Finally, and its obviously finally (it being ages (sadly, I mourn this) since I got back) I have got around to posting.
But first onto an update note. I'm back at work and not even remotely happy about it. Yesterday with very little effort and no intention of doing either of these I got stuck in the kitchen by an arachnid (a spider). Then 15 minutes later in the bathroom (again) by another arachnid (Harvestman) and created an erratic cloud (it was if I was sending smoke signals with white powder) in work's car park. This would happen on the same day that I got told about this being a "Year of The Spider". I was plating the tea up and I looked around. And there, less than a meter away from the defenceless me (I refuse to kill them deliberately) and our poor defenceless tea (chicken one pot and potato and leek soup, too thick for the spider to sink into and drown. But the former was bubbling a lot and could have engulfed it. Either could have burnt it. Which actually disproves the defenceless and makes them more harmful than me, but they can't run away. Why am I rambling like this?).
Anyway (The Prologue), less than a meter away, there was a spider in the lobby by the kitchen door. CGBF got shrieked upon-called is way to calm by a massive margin. And through he came. Armoured with a bill (mine, why didn't he use on of his own? He's happier about them than I am) and one of my Jam jars (not sure if I can ever face placing jam into it again no, I feel a certain mild apprehension which may err towards pre-trauma about the jar now). It was rather large, but reassuringly smaller than the jam jar lid. I wasn't particular happy with its presence. However, unlike me the spider was perfectly calm. And was happily (all legs intact and uninjured=happy just so you know) ensconced in the jar, and vacated it once the jar had been put on its side outside.Spider mark2. which was in fact a close relative of the spider family (same class), it was a Harvestman. Which did the most singularly cruel thing and showed up when I was on the loo and headed right for me. Right along the bottom, of the door which is tightly fitted or I could at least have hope that it may have got frightened by my shriek and mad scramble to get finished before it got my length. But no. Not at all. It had to go up and lurk on the hinge (at least it paused so I could get away with dignity-always dignified). So I could. NOT. Open the door (without squishing it) . So I was well and truly stuck in there. Shrieking at CGBF who, alerted by the yowling (think something along the lines of a cat stuck outside) was lurking outside (he wasn't getting to watch the news uninterrupted but was still surprisingly sweet tempered).
Lucky for me it moved, the door was opened and the jam jar was produced. This too was deposited outside.
On to Egypt. Prequel and Day one.We left from Aberdeen (which was disgustingly sunny) the day before amidst a flurry of "I still haven't picked a knitting project", loosing patterns and "I might need to knit something else" mind changing. I also wove and left the binoculars which I'd gone in there for beside the loom. And finally tracked down assorted undies and socks (which took aagess). Got through knitting through the search points intact (a really tense time that) waited, watching planes taking off which was surprisingly relaxing. Cast on the Lighthouse sock from Knitty somewhere over the borders. It started with purple. EEEEEEEP.
Landed fine and tracked down the bus point for the hotel. It was about half way along the bus stop that we realised neither of us had taken any notes on what the hotel was called. Bu$$3ry.That's what happens when you decided to go for something special. Something nice. You forget the details. Quick (rather grumpy) jaunt around the airport to find the Internet. Not I know you can't find the Internet (unless its stored in a box that's normally kept in a top secret place near Big Ben (IT crowd joke) but we did find an Internet cafe-does anyone have any idea why the word Internet needs a capital?). Then we tracked the email confirmation down and found the bus waiting there. We went for the Great Western Moat house.
And it was awful, we usually go for Premier Inn and leave happy. We get a good room, large, well presented, lovely bathroom with a comfortable mattress, nice meal, good breakfast. We leave happy. In this place the only good thing was the breakfast (best scrambled eggs and mushrooms I've had in a long time and it had Danish pastries, now that's a breakfast I'll support). The room was a third of the size of any that I have got at Premier.
Old furniture with a dated look. Barely any room to walk beside the bed. Only one bedside cabinet (nothing really matched to be honest) and the mattress was bust. I've never tested a mattress that has been dumped but I'm sure they'd have a similar amount of support. Seriously you sat on the edge and the whole thing sagged and more than once one of us over balanced and fell backwards into the center. It felt like a Star Wars Sarlack like beasty was pulling you over and into the middle. Resulting in hardly any sleep that night. The food was almost cold (so cold the cheese on my risotto didn't melt, blaggh) and extremely lack luster.
