of course being a typical man he thought he knew best and that it would still be a good investment. Thank God, however, one day when he was looking at a flat in a particular block, he met a man who lives in the same block, who was kind enough to offer him a cup of tea and while he was chatting with him, it turned out that he too invests in land and flats, and he advised Reda to be cautious as the price of property is continuing to drop, and that quite a few people in the city were trying to sell their flats at inflated prices to 'foreigners' who don't know the market. Even those who weren't out to 'cheat' people in such a way were looking for a price that was above what they had paid for the property, but of course in many cases that price is now higher than the current market price. Reda realized that this man was talking a lot of sense, and Reda did at least apologise to me and say that he now realized what it was I had been trying to advise him about. We have agreed that he will use the time over the next few months to really do his 'homework' and study the market etc and see what prices things are really selling for, and if prices are continuing to drop. It seems to me that we should wait until prices have stopped falling and even start to rise a little before we buy anything – once prices start coming back up then that should be a good time to buy and to then be able to make an income from what we are investing in. Well that's the idea anyway! As having said that, he came home Friday after praying in the mosque and told me someone who knew he had been looking to invest in land knew of somewhere that was for sale at quite a 'reasonable' price. I wasn't too chuffed about him going to look at it – Reda said 'oh I'll only look I know it's not a good time to buy' - but it's easy to get interested. The price did seem quite reasonable I must confess, but I think if things continue like they are at the moment, we could get it (or somewhere like it) even cheaper. Luckily that's when it started to rain again, and it put him off. Then yesterday he had a call from someone about flats in Alexandria. He has a brother there and says he'd been looking at flats for Reda to see what might be a good investment. He went to the coffee shop to have a chat with him, and they spoke to his brother in Alexandria on the phone. I am pleased to say, however, that his brother advised waiting a few months as he said that the prices are still high and fluctuating, and it would probably be better to wait 3 or 4 months and see how things settle. I was pleased that this person was honest enough to say this and not try to talk Reda into buying something now at an inflated price.
Believe it or not, but I actually miss shopping in Asda! Here, apart from the fact that the nearest supermarket is in the nearest city (about 10km away), it's also more expensive to shop in the supermarket – so my Mum in Law shops here in the village and buys all the food for both our families, which sounds good but of course I have to eat and/or cook whatever she has bought that day rather than get to choose for myself. That said, I can of course put in a 'special' request for something I particularly want, but it just isn't the same. That said, about every 6 weeks or so we do go into the city to the supermarket, and I am able to buy some things that we aren't able to get at all in the village, which I enjoy doing. Reda has gone a couple of times on his own, but I insisted I go last time with him, firstly because it's a chance to get out of the village for a while, and secondly because being a typical man, when I get him a list of things I want, he misses some things off and quite a few of the things that he does buy aren't actually exactly what I wanted (like buying shampoo for me for blond hair when my hair is now brown – I'm not bothering with the highlights anymore, as what's the point when I have to keep my head covered a lot of the time anyway!)
I've finally gone back on a diet. I thought when I came here I would easily lose weight, as I thought that the heat would help me lose my appetite. Whilst that is true when one is on holiday, of course a typical holiday is only 2 weeks. After a while, one starts to acclimatize and by about the 4th or 5th week my appetite was back to normal. On top of that, the food his Mum makes, though tasty, is typically very high in fat. Add to that the fact that apart from housework I'm not getting all that much exercise here, and that adds up to weight gain. A few weeks ago we went to the supermarket and I bought a pair of bathroom scales. I was pleasantly surprised in that I had not put on as much weight as I thought I had – though of course I still weigh FAR too much. This is my 3rd week on a diet. I lost 1kg my first week and only half a kilo my second week. I'm hoping this week will see at least a 1kg loss. One of the hardest things here about dieting is that it's impossible to buy a lot of the things I used to buy in the UK which made a diet more appetizing/interesting etc. There are no low calories squashes here, no low fat stock cubes, no cottage cheese, no extra lean cuts of meat, no diet cakes or biscuits, no low cal soups etc etc, so cooking has been quite a challenge. Not that I can't cook anything but it's harder to make it tasty. I need to experiment more with herbs and spices I think.
