A full agenda

 Today was supposed to be a busy day. Our power supply was due to be turned off, in order that contractors could remove a problem tree in the orchard. Also; our drainage contractor was due on-site to start the ditch and French drain construction.

We prepared as much as possible. Water was boiled and thermos flasks were filled. A camping stove was set up in the kitchen and sensitive devices were switched off. We were as ready as we could be.

As it turned out, our preparations were mostly in vain. The tree felling was, understandably, cancelled, as emergency grid repairs following the storm were prioritised. Our power supply was uninterrupted. 

As for the drainage contractors; a large articulated lorry arrived just before nine o'clock and unloaded a mini excavator and dinky little dumper truck. A short while later a contractor arrived and unloaded the mats that are used to minimise damage to the ground. While he was on site, a building supplies truck turned up and unloaded three tonne bags of pea gravel and a pallet of pre-mixed concrete.

And that was it. Apparently a couple of lads were due on-site later in the day to start the works, but it seems that they were held up on another job. It was, therefore, a much quieter day than expected.

I kept myself busy for most of the day with a splitting maul, working on the felled conifer. At the end of the day I had a blister, a sore back and a fair sized pile of logs. I felt reasonably pleased with my efforts until I glanced at the mountain of brash and the sections of trunk and branch that are yet to be processed. I know for a fact that some of that wood is going to be an utter bastard to split ... where's my chainsaw?

Tree Felling

 I'm still not feeling right, but there was a 30' fallen conifer that needed to be attended to!

30% and I made a plan of action. I went out to the workshop, adjusted and fuelled the chainsaw and, eventually, got it started. In the meantime 30% reached out to TP and Bubbles to see if they could help, and also contacted Hedgelayer Tom* to see if he could assist.

30% reported back that TP would be over in a short while and that Tom would pop over at around one o'clock. It looked like we had the beginnings of a plan.

We then headed out to make a start on the tree. It had fallen across the hedge and the top half was now blocking the gateway of the neighbouring field. That was where we started. I was on chainsaw duties and 30% assisted by clearing the brash away. It was quite a struggle as I was literally fighting my way in to the upper half of a dense conifer in order to remove the side branches and gain access to the trunk.

We persevered and, bit-by-bit, the trunk started to appear. After about an hour we were joined by TP and Bubbles, and we really started to make headway. By lunchtime we had managed to saw the top 15' of the tree in to manageable pieces and pile them up.

We just had the lower half of the trunk to deal with and Tom was the man for that. He has far more skill and experience in this area than I, and he has a much bigger chainsaw!

Tom turned up as promised and, after the usual rambling conversation, got started on the tree. I was excused as I was, and still am, feeling shit. In about three hours the tree trunk and branches was sawn into 10" slices, that were neatly piled up against the hedge. Tom lightened my wallet to the tune of a hundred quid** and headed off in to the dusk.

We are both pretty exhausted after a busy day and the next few are probably going to be similar. The wood now needs to be split in to logs and stacked somewhere to season.

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* Tom is a local contractor who works in forestry and hedge laying. He laid three of our hedges here at the cottage in the first couple of years after we moved in. One of the hedges was so poor that it should have been more accurately described as a row of widely spaced hawthorn trees. After three and half years it is now a beautiful hedge after his careful ministrations. He is an eccentric, but, my world, he is amazing with a chainsaw.

** Bargain! Remember a) it was Sunday and b) Forestry experts are in high demand after a storm ... mates rates

Storm Darragh

I'm still not recovered from the food poisoning and, as a consequence, am taking things very easy at the moment.

Storm  Darragh has blown in overnight and my brief excursion to let out the chickens was enough weather for one day. The winds are incredible and accompanied by a cold stinging rain. It is definitely an indoors sort of day.

Midway through the afternoon I wandered into the living room and something in the front garden caught my eye ... we now seem to have a ten foot wide crater featuring the underside of a tree trunk. The large pine tree has been felled by the wind.  Fortunately it has fallen away from the house and is now leaning at a jaunty angle supported by the hedge.