Maybe its just me but I like to chat during tea, I prefer it to needing to bolt my food down before it goes cold. To be honest, it tasted like it came out of a packet and had mushrooms stirred in. The desert and especially the fruit looked and tasted like it was old and had been sitting for ages. It'd shrivelled and the outside had gone leathery. At least couldn't hear planes. The breakfast was good though. I fully support serving Danish pastries for breakfast. The scrambled eggs were fantastic but I reckon that if I'd come down later they'd be nasty having sat on the hot plate for ages.Bus was broken. Who'd have thought a taxi would be cheaper. 1 statement about Gatwick that covers everything. HUGE queues. Two words and that's it summed up. Let me put it to you this way, Luxor was far better. Huge queue to get checked in and on and after seeing a queue almost half a mile long in Gatwick to get through security we successfully found the shorter one upstairs (overheard man with a wavey sign telling people about it and ran for it). Got through with knitting intact although CGBF's shoes did cause some stress. Twice, they are checked, you get frisked then 5 steps away from there, you get checked. Again.
Got into the airport and was asked for my travel boarding pass in order to buy plasters (I'd burned my arm) so they knew who'd bought it for some sort of customs reasons. Seriously, scanned and recorded a packed of plasters from Boots. How ridiculous is that?
Boarded etc and we were off. Sadly no window seats but it was horribly cloudy so I console (lie to) myself that I missed nothing. We flew for what seemed ages and I knit quite a bit.
We landed in the desert and we walked into a wall of hot. And our guest and my extra travel mate joined us from here. Now I do not want to post my picture on the Internet. And I also did not want to just post a scenery picture like everyone else. I wanted something that added my stamp to it. I was here, I saw this. Meet, The Syphilis. Here He is waiting at Aberdeen airport and reclining on my hat (apparently its quite comfy).
Imagine if you will a microbe, that has been enlarged to 1 million times its actual size and made into a small fluffy toy. A giant microbe (Giantmicrobes.com). You will from here be regaled with tales from the Syphilis and with occasional comments from myself or CGBF.You would not believe the heat that hit you or how you feel your arm burning as soon as it gets into direct sunlight. I was glad of my hat (even though none of the security guards along the way liked it, there was a lot of this->).
Anyway, wall of HOT. Here is what we saw is all its scary glory (the scenery, not the planes).
Here is some pictures of what Luxor is like along an irrigation canal. To clarify it is filthy. 1 part dirt, 1 part dust to 8 parts rubbish.
But first onto an update note. I'm back at work and not even remotely happy about it. Yesterday with very little effort and no intention of doing either of these I got stuck in the kitchen by an arachnid (a spider). Then 15 minutes later in the bathroom (again) by another arachnid (Harvestman) and created an erratic cloud (it was if I was sending smoke signals with white powder) in work's car park. This would happen on the same day that I got told about this being a "Year of The Spider". I was plating the tea up and I looked around. And there, less than a meter away from the defenceless me (I refuse to kill them deliberately) and our poor defenceless tea (chicken one pot and potato and leek soup, too thick for the spider to sink into and drown. But the former was bubbling a lot and could have engulfed it. Either could have burnt it. Which actually disproves the defenceless and makes them more harmful than me, but they can't run away. Why am I rambling like this?).
Anyway (The Prologue), less than a meter away, there was a spider in the lobby by the kitchen door. CGBF got shrieked upon-called is way to calm by a massive margin. And through he came. Armoured with a bill (mine, why didn't he use on of his own? He's happier about them than I am) and one of my Jam jars (not sure if I can ever face placing jam into it again no, I feel a certain mild apprehension which may err towards pre-trauma about the jar now). It was rather large, but reassuringly smaller than the jam jar lid. I wasn't particular happy with its presence. However, unlike me the spider was perfectly calm. And was happily (all legs intact and uninjured=happy just so you know) ensconced in the jar, and vacated it once the jar had been put on its side outside.Spider mark2. which was in fact a close relative of the spider family (same class), it was a Harvestman. Which did the most singularly cruel thing and showed up when I was on the loo and headed right for me. Right along the bottom, of the door which is tightly fitted or I could at least have hope that it may have got frightened by my shriek and mad scramble to get finished before it got my length. But no. Not at all. It had to go up and lurk on the hinge (at least it paused so I could get away with dignity-always dignified). So I could. NOT. Open the door (without squishing it) . So I was well and truly stuck in there. Shrieking at CGBF who, alerted by the yowling (think something along the lines of a cat stuck outside) was lurking outside (he wasn't getting to watch the news uninterrupted but was still surprisingly sweet tempered).
Lucky for me it moved, the door was opened and the jam jar was produced. This too was deposited outside.
On to Egypt. Prequel and Day one.We left from Aberdeen (which was disgustingly sunny) the day before amidst a flurry of "I still haven't picked a knitting project", loosing patterns and "I might need to knit something else" mind changing. I also wove and left the binoculars which I'd gone in there for beside the loom. And finally tracked down assorted undies and socks (which took aagess). Got through knitting through the search points intact (a really tense time that) waited, watching planes taking off which was surprisingly relaxing. Cast on the Lighthouse sock from Knitty somewhere over the borders. It started with purple. EEEEEEEP.