Just over a week ago we had our first 'proper' rain that I've ever experienced here in Egypt. Boy did the heavens open or what ??!!! It really chucked it down. The problem here is that the roofs are flat – the idea being that 1) when they have enough money they can build another level on the top and – as most people don't have gardens then 2) in the meantime they can keep their chickens and ducks there, and use it as outside space to sit in the sun, hang their washing or whatever. This is all well and good in the summer, but when it rains what happens – the roof gets wet! Of course they don't build the floor with a slight lean in it, so that the water can drain off – as I guess that this isn't really what people want when they build another floor on the top. In addition to that, the stairwells are open at the top, not only because they don't want a roof there if they are going to build another level, but also to let light in.
But we have reached the limit of how many floors we can have – so why didn't they have the sense to add more concrete on the top so as to make it uneven so that the water drains down towards the drain up there? And they should have built a roof on the top of the stairwell surely? Yes it would have made things a little darker, but there are windows on the side of the stairs, so it wouldn't be too bad. That said, I really hadn't realized what the consequence of this would be until it rained. Well of course what happened was that the rain came running down the stairs, and threatened to get high enough to come into our flat, thank God my sister in law bless her came up and helped us to 1) she used a cloth to help re-direct some of it on down the stairs and 2) mopped up the rain as it fell. Reda and I took it in turns to help her, as we also had Noor to look after and of course we didn't want him getting soaked. Once the rain finished, we went up onto the roof and then with our brush and these things they use in the toilets here to 'push' water down the drains, we began to push the water down towards the drain. Then someone clicked on the idea of using the pans from a dustpan and brush to scoop up the water and put it into a bucket, then we took the bucket over to the drain and poured it down. One thing is that it was jolly good exercise, which I could certainly use more of. It did rain again on Friday but luckily it was just a short shower, though there were still some dodgy clouds about it stayed dry after that.
Had I told you about the cats here? The village is full of half-tame/half-feral cats. We have a cat which had a litter of 6 kittens who was coming here for food, and once her kittens were a bit older she brought them here for food too. At one point, she was 'housing' the kittens in the chicken house on the roof, but my MuminLaw kept 'turfing' them out. A few of them still go there on their own now they are older, though. They are older kittens now, but 3 of them still regularly come to me for food, and I let them into the flat when Noor is downstairs with his Gran. She thinks I shouldn't let them in, but you know what a big softie I am. So far they haven't been any problem. There are 2 in here at the moment, just sitting quietly on the mat not too far from me. Yesterday when my MinLaw brought Noor back upstairs, she shooed the cats away but one of them – unbeknown to either of us – ran into the living room, so after she left me with Noor I shut the front door (as I don't dare keep it open as Noor runs off out and I don't want him falling down the stairs – could do with a stair gate there really- anyway) and of course she was shut in. Noor loved seeing her, as he really seems to take after me and adore cats. She was a bit scared though, and ran out onto the balcony, so we left her alone to come back in, then once she was back in I opened the front door and Noor and I 'hid' out of her view and after a little while she ran out. It hasn't put her off coming here, I'm glad to say. I can't help wondering what happened to the other 3 kittens though, as I haven't seen them for at least 2 weeks now. I hope they have just found somewhere better to get their food from, rather than anything nasty having happened to them.
And this is one sent just a day or 2 before Xmas :-
" ………………………….. Ramadan was absolutely fine, really. It's really not that bad and after the first few days one really does get used to it. For one thing, one gets to eat 2 meals per day, for as well as the one as soon as the sun starts to set we also have a small meal before the sun rises (yep!!) and at both meals I made sure that I had plenty of water to drink. Even so, I did find that some days I really did start to get pretty thirsty by about 4pm or so, but really it was no hardship at all.