It looks like I'll have a few days out there with the chainsaw next week.*

The storm continued to blow and our broadband connection failed later in the day. I reported the fault via BTs web portal and an engineer is needed. This is going to take a few days and a 4G mini hub is being posted to provide an interim service.

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* I  will actually have two conifers to turn in to logs as National Grid are sending out a contractor** on Monday to fell a pine in the orchard that is too close to our power line.
** provided they are not diverted to deal with storm damage

The invisible chain

 Things are pretty much the same on the health front. I am somewhat lacking in energy and there are occasional bouts of stomach cramps. As for "the invisible chain" that is the one that restricts me to no more than thirty or forty yards from the house!*

I had a fairly lazy day, but managed to complete the cataloguing of our holiday photos. TP turned up at lunchtime for an overnight stay and I spent a good amount of time catching up on his news. 

He has a project that he's been researching for a good few months and we spent an hour, or two, out in the garage working out the best way to cut and assemble aluminium extrusion in to a sound cart for moving key components around studios and other film locations. 

I have already mentioned that the previous owner of the cottage left a huge quantity of stuff behind when she left, and one item was a horizontal band saw. It seems that it will be pressed in to use, once we get a new blade installed and properly adjusted.

30% had arranged for us to go and see a burlesque show this evening, but there was no chance of me leaving the house ... see title of today's Journal entry. This was very disappointing, as who wouldn't want to see attractive, near naked ladies dancing?  

I suppose, in retrospect, it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but 30% and Mummy Sheila said it was a quite fantastic evening ... Bugger! ... sad face :-(

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* or, to be more specific, the lavatory

Duvet day

I'm not well. 

I woke early, dressed and felt as weak as the proverbial kitten. I carefully negotiated my way downstairs, where I managed to make and drink a cup of coffee. I then fell asleep on the sofa and woke around eight o'clock, feeling no better. At this point I thought I had better wander up the orchard to attend to the chickens. This minor effort exhausted me and I returned to the settee bolloxed!

I did nothing today other than alternate between sleeping and trips to the bathroom. My diet has been toast and marmite, and not in large quantities.

This doesn't make very interesting reading, so I'll tell a tale from last week.  On occasion I do like to pull 30%'s leg and I had her hooked with this little narrative.

I had her convinced that hedgehogs shed their spines in the Autumn and then grow a new set in the Spring.  I think I may have gone too far when I embellished this bullshit by saying that the, now spine free, hedgehogs then burrow beneath the soil and spend the Winter as moles.

She twigged that I was talking utter crap and pointed out that this was probably the reason why TP was putting off starting a family. Apparently these tall tales are not to be told to gullible grandchildren.

Pharaoh's Revenge

This morning I was up and out of the door by half past seven, for an appointment at the eye clinic at eight thirty. I wandered in to the clinic reception, ten minutes in advance of my appointment time, checked in and chose a seat in the waiting area.

At that time in the morning the clinic was very quiet and the pendulum of time swung slowly. At a quarter to nine I wandered up to the reception desk and asked what the expected wait time was, as I had other appointments to attend.

At this point the receptionist deigned to inform me that the doctor hadn't yet arrived and she had no idea of when he would be on-site. I firmly expressed my dissatisfaction, advising that they should allow adequate time for their home to work journey and this was nothing other than rudeness and poor customer service. At this point little miss sunshine advised me that the doctor had a three hour journey in to work. At his point my mental gears ground. This meant that the doctor was getting on to the road at about five thirty to stand a chance of making the appointment time. The gears ground a little more and I wondered "did I really want an eye examination from someone who had got up in the middle of the night and battled motorway traffic to peer in to my eyes?". The answer is obviously "NO". I do not want some totally stressed out. road rage infected crazy attempting to improve an ongoing eye condition. I want a doctor that is relaxed and on top form giving me an accurate diagnosis and treatment path.

I declined to wait and insisted on another appointment, that their doctor might actually get their shit together and make the effort to turn up.