Landed fine and tracked down the bus point for the hotel. It was about half way along the bus stop that we realised neither of us had taken any notes on what the hotel was called. Bu$$3ry.That's what happens when you decided to go for something special. Something nice. You forget the details. Quick (rather grumpy) jaunt around the airport to find the Internet. Not I know you can't find the Internet (unless its stored in a box that's normally kept in a top secret place near Big Ben (IT crowd joke) but we did find an Internet cafe-does anyone have any idea why the word Internet needs a capital?). Then we tracked the email confirmation down and found the bus waiting there. We went for the Great Western Moat house.
And it was awful, we usually go for Premier Inn and leave happy. We get a good room, large, well presented, lovely bathroom with a comfortable mattress, nice meal, good breakfast. We leave happy. In this place the only good thing was the breakfast (best scrambled eggs and mushrooms I've had in a long time and it had Danish pastries, now that's a breakfast I'll support). The room was a third of the size of any that I have got at Premier.
Old furniture with a dated look. Barely any room to walk beside the bed. Only one bedside cabinet (nothing really matched to be honest) and the mattress was bust. I've never tested a mattress that has been dumped but I'm sure they'd have a similar amount of support. Seriously you sat on the edge and the whole thing sagged and more than once one of us over balanced and fell backwards into the center. It felt like a Star Wars Sarlack like beasty was pulling you over and into the middle. Resulting in hardly any sleep that night. The food was almost cold (so cold the cheese on my risotto didn't melt, blaggh) and extremely lack luster.
Maybe its just me but I like to chat during tea, I prefer it to needing to bolt my food down before it goes cold. To be honest, it tasted like it came out of a packet and had mushrooms stirred in. The desert and especially the fruit looked and tasted like it was old and had been sitting for ages. It'd shrivelled and the outside had gone leathery. At least couldn't hear planes. The breakfast was good though. I fully support serving Danish pastries for breakfast. The scrambled eggs were fantastic but I reckon that if I'd come down later they'd be nasty having sat on the hot plate for ages.Bus was broken. Who'd have thought a taxi would be cheaper. 1 statement about Gatwick that covers everything. HUGE queues. Two words and that's it summed up. Let me put it to you this way, Luxor was far better. Huge queue to get checked in and on and after seeing a queue almost half a mile long in Gatwick to get through security we successfully found the shorter one upstairs (overheard man with a wavey sign telling people about it and ran for it). Got through with knitting intact although CGBF's shoes did cause some stress. Twice, they are checked, you get frisked then 5 steps away from there, you get checked. Again.
Got into the airport and was asked for my travel boarding pass in order to buy plasters (I'd burned my arm) so they knew who'd bought it for some sort of customs reasons. Seriously, scanned and recorded a packed of plasters from Boots. How ridiculous is that?
Boarded etc and we were off. Sadly no window seats but it was horribly cloudy so I console (lie to) myself that I missed nothing. We flew for what seemed ages and I knit quite a bit.
We landed in the desert and we walked into a wall of hot. And our guest and my extra travel mate joined us from here. Now I do not want to post my picture on the Internet. And I also did not want to just post a scenery picture like everyone else. I wanted something that added my stamp to it. I was here, I saw this. Meet, The Syphilis. Here He is waiting at Aberdeen airport and reclining on my hat (apparently its quite comfy).
Imagine if you will a microbe, that has been enlarged to 1 million times its actual size and made into a small fluffy toy. A giant microbe (Giantmicrobes.com). You will from here be regaled with tales from the Syphilis and with occasional comments from myself or CGBF.You would not believe the heat that hit you or how you feel your arm burning as soon as it gets into direct sunlight. I was glad of my hat (even though none of the security guards along the way liked it, there was a lot of this->).Anyway, wall of HOT. Here is what we saw is all its scary glory (the scenery, not the planes).
Here is some pictures of what Luxor is like along an irrigation canal. To clarify it is filthy. 1 part dirt, 1 part dust to 8 parts rubbish.
And here is the nile at sunset. Awe inspiring.
Here is the West bank and the Nile. But there were flowers planted along the verge which were quite beautiful.
Here is the West bank and the Nile. But there were flowers planted along the verge which were quite beautiful.
Here is a picture of the lobby as you come in the door of the boat. I don't have a picture of it (as it is on day one) because they stack up side by side. And we reached it by walking through the lobbies of other ships. Which got a bit hairy for a lot of people as they weren't always level. We were the fourth or fifth ship out. You can see the door onto the next ship just above The Syphilis's head.
Here is The Syphilis on the stairs to give you an idea of scale.
I shall blog more soon. My eyes are about coming out of me from looking at this thing for so long.
However here is a picture of The syphilis reclining by the pool.
However here is a picture of The syphilis reclining by the pool.