Noor's talking is starting to come along at long last, albeit slowly. But then he is having to learn 2 languages. Some words he says in Arabic and some he says in English, and a few he can say in both (like cat). He's getting quite tall now and really looks more like a little boy now rather than a baby. He walks very well now of course and can run quite well too, though he falls alot ! He also tends to not look where he is going. Unfortunately I don't have any recent photos of him as our flippin' digital camera broke !!! I am really miffed! Because of the make of camera that it is, the nearest place we can take it to for repair is Cairo, but I am a bit miffed at Reda about it, as he keeps putting off us going there until we have another reason to go to Cairo to, to 'justify the expense'. Frankly I would be quite happy to have a day out !!!
To a large degree our 'plans' for investment here in Egypt etc have been put on hold, as though the economic downturn hasn't affected Egypt yet in quite the same way as the US and Europe, nevertheless house prices etc have been falling, so I've convinced Reda to play it safe for now and not buy until prices are more stable, and maybe even start to rise again.
Well, that's all for now. I hope to have some news in the next month or 2 about our building our new home on the land we bought, but for the time being its fingers crossed in that regard and 'watch this space'. "
sorry that was so long guyz, wikk try 2 do better by being more regular in t future .............. oooooooo er :-)
I'm gonna be a tad crafty and copy and paste into here a couple of emails I sent a while ago by way of a quick update and hopefully will try to update this blog more regularly from now on – say every couple of weeks minimum hopefully.
Here is the first one sent in November - …… "Life here is generally pretty monotonous, it's not like being on holiday (sadly). There is the usual housework to do, and because its so dry there is a lot of dust, so one has to try to keep on top of the housework otherwise the place very quickly starts to look like it hasn't been touched for weeks (when in fact it might be only a couple of days). I find it impossible nowadays to come onto the PC when Noor is here, as he needs constant 'surveillance' as he has his little fingers everywhere!
The weather here has cooled down from the extreme heat of the summer, but it's still pretty hot outside on sunny days between about 11am and 3pm. After 3pm it starts to cool down, and also we've had some cloudy days when it's been quite pleasant between those hours. The nights are considerably chilly now – though not as cold as the UK of course, but it seems quite a drop from the warmth of the daytime. Its warm bedclothes and a light blanket at the moment, but last night I was still feeling a tad chilly so it might be time to get the heavier blanket out soon.
Noor is coming on well. He is having some 'difficulty' in speaking – his little niece who is a couple of months older than him is saying quite a bit now and has been for quite a few weeks, but Noor still only says the odd word now and again, or practices the same one over and over (like Mama or Daddy) but he uses one manner of speech – namely 'da-da-eh' for almost everything, when he wants you to look at something or something is out of his reach and he wants you to pick it up and give it to him. I remember reading though that when a child is being taught 2 different languages from birth, they usually take a little longer in learning to speak initially, but that once they get the hang of it they soon catch up with other children of their own age. He can also say a couple of Arabic words, or at least we think they are his attempt at Arabic words as they are not 'spot on'. That said, he doesn't always say them when that thing is in sight, so we're not sure if he understands what the words actually mean. Of course he has been walking for a while now, he can also walk backwards, and he likes to run. He also loves to climb up things whenever he can, but of course it's always somewhere dangerous (!).
Reda has been quite keen recently for us to invest in a flat in the nearest city, to do it up and then sell it on at a profit. Though I like the idea, I told him that now was not a good time to do it because of the economic crisis, as the price of property even in is bound to fall. Of course being a typical man he thought he knew best and that it would still be a good investment. Thank God, however, one day when he was looking at a flat in a particular block, he met a man who lives in the same block, who was kind enough to offer him a cup of tea and while he was chatting with him, it turned out that he too invests in land and flats, and he advised Reda to be cautious as the price of property is continuing to drop, and that quite a few people in the city were trying to sell their flats at inflated prices to 'foreigners' who don't know the market. Even those who weren't out to 'cheat' people in such a way were looking for a price that was above what they had paid for the property, but of course in many cases that price is now higher than the current market price. Reda realized that this man was talking a lot of sense, and Reda did at least apologise to me and say that he now realized what it was I had been trying to advise him about. We have agreed that he will use the time over the next few months to really do his 'homework' and study the market etc and see what prices things are really selling for, and if prices are continuing to drop. It seems to me that we should wait until prices have stopped falling and even start to rise a little before we buy anything – once prices start coming back up then that should be a good time to buy and to then be able to make an income from what we are investing in. Well that's the idea anyway! As having said that, he came home Friday after praying in the mosque and told me someone who knew he had been looking to invest in land knew of somewhere that was for sale at quite a 'reasonable' price. I wasn't too chuffed about him going to look at it – Reda said 'oh I'll only look I know it's not a good time to buy' - but it's easy to get interested. The price did seem quite reasonable I must confess, but I think if things continue like they are at the moment, we could get it (or somewhere like it) even cheaper. Luckily that's when it started to rain again, and it put him off. Then yesterday he had a call from someone about flats in Alexandria. He has a brother there and says he'd been looking at flats for Reda to see what might be a good investment. He went to the coffee shop to have a chat with him, and they spoke to his brother in Alexandria on the phone. I am pleased to say, however, that his brother advised waiting a few months as he said that the prices are still high and fluctuating, and it would probably be better to wait 3 or 4 months and see how things settle. I was pleased that this person was honest enough to say this and not try to talk Reda into buying something now at an inflated price.