The rest of the day was the normal post-holiday activities of unpacking, washing and so forth. As the day went on I started to feel not quite right, and this progressed to definitely not right by the late afternoon. It seems that I have picked up a stomach bug. My evening was spent huddled on the sofa enduring waves of stomach cramps and intense fatigue.

I really do not feel well.

Homeward bound

GMT +2

03.00 get up
03.15 hotel check out
03.30 taxi to airport
04.10 airport check in
06.00 flight in to Cairo
09.20 connecting flight to Heathrow

GMT

12.25 land at Heathrow
14.00 finally find the right car park and head towards the M40
16.00 arrive home
17.00 Tesco for essential pork based foodstuffs
18.00 collect the dogs
18.20 finally we're all back home


A final thought on EgyptAir "this plane is so shitty, it wouldn't surprise me if it just fell out of the air somewhere over Europe". Seriously, it is like the worst minicab I have ever been in!

Our last day in Aswan

 It's our last day in Aswan and, after a leisurely breakfast,  we headed off down the Corniche that borders the Nile. Our destination was a small Ptolemaic temple dedicated to ISIS that was about a mile from our hotel. It was an easy walk and we found the temple in a fenced, dusty depression encircled by apartment buildings.

It was petite, compared to the  likes of Edfu, and was probably no more than 30m square.  After exploring this fun sized monument we headed back towards the hotel, taking a diversion through the public gardens next to the old cataract hotel.  We paused for coffee there and took in the rather fine view of the temple ruins at the southern end of Elephantine island.

We then headed back to the Obelisk hotel and relaxed by the pool. I read and 30% sunbathed. 

Our last excursion was a trip over to Elephantine for a late lunch/early dinner at the King Jamaica restaurant ... a rather tasty Egyptian mixed grill with Nubian mint tea to wash it down.

Then it was back to the hotel to pack, watch our last sunset and a final G&T on the terrace.  We were both in bed before nine as we have a horrifically early start tomorrow morning. 

Day of rest

 Sunday was another lazy day.  We lazed by the pool in the morning, basking in the warm sun and continuing with my holiday read.

After a late, and quite disappointing, lunch we headed out and down the Corniche. Within a few minutes we had struck a deal with one of the locals and had hired a felucca for a couple of hours.

Our Nubian captain was a little eccentric* and seemed to be constantly chattering with himself and then breaking off to engage with us in broken, but adequate English. 

We pulled out into the current and tacked northward around Elephantine island before landing at Kitchener's island. There we spent a pleasant half hour walking through the rather fine botanical garden. A local lad adopted us and was a rather good guide. His approach was to offer us crushed fragrant leaves of various plants and then ask us to guess what plants they came from.

It was a great multi sensory experience that we both really enjoyed and, most surprisingly, he refused a tip at the end of the mini tour.

We returned to our felucca and our captain piloted us up the cataract to the west of Elephantine island.  The sun was setting as we passed the mausoleum of the Aga Khan on the crest of a low hill on the west bank. It was a fine sight in the fading light with feluccas sailing in the foreground. 

We sailed around the southern tip of Elephantine island as the sky darkened and our last few downstream tacks were in darkness.

Despite it being another lazy day we were both exhausted by the end of it. Dinner plans were revised and we just had a rather good steak at the hotel's Italian restaurant. 

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* I later worked out that he was just very stoned.

Kom Ombo & Edfu

 This morning we met our guide; Mustapha in the hotel reception and then headed out to meet our driver.

Our plan for today was to visit the Ptolemaic temples at Kom Ombo and Edfu. Kom Ombo was our first stop about 45 km North of Aswan. It was a magnificent sight against a bright blue sky and we spent more than an hour exploring. The temple is unusual in that it is dedicated to two gods; Horus, the falcon headed God and Sobek, the crocodile headed deity. We also popped in to the Crocodile Museum on site. This small museum displays many mummified crocodiles and other offerings made in honour of Sobek.

It was then another 65 km drive further North to Edfu. The temple is even more magnificent than the one at Kom Ombo and is beautifully preserved as a result of being virtually covered by the desert sands. It has an impressive pylon entrance leading to a courtyard and hypostile halls.  My words will not do it justice, but it is a fascinating and quite beautiful site.  One cannot be anything other than awed by the skill and artistry of those who designed, organised and constructed this temple over two thousand years ago.

Mustapha lives in Edfu, so we left him there and our driver returned us to Aswan. I'd like to recount the drive back along the desert road, but I slept through most of it, waking as we entered the outskirts of the city.

Lazy day

 Today was a lazy day. 30% sunbathed by the pool and I alternated between reading a book* and watching the Feluccas** sail up and down the Nile.

A gin and tonic was sipped on the terrace as the sun set and then we tidied ourselves before heading into town for some traditional fare.

We'll be back to temples tomorrow. 

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* Mythos by Stephen Fry

** A traditional wooden sailing boat.

Abu Simbel

 Today was a day that I had been looking forward to for many years. A trip to see the temples at Abu Simbel.

We were outside our hotel at 4.00 a.m. and things went downhill from there. A tourist bus rolled up and called 30%'s name. We clambered in and set off. After about forty minutes the driver's companion took a phone call and, in very broken English, asked if 30% was an Italian lady called Serena! We said "no" and he said we had misunderstood him.

The bus turned around and headed back to our hotel. More calls took place before we were invited back onto the bus and our journey resumed. It took three hours to cover the 280 km to Abu Simbel plus the forty minutes to head back to Obelisk Hotel. We haven't got a clue what had happened, so decided to try to go with the flow.

We eventually arrived at Abu Simbel at nine o'clock and it was packed. There were people and tourist buses everywhere. It was a stark contrast to the mellow experience at Philae yesterday.

We wandered down the slope to the temples and got our first view of their magnificent facades. Hordes of people milled in front of them like ants. Our guide gave us a quick overview of what we would see and gave us about forty minutes to view the temple. We were concerned that this wasn't enough time, but we were wrong.  We would have liked to have spent more than an hour in there but it was rammed with people ... literally a rugby scrum. It was virtually impossible to take a photo as we were jostled and barged. I put my camera away and tried to make memories instead.

Abu Simbel temple,
with careful editing of the hordes

The smaller temple was no different and by ten thirty we were back in the bus, tired and a little disappointed. 

We were both glad we got to see the temples, but it wasn't a pleasant experience. The crowded and noisy environment really diminished the splendour and marvels of Egyptian monumental architecture. 

If we were to do it again we would stay overnight in Abu Simbel city and view the temples later in the day when the crowds thin significantly. 

Health alert

 My vitamin P and H* levels have plummeted to dangerously low levels and I am concerned that I may need to seek treatment at a secular medical centre.

Alternatively, a pigs in blanket suppository might work if administered by a suitably qualified practitioner. 

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* methylated protein chains found predominantly in pork products. A good source of vitamin P is a pork pie and bacon is a rich source of vitamin H.

The Philae Temple and other sights

 It was an early start this morning. We were up, dressed and breakfasted by half past six as 30% had arranged for us to be picked up by our tour guide a little after seven.

Today our itinerary included the temple at Philae, the Aswan High Dam, the unfinished obelisk and a boat trip through the first Nile cataract followed by a visit to the Nubian village with afternoon tea.

Our guide; Mustapha was charming and friendly and his narratives at the sites were splendidly informative; ranging from broad narrative to delightful, amusing little nuggets. We can now tell the difference between the cartouches of Hathor and Isis!*

Philae temple was beautiful and quite fantastic. It took ten years for it to be rescued and relocated after the original island was flooded by the creation of lake Nasser in the 1970's. Clearly it was a monumental effort to achieve this, but the original construction with little more than iron tools and manual labour is mind boggling!

Philae temple, Aswan

A boat ferried us to and from Philae and the we were chauffeured over to the Aswan High Dam to take in the views; South over Lake Nasser stretching 500 km towards Sudan and North back towards Aswan.