Believe it or not, but I actually miss shopping in Asda! Here, apart from the fact that the nearest supermarket is in the nearest city (about 10km away), it's also more expensive to shop in the supermarket – so my Mum in Law shops here in the village and buys all the food for both our families, which sounds good but of course I have to eat and/or cook whatever she has bought that day rather than get to choose for myself. That said, I can of course put in a 'special' request for something I particularly want, but it just isn't the same. That said, about every 6 weeks or so we do go into the city to the supermarket, and I am able to buy some things that we aren't able to get at all in the village, which I enjoy doing. Reda has gone a couple of times on his own, but I insisted I go last time with him, firstly because it's a chance to get out of the village for a while, and secondly because being a typical man, when I get him a list of things I want, he misses some things off and quite a few of the things that he does buy aren't actually exactly what I wanted (like buying shampoo for me for blond hair when my hair is now brown – I'm not bothering with the highlights anymore, as what's the point when I have to keep my head covered a lot of the time anyway!)
I've finally gone back on a diet. I thought when I came here I would easily lose weight, as I thought that the heat would help me lose my appetite. Whilst that is true when one is on holiday, of course a typical holiday is only 2 weeks. After a while, one starts to acclimatize and by about the 4th or 5th week my appetite was back to normal. On top of that, the food his Mum makes, though tasty, is typically very high in fat. Add to that the fact that apart from housework I'm not getting all that much exercise here, and that adds up to weight gain. A few weeks ago we went to the supermarket and I bought a pair of bathroom scales. I was pleasantly surprised in that I had not put on as much weight as I thought I had – though of course I still weigh FAR too much. This is my 3rd week on a diet. I lost 1kg my first week and only half a kilo my second week. I'm hoping this week will see at least a 1kg loss. One of the hardest things here about dieting is that it's impossible to buy a lot of the things I used to buy in the UK which made a diet more appetizing/interesting etc. There are no low calories squashes here, no low fat stock cubes, no cottage cheese, no extra lean cuts of meat, no diet cakes or biscuits, no low cal soups etc etc, so cooking has been quite a challenge. Not that I can't cook anything but it's harder to make it tasty. I need to experiment more with herbs and spices I think.
Just over a week ago we had our first 'proper' rain that I've ever experienced here in Egypt. Boy did the heavens open or what ??!!! It really chucked it down. The problem here is that the roofs are flat – the idea being that 1) when they have enough money they can build another level on the top and – as most people don't have gardens then 2) in the meantime they can keep their chickens and ducks there, and use it as outside space to sit in the sun, hang their washing or whatever. This is all well and good in the summer, but when it rains what happens – the roof gets wet! Of course they don't build the floor with a slight lean in it, so that the water can drain off – as I guess that this isn't really what people want when they build another floor on the top. In addition to that, the stairwells are open at the top, not only because they don't want a roof there if they are going to build another level, but also to let light in.