After the dam we headed back in to the city to the site of an ancient Egyptian granite quarry. Aswan is the source for all of Egypt's ancient red granite statuary and this particular quarry was where an attempt was made to extract a 41m granite obelisk, at the command of Queen Hapshepsut.  Unfortunately the huge stone cracked during the quarrying process and remains there.  Again it is astounding to consider the monumental skill and  effort that would have been required to mine, extract, move and erect stelae of this size!

After hiking around a quarry we had a gentle hour boating up the fist cataract before spending a lovely hour with a Nubian family in their home. We drank sweet mint tea, chatted and met Za'atar, a huge, 85 year old African spurred tortoise. She was surprisingly sprightly for such an old lady.

Za'atar

We arrived back at our hotel in the afternoon. It will be dinner and an early night as we are up before four tomorrow for a trip to Abu Simbel. 

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* The cartouche of Isis features a throne, whilst that of Hathor has a house.

A traveller's nightmare

 Yesterday's flight into Cairo landed about an hour later than scheduled and we had a mad rush across the airport to make our domestic flight to Aswan.

As we collapsed in to seats A and B, row 30, we wondered about our luggage. I casually bet the contents of my wallet, that our suitcase wouldn't make it on to the Aswan flight.

We landed close to midnight and, after checking the domestic and international luggage carousels, it became apparent that I was right ... BOLLOCKS!  A friendly member of the airport staff shepherded us through a deserted airport and we stumbled our way through the lost luggage procedure. We were told to call the airport in the morning. Neither of us was particularly optimistic about seeing our suitcase again.

Fortunately our taxi driver was waiting to meet us and it was a fairly short drive to the Hotel Obelisk. 30% fired off a couple of emails to cancel Tuesday's planned trip and we collapsed into bed.

This morning we got the hotel receptionist to call the airport and we were advised that we should have our case by midday. We couldn't establish if they had definitely found it, or whether this was optimism polished and honed way beyond the level of standard bullshit.

We filled our morning with a wander around the Nubian Museum. I think each of us was still travel fatigued and dreading the thought of shopping for clothes.

Noon time came and we returned to the hotel. Amazingly our case had arrived. With the stress dissipating, we took the local ferry across to Elephantine Island and explored a little.

Gardens behind the Nubian village
Elephantine Island, Aswan

Now we can relax and start our holiday.

Mostly travelling

It was an early start this morning. I was up before six and we were out of the door by seven.

The dogs were loaded into the Defender along with a mountain of food and a selection of beds. It was then a quick run in to Redditch to drop them off at the Boarder's house.

We then retraced our steps to let the chickens out, pick up our bags and swap cars.

By eight thirty we were heading towards Heathrow.  It was a trouble free drive and we were parked and entering Terminal 2 before the eleven o'clock.

 
It was at this point that I encountered the general public and it appears that most of them had never experienced a lift* before.  Fuck me! There were only 5 floors. How the hell do you manage to cock that up? In my eight months of retirement I'd forgotten about stupid people.

Anyway, I'm now sat at an altitude of 11,200 metres with an airspeed close to 900 kph. Zagreb is off to my left and we should land in Cairo in two and a half hours.
I'm not sure how often I  will be able to post in The Journal, but I'll do my best. As for pictures, you'll just have to wait until I get home.

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* Elevator, if you're from across the pond.

One bag, 23 kg maximum

Storm Bert was still blowing across the Midlands this morning and I woke to a grey blustery day.

There's not a lot to report for today, as the weather just made us want to stay indoors.

My main achievement was to pack our clothes into a single suitcase, keep within the baggage allowance  and not initiate World War 3.*

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* by asking "why the fuck are you taking that?"

Winding down?

 With two days to go before we head off to Egypt, our focus has shifted to holiday preparations.

We are only away for eight days and our holiday mantra has always been "provided we have passports, insulin and a credit card we'll be fine".  Consequently neither of us is getting in to a flap. Holiday wear and other essentials have been placed in relatively neat piles and, at some point on Sunday, I will be called upon to pack them in to a suitcase.

I have prepared a mental list of what the dogs will need at the boarders and that will get chucked in to the Defender at some point tomorrow too.

So that was it for Saturday.  A lengthy snooze took place in the afternoon, and a little light reading took place.  Also, the winds and rain brought in by Storm Bert discouraged me from venturing outside, unless it was absolutely necessary. It was definitely an indoors sort of day. Egypt's sunshine and warmth will be a welcome change.

Carrot Cake - part 2

 Friday's baking got me thinking about my original carrot cake recipe, so I googled again and actually managed to track it down.

A pdf of the user manual for a Sharp microwave/oven grill* was found and here is an excerpt.

I clearly recall that I doubled the quantities, used two tins and baked this cake in an oven rather than a microwave. I can't remember anything about the temperature or timing, but, as a rule, I used to cook everything at Gas Mark 5!

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* When I separated from TP's biological mother, she took the cooker. I survived with the Sharp microwave, a toaster and a kettle for a good few months until my auntie Joan gave me her old gas cooker. I recall that it was dark green and the numbers on the oven control had been rubbed off. I learnt that you didn't need to be that precise about oven temperature when cooking.

The last of the carrot crop

 I dug up the last of my carrot crop back on the twelfth of the month and the final few are still sat on the bottom of the fridge.  They really need to be consumed and today I made my token contribution.

One of the first meals that I cooked for 30% was a roast lamb dinner and I had baked a carrot cake for dessert. This was back in 2002 and I don't think I have baked another in the intervening years.  The cake must have been pretty good, as 30% still speaks very fondly of it, and it only took her the best part of twenty years to agree to marry me.

Anyway, back to the narrative. A few days ago 30% suggested that it would be nice to make a carrot cake with some of our carrots, as they are very sweet.  I very rarely bake,* so I was a little apprehensive, but I didn't take a huge amount of convincing that this was a good idea.  I no longer had the recipe so successfully used to woo 30%, so I scoured the internet for an alternative.

The BBC Good Food website came to my rescue with the recipe detailed below. I did have to adjust the ingredient quantities, as the original was for a 20 cm cake tin and mine are 23 cm.

Ingredients & Method

- Oil two baking tins and line with baking parchment

- Pre heat oven to 160 ℃ (fan)

• 290 ml vegetable oil
• 125g plain yoghurt
• 5 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla essense
• the zest from 3/4 of an orange

- Place the above ingredients in a jug and whisk together

• 330g self raising flour
• 420g soft brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 3 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• a good pinch of salt

- Place the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well, ensuring that there are no lumps.

• 330g grated carrots
• 125g rasins or sultanas
• 65g of roughly chopped walnuts

- Finally mix the wet ingredients with the dry ones and stir in the carrots, raisons and chopped walnuts. 
- Mix well and divide between two cake tins
- The recipe suggested a bake of 25 - 30 mins, although feedback indicated that forty minutes was more realistic. Note: With the increased quantities and larger tins, my bake was about an hour
- Place in the oven and bake until a skewer comes out clean. 
- Once cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool on a rack in the cake tins 

Once the cake has cooled it can be iced, but it also freezes well. As we are off to Egypt on Monday, I did exactly that. The two cakes were double wrapped in clingfilm and then finished with a jacket of aluminium foil, before being put in the freezer.  They'll be thawed and iced much nearer to Christmas.

Icing Ingredients and Method

• 125g slightly salted butter
• 375g icing sugar
• 125g full fat cream cheese

- Beat the butter and sugar together until smooth
- Add half of the cream cheese and beat again
- Beat in the remaining cheese bit by bit, to prevent the icing splitting
- Use half of the icing as a filling and the remainder as a topping 

- Sprinkle 65g of chopped walnuts on the top 

So, there you go. Friday's achievement was a carrot cake. I'll let you know how it turns out later next month.

Note to self: Reviews of this recipe question the icing ingredients, suggesting that the quantities are insufficient and that there is far too much icing sugar.

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* Apart from the bakery course at Butter Street on the nineteenth of October, the last time I baked was when I made a sourdough loaf during lockdown. If I'm honest, I don't think the "reward" of a sourdough loaf is worth the faff of making a sourdough starter ...I'm not a fan.