But we have reached the limit of how many floors we can have – so why didn't they have the sense to add more concrete on the top so as to make it uneven so that the water drains down towards the drain up there? And they should have built a roof on the top of the stairwell surely? Yes it would have made things a little darker, but there are windows on the side of the stairs, so it wouldn't be too bad. That said, I really hadn't realized what the consequence of this would be until it rained. Well of course what happened was that the rain came running down the stairs, and threatened to get high enough to come into our flat, thank God my sister in law bless her came up and helped us to 1) she used a cloth to help re-direct some of it on down the stairs and 2) mopped up the rain as it fell. Reda and I took it in turns to help her, as we also had Noor to look after and of course we didn't want him getting soaked. Once the rain finished, we went up onto the roof and then with our brush and these things they use in the toilets here to 'push' water down the drains, we began to push the water down towards the drain. Then someone clicked on the idea of using the pans from a dustpan and brush to scoop up the water and put it into a bucket, then we took the bucket over to the drain and poured it down. One thing is that it was jolly good exercise, which I could certainly use more of. It did rain again on Friday but luckily it was just a short shower, though there were still some dodgy clouds about it stayed dry after that.
Had I told you about the cats here? The village is full of half-tame/half-feral cats. We have a cat which had a litter of 6 kittens who was coming here for food, and once her kittens were a bit older she brought them here for food too. At one point, she was 'housing' the kittens in the chicken house on the roof, but my MuminLaw kept 'turfing' them out. A few of them still go there on their own now they are older, though. They are older kittens now, but 3 of them still regularly come to me for food, and I let them into the flat when Noor is downstairs with his Gran. She thinks I shouldn't let them in, but you know what a big softie I am. So far they haven't been any problem. There are 2 in here at the moment, just sitting quietly on the mat not too far from me. Yesterday when my MinLaw brought Noor back upstairs, she shooed the cats away but one of them – unbeknown to either of us – ran into the living room, so after she left me with Noor I shut the front door (as I don't dare keep it open as Noor runs off out and I don't want him falling down the stairs – could do with a stair gate there really- anyway) and of course she was shut in. Noor loved seeing her, as he really seems to take after me and adore cats. She was a bit scared though, and ran out onto the balcony, so we left her alone to come back in, then once she was back in I opened the front door and Noor and I 'hid' out of her view and after a little while she ran out. It hasn't put her off coming here, I'm glad to say. I can't help wondering what happened to the other 3 kittens though, as I haven't seen them for at least 2 weeks now. I hope they have just found somewhere better to get their food from, rather than anything nasty having happened to them.
And this is one sent just a day or 2 before Xmas :-
" ………………………….. Ramadan was absolutely fine, really. It's really not that bad and after the first few days one really does get used to it. For one thing, one gets to eat 2 meals per day, for as well as the one as soon as the sun starts to set we also have a small meal before the sun rises (yep!!) and at both meals I made sure that I had plenty of water to drink. Even so, I did find that some days I really did start to get pretty thirsty by about 4pm or so, but really it was no hardship at all.
Noor's talking is starting to come along at long last, albeit slowly. But then he is having to learn 2 languages. Some words he says in Arabic and some he says in English, and a few he can say in both (like cat). He's getting quite tall now and really looks more like a little boy now rather than a baby. He walks very well now of course and can run quite well too, though he falls alot ! He also tends to not look where he is going. Unfortunately I don't have any recent photos of him as our flippin' digital camera broke !!! I am really miffed! Because of the make of camera that it is, the nearest place we can take it to for repair is Cairo, but I am a bit miffed at Reda about it, as he keeps putting off us going there until we have another reason to go to Cairo to, to 'justify the expense'. Frankly I would be quite happy to have a day out !!!
To a large degree our 'plans' for investment here in Egypt etc have been put on hold, as though the economic downturn hasn't affected Egypt yet in quite the same way as the US and Europe, nevertheless house prices etc have been falling, so I've convinced Reda to play it safe for now and not buy until prices are more stable, and maybe even start to rise again.
Well, that's all for now. I hope to have some news in the next month or 2 about our building our new home on the land we bought, but for the time being its fingers crossed in that regard and 'watch this space'. "
sorry that was so long guyz, wikk try 2 do better by being more regular in t future .............. oooooooo er :-)
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